The Star-Ledger today offers a summary of the state’s tax reform effort that presents the last half year in a somewhat better light than I would.
Of the 98 recommendations made by four special joint committees, the paper says that about half were enacted as law. And while that maybe true from a technical standpoint, the most important were not and many of the other controversial items were either watered down in committee or between the release of the reports and the passage of the legislation.
Take the consolidation bill. The one that became law essentially created an advisory panel with authority to study the issue, but left the final decision to voters in the communities to be merged. Normally, I would never oppose giving voters a choice, but the history of municipal and school consolidation is one of failure and inaction, caused only partly by fiscal considerations. Other tangential issues — red herrings like the amorphous “identity,” as if villages like Kingston that are not independent municipalities lack identity — have come into play keeping the expensive array of overlapping and repetitive governments in place.
The bill originally on the table would have addressed that by giving the state Legislature and governor final say — the merger panel would recommend towns to consolidate and the state would act. That would have been infinitely better.
Go down the list: The ban on dual-office holding? Still waiting. New school aid formula? Wait until next year. State comptroller? Sort of — a far weaker comptroller was created than proposed.
The Legislature did manage to create a new, executive county superintendent — a silly idea that creates a new level of bureaucracy — and impose a set of tax levy caps destined to do little more than hamstring local governments and schools. Our best hope for the caps is that they create momentum for greater shared services and mergers — if you can’t spend, after all, you have to find other ways of providing services.
How would I grade the governor and Legislature at this point? I’d give them an incomplete — and make no mistake, this grade applies equally to Democrats and Republicans.
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Hank Kalet 