A state-funded study to determine the feasibility of East Windsor taking over police coverage in cash-strapped Hightstown was originally expected to take a few months and be completed a year ago.
When it was expanded, with more state funding, to include a review of the court systems of both towns — something that might have wisely been considered from day one — the expected due date was pushed to April of this year.
Seven months have passed since that second completion date, and the study is still apparently not done and no local leaders are pressing the issue.
Meanwhile, the head of the police union in Hightstown told the Herald a couple weeks ago that the delay is causing morale problems, which is understandable. And Hightstown Police Chief James Eufemia said he has no idea what is going on and members of his department would like to know.
East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov, who heads the township contingent on a joint committee of the two towns, said a couple weeks ago that she is hopeful a report will be ready for public presentation by January. While we agree with her that this is a complicated issue, the consultant — the expert on how long these things should take — gave the original time estimates and they have been greatly exceeded
Although the study is covered by about $50,000 in state funds, that is still taxpayer money. Taxpayers deserve to know what is going on, and borough residents deserve to know if there is light at the end of their financial tunnel.
Just as importantly, there are 25 to 30 people who work in the borough Police Department and Municipal Court whose very livelihood could be affected by the fallout from the study. They deserve to know what their employment future could be.
Mayor Mironov has stressed that any takeover would have to benefit the township as well as Hightstown, whose annual police-related expenditures of more than $2.3 million are the major contributor to the borough’s financial woes.
We hope that she and other township leaders could agree to have their police department, with supplemental help from those now working in Hightstown, patrol the borough even if the township just breaks even on the arrangement.
That’s because the township, which surrounds the borough and whose police travel through it constantly, would be the best solution to a bottom-line problem: In these times, a town that is one square mile simply can not justify spending more than $2 million per year on police-related expenditures.
And while we don’t completely understand why this study has taken so long, we think that January — Mayor Mironov’s predicted time for a public presentation — should be the drop-dead date to let the public know exactly what the consultant has discovered and recommended.
