Township, Hopewell police pact talks deadlocked

Township Administrator Bruce Hilling said "all the paperwork is done" to apply for a $6,600 state grant that would pay an outside consultant to study interlocal agreement and report by spring

By John Tredrea
   Hopewell Township and Hopewell Borough have not, come to an agreement — as 2006 budget-preparation time approaches — on how much the borough will pay the township for police services next year.
   Hopewell sees the current cost, $318,000, as reasonable. The township is thinking $500,000.
   Because of this discrepancy, the township and borough have agreed to make an effort to hire an outside consultant to review the interlocal agreement and make recommendations. "This way we could get a neutral opinion," township Deputy Mayor Mark Iorio said at Monday night’s Township Committee meeting.
   At that session, township Administrator Bruce Hilling said "all the paperwork is done" to apply for a $6,600 state grant that would pay the outside consultant, Jersey Management Services, to study the interlocal agreement and report on it to the township and borough by spring.
   Until the study is done, Hopewell Borough Mayor David Nettles said, he wants the borough to pay the township for police services by the month. "I intend to put in our budget that we’ll go month to month, paying 5 percent more than last year, until the study of the interlocal agreement is done."
   Meanwhile, Mayor Nettles has been "exploring alternatives. I’ve been in contact with several organizations that could provide police service to the borough instead of Hopewell Township," he said. Other than stating that the state police was not one of those organizations, he would not identify the other law enforcement agencies.
   "None of this has anything to do with our level of satisfaction with the township police," Mayor Nettles said. "They have certainly fulfilled their responsibility to us in every way. That is not the issue."
   The issue is how much the borough should pay the township for police services.
   The township has been providing those services since 1983, when the borough disbanded its own police department.
   The borough is paying the township $318,000 this year for police services under an interlocal agreement that expires at the end of the year. Borough Mayor Nettles thinks $318,000 — which is $30,000 more than the borough paid last year — is a fair price.
   The township says it costs $500,000 per year to provide the service and that, therefore, this is what the borough should pay for it. "We’re not asking them to pay $500,000 next year," Deputy Mayor Iorio said Monday night. Mr. Iorio, the Township Committee liaison for interlocal agreements, said the township would probably be amenable to having the borough increase its annual payment $50,000 each year until the $500,000 figure has been reached.
   "What we want is for them to pay us what it costs us to provide this service to them," Mr. Iorio said. "It’s that simple. We have done several cost analyses, which indicate that it costs us about $500,000 per year to provide it."
   Mayor Nettles scoffed at this. "Numbers can say anything you want them to," he said. "I think what the township is asking for is unreasonable. The point of shared services is that they should be paid for at a rate roughly halfway between what it costs to provide the service to someone else and what it would cost them to provide it on their own. I think it should be right in the middle. That’s fair, and I think the $318,000 we are paying now satisfies that standard. No information that I’ve been able to get from township thus far has convinced me otherwise."
   Mayor Nettles also took exception to the township’s statement that it is asking the borough merely to pay the cost of policing the borough. "I think what they’re asking us for is to pay what it would cost us to start our own police department. That seems to me to be where we are now."
   In case borough residents might be worrying about losing police services come Jan. 1, because of this squabble, Mr. Iorio said Tuesday that the township would not cut the borough off from police protection after Dec. 31. "We’re not interested in doing that," he said. "We’re negotiating in good faith. We think the correct number is $500,000. We’ve agreed to hire a consultant to see if that number will be validated."
   "The first priority for both communities is to provide for public safety, which we will not put at risk. With a neutral, fact-based analysis from the state, I am sure we will work out a fair arrangement with Hopewell Borough," township Committeeman David Sandahl said Tuesday.