It has always struck me as a bit unfair that my local taxes had to pay for police services when several dozen rural communities were able to take advantage of the State Police without chipping in to offset the cost.
Think about it. In South Brunswick, we pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 million to run our Police Department — about 18 percent of the total budget. If that service were passed along to the state and police spending was eliminated from the South Brunswick budget, the municipal tax rate would be slashed by as much as 20 cents — or about $380 for the owner of a house assessed at the township average of about $190,000.
The key to understanding this issue comes down to this: South Brunswick taxpayers and Monroe taxpayers and Jamesburg taxpayers and Cranbury taxpayers and the 474 other towns in the state that have their own police departments are paying for a service that rural taxpayers are getting for free.
Yes, I know that they pay state taxes, but so do I. And I know that most of us are subsidizing the big urban towns, but the big cities — thanks to a host of development policies pushed by the state and the feds — have eroding tax bases that make it nearly impossible to provide services without soaking their taxpayers.
At one time, the provision of police to small rural towns made sense. Farming towns were considered less well off, but over the years, small farming towns have seen the value of their land skyrocket. At the same time, they’ve been given a pass on paying for police services.
Paul Mulshine, in last Thursday’s Star-Ledger, comes to the small towns’ defense, calling the state’s decision to bill the towns a “war on small towns.” He quotes Republican Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow, who says that “the entire cost of rural State Police patrols, $12.5 million, could be funded with just 8 percent of the money sent by Corzine to six distressed cities. And those cities also get billions in property tax relief for their schools.”
“There is all kind of urban aid in the state,” said Karrow. “The State Police is the one small example of something we could call rural aid.”
Distressed is the key word, for me. The state has a responsibility to its citizens, especially those in distressed areas. The state’s cities certainly qualify and need help. Some smaller towns and working-class boroughs — like Manville and Jamesburg, for instance — deserve help, too.
But if towns that have the cash should pay their way.
That’s the argument that The Asbury Park Press makes today, in an editorial that criticizes a plan by state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, to assess a “$40-per-summons surcharge on all motor vehicle violations to be used to underwrite State Police patrols in 89 towns that previously had received the service for free.”
The Press correctly calls the Drew plan “a wrong-headed response to the problem” of “small towns, mostly rural, being allowed to avail themselves of a service without having to pay the full cost.” Their suggestion:
(T)he towns should be given a reasonable period of time — two to three years — to either wean themselves off State Police coverage or pay 100 percent of its cost.
Options for the towns would include creating their own police force, contracting with an adjacent police department for coverage or working with other small towns to create a regional police department.
I would add that towns that can show a real financial hardship — and by that I do not mean just an increase in property taxes, but tax bills that are disproportionate to the income levels of residents — should have access to aid.
To allow the status quo to continue as it is just isn’t fair to the majority of the state’s taxpayers.
Hank Kalet 