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I guess if it isn't a waste of money, there is really no need. But I thought the whole point of consolidation was to try to save some costs for taxpayers in this state.
IF consolidating some of these really small towns with no high schools could actually save money, I say it should be done even if residents don't want it.
NJ has 565 municipalities. More than California, which is obviously a much larger state. NJ is obviously an older state so many of the municipalities may seem weird in shape or size and territorial due to their history, and people in my experience tend to be very protective of their towns and often proud to live where they live, especially in the nicer towns. And we have strong local governments here, which is rather unusual for the country as a whole and is also seen in New England. We aren't going to, say, half the number of municipalities we have, and I don't think that should happen, but I think we do have some arbitrary and pointless very small municipalities that could be consolidated with neighboring larger ones, if it can save money.
Attitudes like that are why things don’t change and why this is a very expensive state.
It’s nuts that you think people should be forced to do things against their will. I don’t know what their reasons for wanting to be their own municipalities are. But whatever it is, it might be worth more to them than saving a few bucks. Whatever their reason, it’s up to them to decide.
The other towns may not want to absorb the smaller ones for various reasons.
I live in the smallest town in area in New Jersey. We are the remains of what was a huge township dating back to 1693.
We have a co-op complex, an apartment complex, and a condo complex; a municipal building, one store, and a park. Three streets.
No schools, no police, no fire department. Kids go to school in a neighboring town, we pay another adjacent town for fire services, but they only did it reluctantly after another neighboring town ended the previous agreement. Our police are the NJ state troopers, although I've seen neighboring towns chase cars into here. There's only one way in and one way out so they don't get too far.
Nobody wants us, and we don't care. The downside is that we pay a lot in taxes in proportion to our property because the schools charge us an arm and a leg for the kids.
It’s nuts that you think people should be forced to do things against their will. I don’t know what their reasons for wanting to be their own municipalities are. But whatever it is, it might be worth more to them than saving a few bucks. Whatever their reason, it’s up to them to decide.
Well, towns and residents are forced to overdevelop affordable housing and non-affordable housing apartments, but somehow that's fine. *shrug* We have little to no say in that, we just get sued and forced to build, taxpayers have no say despite the impact on the school systems and local infrastructure.
It's fine if towns don't consolidate, and I understand why you think it's harsh that I think maybe they should be forced to even if residents in either town don't want it, but then I don't want to hear people complain that taxes are so high and we have so many high paid superintendents, police chiefs, etc. There are possible solutions and they get talked about but when it comes down to it, no one seems to want to actually do anything. I doubt change will come if towns aren't forced into it - I mean, it hasn't happened yet.
On Garwood, Garwood high school kids go to Clark despite not bordering that town because Cranford and presumably Westfield didn't want to take them. Now, with all the overdevelopment, Cranford schools are starting to get overcrowded with Cranford kids alone and the town is seriously considering restructuring the schools, so while I'm personally fine with Garwood absorbing into Cranford, we would absolutely need to either build a new school or two or put up some trailers on existing school grounds to accommodate all the new students into the school system from that change. ... And I just realized Garwood has schools that would be used, duh, in which case there probably would be restructuring anyway. But Cranford residents seem to be super against restructuring the schools, they act like the world is ending on the FB groups that it was proposed. People are just really resistant to change even if it could be very beneficial. I mean, our K-8 no longer has an art classroom the school is so overcrowded, they needed the art room to be another classroom and now they have art on a cart, but everything is fine... But if the residents aren't forced to change the schools, I bet they won't vote for anything other than the status quo when it comes down to it. Which doesn't help the town.
Last edited by JerseyGirl415; 10-07-2019 at 07:23 AM..
I'm all about school consolidation, so it was really frustrating to go to meetings and have people just ask about how much everything would cost.
And when they were told that keeping things as they are was 13 million in upgrades for modernizing schools compared with 8 million to consolidate and modernize I thought they'd let it happen, but it just got more insane, with people suggesting insane conspiracy theories. Half the people running for school board this year basically want to prevent any kind of change to the existing status quo, it's really frustrating. Especially when school board is just kind of one of the lines that people just randomly pick 3 of them without reading up on it.
I'm all about school consolidation, so it was really frustrating to go to meetings and have people just ask about how much everything would cost.
And when they were told that keeping things as they are was 13 million in upgrades for modernizing schools compared with 8 million to consolidate and modernize I thought they'd let it happen, but it just got more insane, with people suggesting insane conspiracy theories. Half the people running for school board this year basically want to prevent any kind of change to the existing status quo, it's really frustrating. Especially when school board is just kind of one of the lines that people just randomly pick 3 of them without reading up on it.
That’s not very surprising, considering that consolidating schools would people a lot of people out of work. I don’t know anyone who would advocate for making themselves unemployed not matter how good it would be for their community.
No, in this case it's not going to put anyone out of work and will actually cost less. Right now there are not enough resources going around, because, as noted above, art rooms are being changed into classrooms. There's one art teacher that floats between five elementary schools. Consolidating isn't going to change the quantity of teachers or staff, it's only going to move students around so all the sixth graders go to the same school and so forth, it's moving the students, not all the teachers and staff.
We would still have the same number of students, the same number of schools, the same number of teachers and staff, it's that we'd have to shuttle kids from one side of town to the other. That's it. And so a lot of people are up in arms about not being able to walk to school when they drive their kids there in the first place.
That’s not very surprising, considering that consolidating schools would people a lot of people out of work. I don’t know anyone who would advocate for making themselves unemployed not matter how good it would be for their community.
If 3 similarly sized towns consolidated, there would not be that much job loss initially. In the Board of Ed, it would eliminate 2 of 3 superintendants, and a thinning of the staff at the 3 board of eds. You could actually buy out/offer retirement packages to thin the staff. There would not be much reduction in the number of teachers even after schools were equalized. The savings would also come from the consolidation from 3 BoEd buildings into 1 BoEd building.
This model would also be true for the police. You would be able to reduce the chiefs, captains, lieutenants and sergeants. You would also be able to eventually consolidate into 1 building.
Reducing the biggest/management salaries and buildings are important for consolidation. In Bergen County, there is a Board of Ed and Police Hdqtrs every mile of so. It is insane.
The other towns may not want to absorb the smaller ones for various reasons.
I live in the smallest town in area in New Jersey. We are the remains of what was a huge township dating back to 1693.
We have a co-op complex, an apartment complex, and a condo complex; a municipal building, one store, and a park. Three streets.
No schools, no police, no fire department. Kids go to school in a neighboring town, we pay another adjacent town for fire services, but they only did it reluctantly after another neighboring town ended the previous agreement. Our police are the NJ state troopers, although I've seen neighboring towns chase cars into here. There's only one way in and one way out so they don't get too far.
Nobody wants us, and we don't care. The downside is that we pay a lot in taxes in proportion to our property because the schools charge us an arm and a leg for the kids.
This is insane. Your town pays for services but of course has no say for how they are administered. Why wouldn't bigger towns want you?
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