Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) wants to streamline the consolidation guidelines approved by the state Legislature last year. But his fix will do little to actually push towns to consolidate.
The reason has to do with the political climate in New Jersey. While I believe we will need to reduce the number of municipalities in the state if we are to begin reining in unnecessary government spending, few municipal governments — and maybe fewer of their residents — appear willing to make the necessary trade offs.
Consider Jamesburg. The town has been in danger of losing its library and offers a skeletal, volunteer recreation program. But its elected officials have promised to fight tooth and nail to keep any merger from happening — mostly because of concerns aboaut identity. At the same time, its officials complain constantly about the level of aid it receives and about being required by the state to fund its public library.
And that doesn’t take into account Monroe, the likely consolidation partner. Monroe has no interest in merging with Jamesburg and also would fight.
(Cranbury is a different case, because of land mass — 14 square miles — and the wealth of its residents gives it the resources required to provide a level of services unavailable in most towns with a similar population. Plus, it historically has gotten by with little state aid and has rarely complained, so it seems to me that the state should probably leave it alone.)
The consolidation panel created last year would have little power to move the two towns toward a merger. Its research can only lead to a recommendation that then must go to the state Legislature and then to voters in the affected towns. It is an unwieldy process that, in the end, faces the same basic hurdles that consolidations have always faced.
Speaker Roberts wants to streamline the process. According to a press release, he wants to remove the Legislature from the process and send recommendations made by the consolidation panel directly to voters in the affected towns. He also wants to allow the state to cut state aid to towns that opt not to follow panel recommendations.
I’m not sure that this will change things much. The governor’s budget already uses municipal aid as a prod, a questionable move that has been met with significant resistence from municipal officials.
I think Roberts is correct when he says that we can “address the problem of our overabundance of local government without sacrificing the individual community identities that make New Jersey such a special place to live.”
“Choosing to continue ignoring these problems will eventually leave us with hundreds of municipalities that are as charmingly colloquial as they are wholly unaffordable.”
I’m just not convinced that the plan he is offering is the best plan to move us past the parochial objections that have frozen us in place for so long.
I’ve written before that I think the consolidation panel should make its recommendations to the Legislature and that the Legislature should make the decision. Even it that were in place, the politics of the issue are such that I could see the Legislature allow recommendations to die by inertia.
I’ve also written, however, that the tax structure is as much to blame for our woes as anything else. Because we rely on property taxes, we have created a government structure designed to bring in ratables and spread macadam.
Let’s fix the weak consolidation panel, but keep in mind that doing will only accomplish so much. Greater reform is needed and needed quickly.
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Hank Kalet 