Commission Looks at Town Mergers, Shared Services

TRENTON — How many small towns should exist in this state and what is a reasonable cost to taxpayers for services such as police protection?
The Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission (LUARCC), created by the state legislature, met at the Department of Community Affairs headquarters in Trenton May 28.
LUARCC will recommend legislative changes, which would encourage more efficient operation of local government. These changes may include the structural and administrative streamlining of county and municipal government functions, including but not limited to, the transfer of functions from one level of government to another and the use or establishment of regional service delivery entities.
The commission’s job is to study and report on the structure and functions of county and municipal government.
LUARCC Chairman Jack Fisher told the Herald while many people focus on the merger and consolidation, sometimes LUARCC looks at consolidation of services and not governments.
“Mostly of what we are focused on is coming up with what are the best practices in terms of reasonable amount of delivered services,” he said.
Fisher said the commission is trying to determine what is a reasonable cost for a municipal service such as police protection. LUARCC will find measurable standards that all towns can use, he said.
The commission will come up with reasonable standards that taxpayers can look at, said Fisher.
“Am I getting the right amount of service for the amount dollars that we are spending?” he asked. “And are there economies in considering not just mergers but considering shared services.”
He said two police departments in Gloucester County municipalities have merged successfully and the towns were not contiguous to each other.
With the severity of municipal budget caps imposed by the state, elected officials are under pressure to provide basic services within the amount of money they are allowed to raise by taxes, said Fisher.
He said while public consensus may favor home rule for a municipality, local governments need to provide necessary services in a difficult financial climate
The legislature has said, “There has to be a better way to do all this,” said Fisher.
Towns may be a candidate for merger based on their geography or demographics, said Fisher.
Doughnut hole communities are small towns that were carved out of a larger town in the past. Why did smaller towns split off from larger municipalities in the first place?
He said it was sometimes due to property values along railroad tracks, the difference between liquor license and dry towns and racial and ethnic separations.
There are small municipalities that are financially at the end of their rope and desperately seeking new forms of revenue to survive all across the country, said Fisher.
Gloucester County saw savings by regionalizing emergency management response through call receiving and dispatch.
A countywide tax collection system could replace each municipality maintaining a tax office, he said.
A borough where most all municipal service have been contracted to neighboring towns can still keep a borough commission to oversee issues such as planning, said Fisher.
“One of the other charges of LUARCC is to go back to the legislature and say if you really want this to work, change the rules for some of these towns,” he said.
The borough of Cape May Point could be impacted by bill authored by a North Jersey assemblyman, which could force the borough to merge with neighboring Lower Township within 10 years.
Assembly Bill A-3690 was introduced in February and referred to the Assembly and Local Government Committee. The bill calls for towns surrounded on one side by water and one other municipality on the other side to be absorbed into the neighboring municipality. It refers to those towns as “doughnut holes” and the surrounding community as the “doughnuts.”