Sea Bright signs on to shared services study

Study will look at potential savings for solid waste services

BY SHARON LEFF Staff Writer

SEA BRIGHT

Sea Bright has joined a group of two dozen Monmouth County municipalities in a solid waste shared-services feasibility study.

 

At the Dec. 16 meeting, the Borough Council voted in favor of participating in the study sponsored by the Central Jersey Council of Governments, which is slated to start next year.

"Presently we pay a third-party contractor to deal with our waste and recycling, and we’re just tying to minimize costs everywhere," council President Dina Long said in an interview after the meeting.

Brian J. Valentino, president and principal consultant for the Patriot Consulting Group, who is the shared services adviser for the Central Jersey Council of Governments, said 24 towns have opted in for the study so far, and the number continues to grow.

"We have 24 towns currently in the county who are joining together to issue a joint bid request to do solid waste collection as a group — solid waste being household garbage, recycling and bulk trash," he said.

In addition to Sea Bright, Red Bank, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township and Oceanport have opted in for the study, titled the Monmouth County Regional Solid Waste Collection Service.

Valentino said the council originally anticipated a third of the towns in Monmouth County would participate, but at the current pace he now expects more than half of the 53 municipalities will be involved.

"The reality of it is, there are certain services every town has to provide, and garbage collection is really kind of one of them," he said. "There are a few towns in the county that don’t collect garbage. They leave it to the residents. But most municipalities feel solid waste is a basic government service."

He said the main variation among the towns is how often waste is collected.

"Since everybody has to do it, and it’s easier to share, it’s cheaper to do as a group," he said. "I think it’s a no-brainer for towns to want to sign up and do it."

He said waste removal is one of the most expensive services that towns have to provide, and therefore it makes sense to study how that cost can be reduced.

Valentino said participating in the study will come at no cost for most municipalities. Funds for the survey will come through NJ SHARES.

"Any town that meets certain population figures or had a reduction in state aid doesn’t have to pay anything toward this grant," he said.

Valentino said towns that have chosen not to participate all have individual reasons for doing so.

"They all have unique reasons. Some have said no because they don’t provide the service and they’re not going to," he said.

Other towns have union issues that prevent them from entering into shared services agreements, and others feel they already provide such high-level waste removal that any change would be a reduction in service.

"Every town has their own good reasons for not participating," he said.

So far, of the 53 towns in the county only five have officially opted out.

He said there is a soft deadline of Dec. 31 for towns to opt into the study, but because some towns have abbreviated meeting schedules due to the holidays, the deadline will be extended into January.

The feasibility study will last until Dec. 31, 2009, and is open to any town in Monmouth County.

Valentino said Marlboro Township will be the lead agency in the study. Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik is president of the Central Jersey Council of Government, and Manalapan Mayor Michelle Roth is vice president.

Other participating towns include Englishtown, Hazlet, Matawan and Atlantic Highlands.

In addition to the solid waste sharedservices study, the borough will also pursue a commodity resale and sharedservices study being sponsored by the county Board of Chosen Freeholders.

Long said the commodity resale is for the purchase of things from the county, such as gasoline, snow removal chemicals, and public works materials and supplies. The shared-services aspect includes equipment sharing, such as snowplows.

A proposal to share services with neighboring town

Monmouth Beach was recently declined by that borough.

"We had a public works shared-services feasibility study with Monmouth Beach, and we were just notified by Monmouth Beach that they weren’t interested in sharing any services with Sea Bright," Long said.