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How Jersey became the land of so many towns.doc

STAR-LEDGER

How Jersey became the land of so many towns -- and taxes

Sunday, July 16, 2006

BY TOM HESTER

Star-Ledger Staff

One state, 21 counties, 566 municipalities and 616 school districts. Government and bureaucracy at every level.

Maybe, in a Jersey kind of way, it all makes sense.

The reasons for this abundance of towns and school districts -- and the relentless property tax problem that comes with it -- are as varied as the landscape. Some communities grew up around the big cities of New York and Philadelphia. Others began as oceanside resorts, or as stagecoach stops. In some places, people sought out a home where drinking wasn't allowed, or where playing golf on Sunday was. Some school districts were formed to ensure racial segregation.

Historians say there was no grand plan in making this a state that has more municipalities per square mile than any other. Groups just acted on their own interests, and the state didn't get in the way.

The late Alan Karcher, a speaker of the state Assembly in the 1980s, was once moved to write that by the end of the 20th century, the boundaries of New Jersey towns looked like "a web woven by a spider on LSD."

In a couple of weeks, Gov. Jon Corzine and a special session of the Legislature will try to make sense of all this, in an effort to bring the tradition of local government "home rule" -- and, by extension, property taxes -- under control.

Politicians will address the subject only in hushed tones, because history shows the mere mention of combining towns or schools is politically explosive, butting up against the deep affections that New Jersey residents have for everything local.

But Corzine made his intentions clear last week: Lawmakers must look hard at ways to reduce "the proliferation of government," because local control in New Jersey comes at too high a cost.

"Now we are seeing practicality colliding with tradition," said Ingrid Reed, director of the New Jersey Project at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics. "Unfortunately, as I look at the state effort to deal with the practicality of it, consolidation efforts do not take into consideration the community strength that needs to be dealt with."

MAIN STREET, USA

Walk through the village of Cranbury in Middlesex County on a sun-splashed afternoon and you see storefront businesses, free parking, tree-lined sidewalks and well-preserved 19th-century homes adorned with American flags.

It's Main Street, USA.

"I would hate to see us amalgamated with another township," said Glenn Johnson, an editor who moved to Cranbury six years ago with his wife. "Our township has followed a policy of setting aside as much farmland as possible. The town is fairly united on this. If we were thrown in with another town, things could really be different for us."

One thing that could be different, in theory, is lower property taxes.

"I feel good about the return on my tax dollar locally," Johnson countered.

Raymond Flagg, who lives in the one-square-mile town of Helmetta, also in Middlesex County, had a different opinion.

"Definitely," he said, when asked if he would favor consolidation that led to a lower tax bill. "We work hard for our money."

Karcher, in a book on home rule in New Jersey, noted that the creation of towns like Cranbury -- formed in part because residents wanted the right to sell liquor to passing travelers -- took many twists and turns as towns kept cropping up until the 1950s.

In 1876, for example, South Amboy's predominantly Irish Catholic population had gained control of local politics. English and German residents, mostly Protestants, didn't like that, so they created their own town: Sayreville.

When business executives in Camden County were prevented from playing golf on Sundays because of blue laws, they got Gov. Edward I. Edwards to support the creation of an 18-hole town in 1921. Today, Tavistock remains. Population: 24.

In 1839, New Jersey had 1,408 school districts -- one for almost every rural schoolhouse. In 1894, the Legislature ordered that districts follow municipal boundary lines and the number of districts dropped by more than half. But in Bergen County, 30 districts were used as the basis to form new towns, because wealthy areas were unwilling to share funds with poorer neighbors, and white residents did not want their children attending school with minority students.

Some say these racial and class boundaries, formed years ago, still exist.

"Absolutely they do," said the Rev. Reginald Jackson, director of the Black Ministers Council. "It's a part of the whole issue of segregation in the school system. ... Why can't there be regional school districts? It would cut down on administrative costs and you might even get a better education because of it."

WEAKNESS IN TRENTON

Every municipality and school district, plus the 21 counties, relies on property taxes to pay for their operations.

It works that way because New Jersey historically had a very weak state government.

When the state's latest constitution was adopted in 1947, lawmakers in Trenton "did not have the cultural or economic resources to set the standards for how we should be governed," said Reed. "A local property tax made sense given their local needs. There was a sense of place. People were in charge of themselves."

In many respects, they still are, but there's a hefty price tag.

The average property tax bill in the state last year was nearly $5,900 -- an increase of 29 percent in four years. The average homeowner uses about 5.6 percent of personal income for property taxes, according to William G. Dressel, director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities. The national average is 3.6 percent.

And leaders from citizen activist groups claimed this week 44 percent of all tax revenue in New Jersey comes from property taxes, compared with a national average closer to 30 percent.

Still, Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, said the pocketbook may be a bigger impediment to merging towns or schools than hometown pride. For two towns or districts to merge, residents in both places must approve the change -- and in most cases, one town or school will have to pay higher property taxes.

"If the state is serious about encouraging regionalization it has to eliminate the financial disincentives," said Belluscio, whose group supports school regionalization if it's voluntary. "Regionalization proposals usually fail because somebody's property taxes go up."

PREVIOUS EFFORTS

The goal in the upcoming legislative special session is to find ways to lower property taxes, and it will not be the first time lawmakers have tried to unscramble this puzzle by looking at consolidation.

Governors have long tried to recommend change. In 1954, Gov. Robert Meyner and the Legislature developed an incentive aid program that led to the creation of 69 regional school districts -- mainly for high schools. It was the beginning of the "Sputnik Era," and educators wanted rural districts combined to provide better science and math courses. The Sputnik was a satellite whose launching by the Soviet Union in 1957 ushered in the Space Age.

New Jersey now has 80 regional districts but, over the past 18 years, only three new ones formed, while two others dissolved.

In the upcoming session, Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) said he will offer two proposals designed to encourage municipalities to regionalize or at least step up efforts to share public services. There are now more than 500 shared-service agreements among municipalities, involving two dozen kinds of public services.

"I do not view this as a process where the state is imposing its will on local government," Roberts said. "We have to give local officials the tools to make it possible if they want to pursue regionalization or shared services and only if they want to pursue them."

Corzine has suggested one big incentive: taking the $600 million in sales tax dollars recently set aside for property tax relief and using it to encourage consolidation.

It remains to be seen if anyone takes the bait. Over the past half-century, there has been only one municipal merger -- in 1997, when tiny Pahaquarry in Warren County became part of Hardwick because there weren't enough eligible residents to fill the town council.

An effort to regionalize Princeton Borough and Princeton Township failed three times in the 1990s. Borough residents feared the loss of the college town's identity.

"New Jersey developed as a series of places and communities," Reed said. "Substitute the word community for municipality and it begins to make more sense."

Staff writers Deborah Howlett and Susan K. Livio contributed to this report. Tom Hester may be reached at thester@starledger.com or (609) 292-0557.

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