Closing the doughnut hole

by: Jason Springer

Tue Mar 24, 2009 at 01:30:00 PM EDT

Get ready for a little NIMBY. Everyone wants to talk about consolidating, until it's their turn. Assemblyman Reed Guscoria is pushing the consolidation issue again, but this time it wouldn't be voluntary:

Farmingdale is one of 29 municipalities statewide that would be affected by the bill that calls for either the merger of "doughnut-hole" municipalities and the townships that surround them or the sharing of the towns' major municipal services and functions, within 10 years after the bill goes into effect. The goal, according to the bill's sponsor, is to lower property taxes.

They've tried to suggest, recommend and incentivize, but that hasn't worked. The debate has to happen because like many other problems facing our state, the status quo is unsustainable. Hank Kalet put it bluntly at Channel Surfing:

The reality is that we cannot continue to function in a state as small as New Jersey, with 8 million people and a badly busted fiscal situation unless we reduce the number of towns. There are 566 in New Jersey, 611 school districts, 21 counties and numerous other tax districts. Many do not need to exist.

With many towns having financial difficulties, there may no time like the present to have the discussion again.

Jason Springer :: Closing the doughnut hole

Tags: consolidation, municipal consolidation, Reed Guscoria, (All Tags)

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Closing the doughnut hole | 3 comments

just because we keep saying it (0.00 / 0)

doesn't make it so.

When you look at the per capita costs for many smaller towns, they look better than some of our larger cities.

Municipal aid should be on a per capita basis and then we can see which municipalities are better managed and which are not.

by: Creed Pogue @ Tue Mar 24, 2009 at 18:57:33 PM UTC

Consolidation Is Great....In Theory (0.00 / 0)

In practice it creates a larger centralized pool of money and power that itself attracts dishonest people who find ways to "legally" steal the money and abuse the power.

Again, it's all connected to pay to play and the abuse of power by elected and appointed public officials. Now that NJ is in dire financial difficulties the theft and abuse are even more harmful. Wherever there is a pool of money and/or power in NJ you will likely find some corrupt little "Ceasar" running a local fiefdom. (That's why so many of the urban areas are such money pits......yet the services often suck.)

Without radical reforms of campaign finance laws and ethics laws....nothing will change. Further, the existing laws need to be aggressively enforced....and that means the feds need to get involved using RICO. Nothing else can clean up this state.

Every penny spent, and every hire needs to be done under bright lights. Nepotism, cronyism and sweetheart deals need to be criminalized and punished. Machine politics is categorically corrosive of ethics and decency and attracts corrupt sociopathic individuals like shit attracts flies.

So sure, let's consolidate where it's rational (we really DO have too many school districts and local "authorities" etc etc etc) .....but let's do it on the up and up....then we'll see truly great efficiencies/savings! And the quality of life will improve while dollar expenditures actually decrease!!!

by: Nick Lento @ Tue Mar 24, 2009 at 19:56:32 PM UTC

Bad Idea (0.00 / 0)

As Creed said above, most small munis are lean already. Here in Flemington, we run a tight, efficient ship. And we share where we can (and are part of a group that is working on more Shared Services with the Hunterdon Chamber). But to force us to merge significantly with Raritan Twp is borough suidice. They will surely not respect our boundaries or our needs.

Raritan Twp is not better off financially than we are. If we merge with them, we will pay higher taxes, not lower.

Sorry, Reed, bad idea.

Linda Mastellone
Flemington Borough Council

by: the pollster @ Wed Mar 25, 2009 at 14:31:55 PM UTC