Councils of governments in Connecticut

Councils of governments in Connecticut are organizations that bring together the chief elected officials and/or professional managers from member municipalities in Connecticut. The bodies are meant to aid coordination among neighboring cities and towns, and between the towns and the state government, on issue including land use, zoning, and transportation. They serve some functions analogous to county governments in other states, but have no independent taxing authority (Connecticut disbanded county governments in the late 1950's). They also host some intermunicipal services based on the needs and voluntary participation of member or client municipalities. Councils, or COGs, receive funding through membership dues, state grants, and federal grants. Connecticut state law permits Councils of Government to apply for any grant money offered to county governments or their equivalents.

As of 2018, Connecticut has 9 regional councils following a series of mergers and realignments between 2013-2015. Populations are from the 2010 census. For current membership, see: List of towns in Connecticut. Some COGs also serve as either federal metropolitan planning organizations (MPO), rural planning organizations (RPO), or share staff with one or more MPOs/RPOs within their borders; the Western Connecticut COG, for example, supports both the Housatonic Valley MPO and the South Western CT MPO.

The dissolution of county governments in 1960 created an absence of a regionally-oriented governmental level, which created problems when it came to land use and infrastructure planning. Because the power once reserved for county governments was now in the hands of municipal administrations, major land use, environmental, and infrastructure issues often pitted one town against another, sometimes resulting in little or no progress on some projects. Complicating this, the state constitution delegates a large portion of the state's authority to the towns. That means a major multi-town project could be completely derailed if only one of the affected towns opposes the project, since the project would require each affected town to issue its own permits for the portions within its territory. This has often led to long and costly lawsuits between towns that support a regional-scale project and those opposed.

In an effort to resolve these conflicts, the State of Connecticut passed legislation in the 1980s establishing fifteen regional councils, which cluster towns with similar demographics into an administrative planning region, instead of adhering to the old county structure. In 2013, the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management approved a merger of the Connecticut River Estuary and the Midstate planning regions to form the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. See sidebar for prior region alignment.

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