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Nexis4Jersey t1_iwm20vr wrote

Merge School Districts , Merge towns and Merge Counties and you will see a property tax decrease or slowdown... Do we really need 21 counties in this state or towns the size of a 0.5 square miles , or 686 school districts...or police department in every town...?

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aden_feifdom t1_iwmnfll wrote

it sounds great until its your own district or your own police that are going to be merged. people will be NIMBY’s and i predict it won’t result in any significant tax reductions, especially when we always want more from our state government. they are more than happy to provide, but it comes at a cost. most people don’t mind paying a little more if it means (insert service here)

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Nexis4Jersey t1_iwnk0kz wrote

Then people shouldn't complain about high taxes...larger towns in Bergen County have lower property taxes then the smaller ones the difference is usually 3-7,000$.

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Skerppp t1_iwmqy8x wrote

Short Hills and Montclair aren’t going to want to share services with Newark.. and Princeton won’t want to share services with Trenton. Camden County tried the whole county Police thing and now “Camden County Police Department” works almost exclusively in Camden City.

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Nexis4Jersey t1_iwnji2u wrote

Who said they had too...not every town and city needs to merge...but we have way to many in this state. Larger towns/cities like Montclair , Newark , Jersey City , Trenton , Washington Township (Gloucester), New Brunswick are fine the way they are but mini towns like East Newark , Guttenberg , South Hackensack , Teterboro , Bordentown city , Burlington City , Fieldsboro should merge into their neighboring towns/cities... That also applies to Counties like Salem > Cumberland , Sussex > Warren , Gloucester > Camden.

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Skerppp t1_iwo0hjs wrote

I definitely agree to an extent.. I just think county wide consolidation would be hard to implement. But those pockets of small borough towns can definitely do some consolidation on top of having regional school districts

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Nexis4Jersey t1_iwo0p8e wrote

None of the proposals in the past called for every town to fold into one just the small ones and some of the small shrinking counties...

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rockmasterflex t1_iwutf6a wrote

Other states basically manage everything at the state or county level for the cost savings. It works. There is no reason a town like “Riverdale” for instance, needs to exist. They have their own government, all the overhead that entails, a school system… wtf why?

Shared services with neighboring communities (your county) means same level of service, lower management costs, lower property management costs, less overhead.

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aden_feifdom t1_iwutuyu wrote

but NJ isn’t other states. i am not sure how such a radical change would even happen. lots of people would be against it. i am skeptical it could even be pulled off

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Ravenhill-2171 t1_ix8jf9o wrote

Well if costs go any higher they are going to either be for it or be priced out of living here. Home rule is BS.

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_TommySalami t1_iwmy9b3 wrote

This is what Christie said he was going to do, then he shut his mouth (for once). It needs to be done, but no one has the political capital to do it.

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lost_in_life_34 t1_iwo7dtm wrote

there are already unified school districts like Northen Valley with 2-3 high schools. I don't have an issue with towns merging as long as the people that live in them agree with it and it's not down from the state or counties to whitewash over problem areas

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Ravenhill-2171 t1_iwq7ufp wrote

And there's the problem... Every town is its own kingdom. Local rule is killing us and yet you still want more of it even as the noose tightens.

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