PROVIDENCE — Some day in the not too distant future, it might be common practice for Rhode Island cities and towns to pool their efforts in areas such as tax assessments, tax collections and emergency dispatch services.

There might also be more shared efforts among cities and towns and their school departments.

Shared or consolidated services, talked about for years, is an idea whose time has come, speakers at a Senate commission on municipal services said Thursday.

The challenge, they agreed, is figuring out where it should happen, and then making sure that it does.

“Is there support for this? Yes, there is,” commission Chairman Louis P. DiPalma, D-Middletown, said after the meeting. “Absolutely, we’re going to increase efficiency and effectiveness.”

“Can I tell you where? No.”

But DiPalma and three invited speakers presented ideas on where, and the areas included tax assessments, tax collections, dispatch services and information-technology departments.

While two of the guests, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian and East Greenwich Town Manager William Sequino Jr., said combining tax collections might require some changes, such as making sure all cities and towns allow people to pay online, they agreed that those areas and others should be looked at.

“I agree there’s no need to have an assessor in Warwick, in East Greenwich,” Sequino told the commission.

The guests, who also included Thomas Dwyer, executive director of the Rhode Island Interlocal Management Trust, urged the commission to play an active role in encouraging shared services, an idea that sometimes runs into resistance.

Avedisian said Warwick is working with East Greenwich on yard-waste collections and dispatch services, and may also be combining harbormaster departments. But he also said that despite three years of attempts to share services among the schools, the only shared service thus far is trash and recycling pickup, which is handled by Warwick.

“It remains a source of frustration that such a high percentage of the municipal budget funds the School Department, yet (Warwick) city officials have no authority to make cost-effective, taxpayer-friendly changes to the district,” Avedisian wrote in a report provided to commission members.

The commission held its first meeting last month and is scheduled to meet again Dec. 8. DiPalma said members will seek public input at the next session and start looking at specific options, with the overriding goals of greater efficiency, better services and reduced costs.

Making that happen may, in some cases, require legislation that allows cities and towns to amend local charters that specify how services are provided, he said.

Sequino, who has also worked in North Carolina, Kentucky and Massachusetts, said the Rhode Island cap on local tax-levy increases (4.5 percent next year) and the state budget deficit — with the resulting cuts in local aid — make it impossible for cities and towns to avoid looking at shared services.

“Something’s got to give,” he said.

redgar@projo.com