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First, I want to agree that the school system issue is #1. Thankfully I'm lucky that my town seems to do everything right, including being a part of a multi-town school district. That's probably why my taxes are some of the most reasonable in the state. Most people aren't so lucky.
But what I'm wondering in THEORY, (because yes I know it'll probably never happen) is what would happen if we 100% dissolved the towns and made the county THE municipal government. (Again with a few adjustments like keeping Newark it's own county and slicing a couple of giant counties like Burlington in half to make it more manageable.)
My reasoning is this: I read on a similar thread that Bergen County has almost as many fire vehicles as NYC, presumably because each town needs a certain minimum. (I can't find the facts to verify that though.) I WAS however able to verify that NJ has the most cops per-capita of any large state. This matches my personal impression that so many perfectly nice towns are crawling with police. I would imagine that this could be better allocated on a county-wide basis. I also wonder if there are a lot more dispatchers, admin etc than necessary on a per person basis with so many small departments.
Also, just one small example of unnecessary redundancy that comes to mind: I currently pay a town sewer tax AND a county sewer tax (in addition to the actual water-usage bill). This is ridiculous and probably increases costs to have additional clerks at each level when it could all be handled by one. I'm curious how many times similar redundancies play out across different government functions in the background.
As far as increased prestige for a county "mayor" I'm aware that none of them would ever achieve the influence of a NYC mayor, but as a matter of degree it would still help. For example Cory Booker as mayor of Newark had much more stature than small town mayors and I bet it helped him become a Senator. I'm also going to assume that then he allocates more projects to his home district.
Some states have ISDs (independent school districts) which do not permanently fall along city/town lines. ISD lines are free to fluctuate according to need (student census). Each ISD also has their own administrative staff....
My experience is that this is far more effective than each municipality (or a grouped number of municipalities) trying to maintain their own educational systems. Pay the superintendents of each ISD a very good salary (since they'll be responsible for many more schools) but at the same time greatly reduce the number of them.. (and the resulting administrative staff). What we have in NJ is akin to a company with a really fat middle management that tends to be wasteful of resources and not enough actually people at the bottom doing the work.
I would add (years later lol) that many of these consolidations should include school districts. Otherwise small towns (less then 5,000) should merge with neighbors for education with reasonable pairings. I wouldn’t combine Essex Fells into West Orange, but I would combine it into Caldwell, West Caldwell and North Caldwell. The mergers need to make geographic sense as well.
As the thread(12/2010) shows this idea has been around along time ,residents move to a certain area for a reason and now the town becomes a town they didn't want to live in. It will be hard to make it work.
As the thread(12/2010) shows this idea has been around along time ,residents move to a certain area for a reason and now the town becomes a town they didn't want to live in. It will be hard to make it work.
Yeah, people have a hard time with change, and often in the nicer towns reputation matters to people.
Either way though, as a Union County resident, Winfield's separate existence has always irked me. It is SO tiny and imo it should merge with some town. Linden or Clark - really Clark - would make the most sense just geographically.
Yeah, people have a hard time with change, and often in the nicer towns reputation matters to people.
Either way though, as a Union County resident, Winfield's separate existence has always irked me. It is SO tiny and imo it should merge with some town. Linden or Clark - really Clark - would make the most sense just geographically.
But why? If the residents who live in Winfield don't want it why should it be done?
But why? If the residents who live in Winfield don't want it why should it be done?
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.
Are you aware of how Winfield came to be? Because it was kind of a fight to make it happen, I doubt they'll be interested in just folding themselves back into Clark.
Are you aware of how Winfield came to be? Because it was kind of a fight to make it happen, I doubt they'll be interested in just folding themselves back into Clark.
Yes, and I doubt any tiny town would be interested in consolidating, which is probably why it hasn't been done yet for most places.
I think Garwood would if Cranford and Westfield would take it back, but I think both are completely disinterested.
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