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ghost_robot2000 t1_j8ntez9 wrote

So many towns on this list don't even need their own police department. They're paying officers huge salaries, coming from the taxes of actual working people, to do basically nothing. They need to consolidate these towns, lower the number of officers, and start lowering some property taxes.

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yaychristy t1_j8of1lb wrote

If you want lower property taxes you need to consolidate the school districts. roughly ~65% of property tax is for the schools.

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peter-doubt t1_j8ogb0i wrote

Not so much the schools as the administrators... Just look at the service done in Central Regional....

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Mini-salt t1_j8osyn0 wrote

This. I remember seeing my elementary school go through a dramatic overhaul (new jungle gym, expanding the building twice, etc) in the span of 2-3 years because they dropped an administrator.

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peter-doubt t1_j8ouikf wrote

(that [building expansion] isn't possible from one salary, even including benefits)

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dirtynj t1_j8pymfy wrote

My district doesn't even have enough paper to give our students due to budgets...

Yet we just took on 2 extra admins with 6 figure salaries. It's a joke.

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bros402 t1_j8s16zr wrote

think about the poor friends of the super, they need 6 figure jobes too!

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satriales856 t1_j8pg2nn wrote

Yeah but if you consolidate districts, you eliminate a lot of administrators. That’s most of the point.

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peter-doubt t1_j8pghc2 wrote

(did you miss the suicide there, and the resignation since? Some administrators are fully inept)

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satriales856 t1_j8q77po wrote

Why the fuck are you arguing with me? I’m agreeing with you…

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Fallen_Mercury t1_j8pxjgh wrote

Hyper localized schools is how New Jersey achieved creating one of the most segregated school systems in the country. The high taxes tied to each district creates a paywall that disadvantages poor people and people of color who have been historically excluded from "nicer" towns and the accompanying schools.

If you really want to see consolidation, be prepared to be greeted with a lot of "not in my back yard" squealing when people realize that "those kids" will now be mingling with "my kids."

There's no way to consolidate without facing this problem. If you were to consolidate 6 districts into 1, with 2 of those districts being much poorer towns, how do you think the 4 wealthier towns would react? If they were to attempt to create a system that favored one town over the other, they would easily lose civil rights law suits for discrimination. Do you really think Ocean and Wall would want to deal with Neptune and Asbury? Do you see Robbinsville, Hamilton, Trenton, Lawrence, and Princeton working well together?

Don't get me wrong, I think consolidation is a good idea... I just think it's so unlikely that it's safe to say impossible. People who live on the right side of the tracks enjoy our segregated school system and they wouldn't want to give it up.

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bros402 t1_j8s1p5n wrote

imo no school district should be allowed to have less than 2500-3000 students and if it does, it should be merged into the district with the highest DFG that borders it.

but I think that towns having their own school districts makes sense - it would be better for more districts to have regional HSes, though

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Redisigh t1_j8pinzm wrote

And yet it feels like half of the school districts in the state still can’t afford printing paper lmao

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imironman2018 t1_j8qejf2 wrote

You can do both. It’s not one or the other. There is so much waste with how these small towns can exist like duplicate town halls, council, fire department, EMS, and sanitation. There is a town that exists in North jersey that is only one city block. That is just ridiculous.

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bros402 t1_j8s1eaa wrote

the funny thing is that a lot of those small towns do shared courts - but refuse to consider sharing things like public works

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imironman2018 t1_j8s7a6t wrote

if you think about it, why would you share public works or police departments or city services- it is a huge cash cow for the town workers with very little work actually done.

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bros402 t1_j8sa55f wrote

public works even refuses to do shit in the town

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imironman2018 t1_j8sarfw wrote

yes. or if they do the work, they make sure to stretch it to as long as possible so they can milk it even more. like redoing roads or fixing broken street lights or signs.

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bros402 t1_j8sq30g wrote

one of my parents works for a town

needs a lightbulb replaced, calls down to public works

"can't you do it yourself?"

"No, it's a fluorescent bulb"

"what if we drop off the bulb can't you just do it"

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dumbdumbmen t1_j8ocjw1 wrote

This. So many NJ towns need to consolidate their police forces, as well as their school districts. I moved out of NJ a long time ago and the property taxe rates there are just insane compared to where I've lived so far (low crime, good schools, in HCOL areas).

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Dryja123 t1_j8omlul wrote

It’s insanity. My brother makes over $100 an hour directing traffic because it’s overtime.

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petere1144 t1_j8p1nbu wrote

The vast majority of that is private contracts, not taxpayer dollars. Coming from construction companies or anyone else needing traffic control, security, etc

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rpg25 t1_j8rnxp3 wrote

You’re correct in thinking that the construction companies are the ones paying to have traffic control and security. That said, it’s naive if you think that cost doesn’t get built into the project and thusly passed on to the general public. It may not be “tax dollars” but it certainly otherwise contributes to the high cost of living in this area.

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Sinsid t1_j8olxen wrote

This is why I live in a town with no police department (we contract NJ state police). We also don’t have a high school, we contract that too. And the town doesn’t have a sewer or water department. So developers have a massive uphill battle to build anything more than single family homes.

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satriales856 t1_j8pg8n6 wrote

There was a town in south Jersey near me like this. They put in a sewer system, took years. And then shitty cookie cutter developments sprung up everywhere.

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ghost_robot2000 t1_j8ornc8 wrote

Are you in Sussex County? I know they have some smaller towns like that.

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Sinsid t1_j8p9acy wrote

Monmouth

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Rockhopper007 t1_j8pmsg0 wrote

Curious .. what town?

I'm in a town that has shared police resources and now I want to research what they (or builders, etc. pay) for traffic control around construction areas. 🤔

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Sinsid t1_j8pyk1l wrote

Millstone Township

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No5tepOn5nek t1_j8rggg8 wrote

And how are your taxes? Does not having these public services make a noticeable difference?

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Sinsid t1_j8rhtpt wrote

Well I thought so. I picked millstone based on low taxes compared to what I was paying in northern NJ before, proximity to 95, being about halfway between NYC and Philly seemed like a sweet spot for commuting. 30 minutes to the beach is nice. My house is about 8 minutes from six flags so in the summer I take my son over after school / camp for a few hours and it’s no big deal.

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sunfunbum1234 t1_j8q8jlo wrote

As soon as I read this I knew it had to be millstone. Kinda glad nothing more is getting developed in the town and we can keep our trees

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Sinsid t1_j8rh2br wrote

I think Millstone is great! Its about as rural a place as you can find in NJ. And it’s about halfway between NYC and Philly for commuting and 30 minutes to the beach. I’ve got 3 acres, and I think that’s about average in millstone.

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playdohplaydate t1_j8phfsu wrote

That’s what shared services are designed to consolidate but various unions fight it pretty strongly for obvious reasons. On one side it saves taxpayer money and on the other side it puts people out of work or relocates them to other duties

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rpg25 t1_j8rrdbv wrote

It’s not just unions. It’s the towns themselves. I know of a jurisdiction that had a massive opportunity to consolidate and not lay anyone off due to attrition (there were a large amount of people set to retire). They didn’t pursue it because they would lose home rule and there was just too much “unknown” for them.

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bros402 t1_j8s24n6 wrote

yuuup - a few towns in Monmouth used to share courts, but the other towns withdrew because they were viewing the court as a "profit machine" when the people running the court told them it was not, and they wouldn't lock people up on bullshit (and this was before the bail reform)

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Carittz t1_j8pu2wl wrote

We should just make a larger state police responsible for all emergency calls and investigative work, and then have each county have a department for general law and order and traffic control.

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