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Dear Mayor:
Last Monday, the Joint Legislative Committee on Government Consolidation and Shared Services met and approved its recommendations. The Committee approved a list of 18 recommendations:
- Create permanent local unit reorganization and consolidation commission to facilitate municipal mergers and shared services;
- Streamline the existing process for sharing services and municipal consolidation, remove barriers and introduce flexibility for municipalities to design their own procedure;
- Create a modern, county-based system of property tax assessment;
- Tie State aid to efficient local government operation;
- Move fire district elections to November to encourage greater voter turnout and eliminate the need for a budget vote;
- Provide for coordination of capital purchasing by municipalities to help avoid redundancies and duplication;
- Expand powers of 21 “Executive County” superintendents to oversee local district administrative spending;
- Move school board elections to November and eliminate the April bud get vote except for budgets that exceed the cap;
- Require adoption of “user-friendly” county, municipal and school district budgets;
- Expand options for local units to jointly insure and selfinsure for expanded range of life, health, and liability coverages;
- Promote shared municipal courts;
- Consolidate public safety answering points consistent with State 9-1-1 Commission recommendations;
- Permit the county assumption of state road maintenance in certain circumstances;
- Centralize State risk management;
- Streamline information technology service by codifying recommendations of the GEAR Commission;
- Eliminate defunct State boards and commissions;
- Authorize a pilot program for the county administration of school districts;
- Abolish the New Jersey Commerce, Economic Growth, and Tourism Commission and transfer certain functions to other State entities.
Of particular interest to municipalities are the following:
The committee’s recommendation to create a “permanent local unit reorganization and consolidation commission to facilitate municipal mergers and shared services” is a positive development, since the committee had considered SJR-47/AJR-69, which would have created a commission modeled on the “base realignment reorganization and consolidation” commissions. The League objected to SJR-47/AJR-69 since it removed local input in the process and disenfranchised voters. We argued that if the Legislature wants to create such a commission it should instead be a resource to local governments seeking to consolidate or to engage in enhanced shared services, and that any recommendations must be subject to approval of voters in each impacted municipality. The committee’s recommendations move away from the BRAC-style commission and inches closer to the League recommendations. That is not to say that we are prepared to support this proposal. We will await the draft legislation to implement this commission and will evaluate the proposal at that time;
The committee recognized that local governments face unnecessary hurdles in implementing shared services, and we hope that will ultimately result in the passage of an amended A-51, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts. We are optimistic that amendments suggested by the League will be accepted for A-51;
The committee recommends a county-based system of property tax assessment. The Association of Municipal Assessors of New Jersey, an affiliate of the League, has raised a number of concerns regarding this proposal, which we will bring to the attention of the Legislative committee that will consider this legislation;
The committee recommends tying State aid to efficient local government operations. While this sounds innocuous on face value, we are concerned as how these standards, or benchmarks, will be developed. The League opposes elimination of formula aid, no matter how small. The League supports the concept of rewarding excellent fiscal behavior on the part of local governments, but we question the criteria and measurement devices that will be employed and have not yet been defined.
Legislation implementing these recommendations is being drafted, and the Chairmen indicated that the Committee would meet again in December to consider such legislation.
The full reports and executive summaries of all 4 special legislative committees are available on the League’s website at: http://www.njslom.org/tax_sessions.html
The League will continue to post updates on the special session at http://www.njslom.org/tax_sessions.html |
