Public safety buildings are a necessity to every city and town, but communities often have difficulty getting funding and support for repairs and new structures. A new bill being considered by the state legislature would give towns a helping hand.

The bill would create the Public Safety Building Authority, a state agency that would provide funding to municipalities that apply for support from the commonwealth. It would operate similarly to the School Building Authority, which helps fund public school facility projects.

Lenox is one of the communities that would benefit from such an agency. The town is currently in the process of constructing a new public safety building for its fire and police departments.

“Right now, we’re in the design stage, but a location was very difficult to find to put the facility on,” fire chief Christopher O’Brien said. “Other than that, things have been going fairly smooth. But any help that the state can give towns in regards to public safety facilities, whether it be erecting new ones or maintaining what they have, would be very helpful moving forward.”

Voters in Lenox approved the $20 million facility in at a special town meeting in December, a move that also increased taxes.

“We’re very fortunate here to have the taxpayers behind us here to support these projects, but for other communities it is more difficult,” O’Brien said.

The bill was first introduced by the state Senate’s committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. Committee member state Sen. Michael Moore, D-Worcester, said communities need all the help they can get.

“These buildings often have unique attributes that can make design and construction challenging and expensive when done on an individual level,” Moore said in an email. “Especially at a time when communities across Massachusetts are facing rising costs and tighter budgets, centralizing and standardizing the creation of these essential buildings will reduce the burden on taxpayers everywhere.”

The proposal has bipartisan support. State Sen. Ryan Fattman, R-Worcester, favors the bill as well.

“My concern is these cities and towns in central and western Massachusetts are oftentimes going it alone, already facing difficulty with state funding formulas to support their schools, and once again having to go back to the property taxpayers of the community,” Fattman said. “And I don’t think that that heavy weight on the property owners’ shoulders is going to allow for some of the public safety needs to be addressed.”

One of the biggest questions surrounding the bill is how the new agency would be funded. The School Building Authority is funded by revenue from the state sales tax. Lawmakers on both sides want to ensure that the authority wouldn’t create a tax hike.

“Senator Jo Comerford has proposed allocating one third of the existing marijuana excise tax for this purpose,” Moore said. “This approach seems reasonable, and I am open to other methods as well.”

“What I would like to see is to have an authority that is fed by American Rescue Plan Act funding to begin with,” Fattman said. “We’re sitting on a tremendous amount of money in the legislature, and we don’t have to raise anybody’s taxes to do this. You could also divert some of the money from the sales tax or the gas tax or something similar and put it in the fund.”

The bill is currently being considered by the state House Committee on Ways and Means.