Making Small Towns into Big Towns
The conventional wisdom is that New Jersey taxes are so high because this state has 566 cities, towns, townships, municipalities, boros, villages, etc. If only we could get the smaller towns to merge with other towns and cities, why then, our property taxes would magically drop.
Lots of discussion about this because LUARC is kicking into high gear. LUARC?? Why, of course, LUARC is the Local Unit Alignment Reorganization and Consolidation Commission, created in 2007 by the NJ legislature to “. . . recommend legislative changes which would encourage the more efficient operation of local government”.
Last week LUARC came out with a report singling out 40 small communities that should be merged out of existence. Many are “donut” towns, small towns that are totally or mostly encircled by another town. The most famous I know of is Morristown and Morris Township.
The initial 40 communities singled out by LUARC are concentrated in South Jersey. See the details at this Philly Inquirer article N.J. town mergers could start in 18 months. Candidates include: Medford Lakes and Medford Township; Riverton and Palmyra; Bordentown Township and Bordentown City; Pennsauken and Merchantville;Hi-Nella and Stratford.
The key word in the headline of the story is “could”. As of right now the mergers can’t be forced onto the towns, and so far nobody is rushing forward. Residents of Medford Lakes in Burlington county are so aroused that they are trying to recall the mayor who is pushing the idea of combining police forces. Medford Lakes (pop 4173 and area of 1.3 square miles) is the center of a donut with Medford Township (pop 22,253 and area of 40 square miles).
In New Jersey: An Extreme Example, the NY Times highlights the proposed merger between Corbin City (pop 468 and area of 9 square miles) in Atlantic County with nearby Upper Township (pop 11,363 and area of 68.5 square miles). Upper Township is in Cape May county, so Atlantic County would have to agree to give up Corbin City.
Another NY Times article A Wealth of Municipalities, and an Era of Hard Times talks about efforts in the tri-state area to consolidate. So far, lots of talk and very little action.
The last line from the article is a quote from NJ troublemaker, state assemblyman Reed Gusciora “We’ve tried everything to coax these communities to the altar . . . What we need now is a few shotgun weddings.” Good luck getting a majority of legislators to agree to that.
Combining recycling centers and sharing emergency dispatchers will only get you so much savings, and there already alot of towns sharing services and New Jersey property taxes are still going up. The big savings will be in eliminating teachers and police officers, and those two unions are the most powerful in the state. If two school districts merge, teachers from the lower paid district would get raises to match the salaries in the higher paid district.
And if big means more efficient, explain who New Jersey’s biggest cities (Newark, Paterson, Jersey City, Elizabeth) spend twice as much on schooling, emergency services and government as smaller towns, many of which have volunteer fireman and low paid town officials?
One area of saving is in the corruption tax, the negative effect on businesses from having to pay off so many officials to get anything done. Instead of greasing the palms of politicians from two or three towns, contractors will only have to hand over the cash filled envelopes to one crook. I guess that’s progress.