It is pretty clear that there are too many municipalities in the state of New Jersey.
By any accounting, a state of about 8.7 million should not have 566 municipalities and 616 school districts. But that is what we have here and what we are likely to have long into the future unless the state Legislature is willing to force mergers on towns against their wills.
The reality is, however, that towns like Cranbury and possibly Jamesburg will do what they can to prevent much beyond enhanced shared services from happening. And that doesn’t take into account the opinion of larger towns.
Jamesburg, for instance, has favored some level of consolidation in the past, with Monroe standing against it. Borough officials are singing a different tune now that the consolidation issue has been placed back on the table. In interviews this week, Jamesburg officials say they would oppose a merger because of concern for the borough’s identity. (This is similar to the reasons that voters in Princeton Borough have given in the past for nixing a merger with Princeton Township.)
This is an expensive reason, of course. The average tax bill in Jamesburg — where media household income is about $60,000 — is around $6,000. That’s a pretty big bite out of the average homeowner’s economic pie, especially given that it does not take into account other taxes, the rising cost of gas and heat, etc.
It remains unclear whether a consolidation of Jamesburg and Monroe — or Jamesburg with Helmetta or Spotswood or some other community — would save anyone any real money. But writing off the discussion before it begins, before anyone can determine what kind of savings might occur.
The same argument can be made about Cranbury, where local officials are also skeptical of consolidation. The average Cranbury tax bill is about $8,700, a significant amount (until you consider that the median household income in Cranbury is $111,680).
“I can’t see where Cranbury can do much more than what we’re already doing,” Mayor Tom Panconi told us last week. “We’re a small town, we’re going the extra mile, but other towns aren’t going that extra mile.”
But is that the case? Is Jamesburg just not working hard enough?
The answer is, “of course not.” Jamesburg is doing nearly everything it can to keep its costs down. It just doesn’t have the commercial tax base — read this to mean warehouse district — to take some of the burden of paying for basic services off residential taxpayers.
The state’s local tax structure and the layer upon layer of government do not help matters, creating a ratable chase that the Regional Plan Association, in its report “Comprehensive Property Tax Reform for New Jersey,” results in not only a regressive tax system but an encouragement of suburban sprawl and the further erosion of the state’s cities and small boroughs, with the consequent impact on local services and growing disparities between rich and poor communities.
The solution seems to be a mix of alternate taxes (state income, local sales and a broadening of the tax base) and savings (consolidation, shared services, pension and pay-to-play reform, etc.), along with planning reforms that direct new growth to older, already developed areas.
These, taken together, might help bring back some sanity to New Jersey government.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
Hank Kalet 