The Joint Legislative Committee on Government Consolidation and Shared Services held its first meeting on 8/806. Senator Robert Smith, Co-Chair of the Committee, said that “autonomy has led to New Jersey having the highest property tax burden of any state in the United States.” However, he said there is no single silver bullet to resolve New Jersey’s excessive property tax burden. However, the committee is charged with developing a legislative action plan to present to the Legislature.
Senator Smith believes New Jersey should look to states that rely on county school districts, rather than local administration in New Jersey which has produced more school districts than cities. He called it the most inefficient system in the country. In an Asbury Park Press article from August 9, 2006 titled “Shared Services May Not Be Profitable,” a spokesman for the New Jersey School Board Association said current law states that if school districts merge, the largest district union contract will be used – – even if their wages are more generous and therefore more costly to taxpayers.
Testimony before the committee reported that the state has 1,389 different entities that can collect property taxes, including municipal school districts and fire districts. What caught my attention after hearing the testimony given to the committee on the history of consolidation in New Jersey are the disjointed, fragmented and locally driven parish measures that have dragged the state to its current rule of law and practice that regulates consolidation. .
Ultimately, I think there is not enough political courage, legislators realize that forcing consolidation will likely cause them to lose their job. This is especially true if the state uses the stick approach and forces bindings that, in the best of cases, “over time” save only 10%. at 20% in costs and therefore reduces property taxes by a similar amount. The worst thing is that consolidation in some cases could end up costing more!
I am waiting for the discussion to begin on which local municipal services are essential functions of local government and at what cost. Also, if they do not belong to the municipal government level, what level of government should fund them? I believe New Jersey will shift certain local government and school functions to a higher level of government in the state and set the appropriate costs and service levels. District schools were consolidated at the county level, the prosecutor’s office, county jails, county school superintendents, moved to the state level. But this represents a daunting task for a legislative committee to convene on a legislative action plan by November 15, 2006.
Why do New Jerseyans cling to the concept of autonomy? It is because they like the local school whose teachers and principal they know. They like to meet the people who are on their local planning and zoning boards, they like local recreation programs, and they fear that under consolidation they might be moved elsewhere if local control is lost. Some small town residents have made a report with their local public works staff to have the roads plowed first … so their husband can work the midnight shift. Others like the patrol car that passes once a day, or the fact that the local police are the first to arrive when an ambulance needs to be called.
These are the elements that build the character of a community that people want to preserve. I think generally people don’t care who the business administrator is, or who the assessor is, which office handles the tax collection (but we don’t have to drive to the county seat to pay our quarterly tax bill to the property). I don’t think people in general care whether their city has a civil service or not. I would venture to assume that most residents do not even know which departments in their city are governed by civil service rules. Self-government has its virtues, but at what price will property taxpayers say to hell with self-government? At some point coercion to consolidate is not coercion if it is the will of the people, Senator Smith said of the committee. Has the property tax burden on New Jersey homeowners reached the limit for New Jersey lawmakers and the Governor to favor the big stick approach of mandatory consolidation?
Basically, real estate taxpayers want services they can afford, service levels that maintain the character of their people that support the values embedded in their homes, which is their greatest source of wealth in most cases. People also want their services to be delivered as cheaply as possible. Senator Smith said reducing the average New Jersey property tax for homeowners to the national average will require a very broad response.
Tom Hester in an Asbury Park Press article on 3/7/06 titled “Some in New Jersey Can Be Big Losers” said that a 2003 Rutgers University study found that cutting New Jersey’s 616 school districts in half it would save $ 365 million after four years. doing little to cut the $ 20 billion collected annually in New Jersey property taxes. Hester went on to joke that the state has set aside $ 600 million in the current year’s state budget to lower property taxes, but would have to cut property taxes by $ 6 billion to get within the national average for property taxes. property for the average home. owner.
Senator Joseph Kyrilos, Jr. noted at the committee meeting that 50,000 people have been added to the government payroll in New Jersey over the past five years, while 120,000 business jobs have been lost. I think his point was that you have to be careful when trying to extract more tax from the business community. Others at the committee meeting noted that property taxes in New Jersey have risen three times faster than personal income in New Jersey over the past five years.
Testimony at the Trustees’ Committee Hearing on the Frontline of Consolidation of Local Government Services said that consolidation is not a panacea for New Jersey’s excessive property tax burden. Those administrators said that after 30 years of trying various consolidation laws, consolidation is just one finger on the dam. Other testimony at the hearing reported that New Zealand went through a government upheaval and achieved a 20% reduction in local government employees and reduced its 600+ government units to 80. Apparently, New Zealand’s lesson is to go after articles from Great value. If the consolidation is only done on the margin, then it will represent nothing more than a sand castle – a lot of work undone in a moment with the next wave of property tax increases.