PRINCETON: Borough Council agrees to share consolidation study costs

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
   The Borough Council has agreed to pay half of the municipal cost — $41,387 — of the Joint Consolidation/Shared Services Commission study. They also accepted the consultant recommended by the commission and approved the sharing of two services with Princeton Township.
   Rochester, N.Y.-based Center for Government Research was unanimously selected as the consolidation consultant from a pool of five applicants by the Joint Services and Consolidation Committee and confirmed by Borough Council on Tuesday night.
   The Joint Consolidation and Shared Services Committee left it to the municipal officials to figure out how to fund the study, and the two finance committees and administrators came up with two plans. Costs would be incurred in two budget years, 2010 and 2011, said Councilman David Goldfarb, who is a member of the committee.
   A recommended budget of $120,274 was approved based on the consultant cost; a grant from the state is $37,500 leaving a balance to fund locally of $82,774. A 50/50 split is $41,387 for each town. This plan with the potential shared services was unanimously approved by the Consolidation Committee, said Mr. Goldfarb.
   Township officials will be the custodian of the funds.
   The breakdown of the $120,274 in consolidation consultant costs is: $76,000 for consulting; a 10 percent contingency of $7,600 on that fee; clerical support for 12 months at $500 per month for a total of $6,000; 40 hours of legal services $7,000; printing pieces to be mailed to citizens in both municipalities $7,200; postage for the two mailings $5,040; legal advertising $8,100 and a 10 percent contingency of $3,334 on those services.
   ”We haven’t identified where the money is coming from,” said Robert Bruschi, borough administrator. Money will be taken from other areas where there is excess or choose not to do something. The payments will most likely be $10,000 this budget year and the balance in 2011. The $30,000 balance will be within the budget as a line item.
   The Consolidation Committee’s other funding formula was a one-third-two-third split on ratables in which the borough would have contributed $27,591 and the township $55,183.
   The difference between the one-third-two-third split and the 50-50 is $13,796 additional the orough will contribute toward the study.
   Part of the agreement with the 50-50 payment split is the rearrangement of the tax assessor’s office, which will be permanently moved to the township and run by the township. The borough will bear the expenses of moving computers and files related to borough assessments, which will be a one-time cost. Currently the assessor splits his time between two offices, one in each town.
   The tax assessor is not a current shared service. “We happen to employ the same assessor and that’s done on purpose,” said Mr. Bruschi. The assessor currently draws two salaries and his benefits come from the township. The borough pays him a part-time salary of $19,253. The borough would pay the township its share of the assessors’ salary, which would remain the same.
   ”There is some increase in efficiency, the assessor will be in one place and people will know where he will be and how he spends his time,” said Mr. Goldfarb.
   The fire inspections are also done separately by two different officers. The borough will absorb all the township’s fire inspections and the fire inspector and revenue collected from the inspectors. “It will standardize the way fire inspections are done in the Princetons,” said Mr. Bruschi. “Staffing needs will be evaluated as part of the transition.”
   The two fire inspectors and their staffs will operate out of borough offices.
   If the municipalities could not agree on shared services by the end of budget year 2010, payment could be reverted to the one-third-two-third formula.
   ”It’s a move in the direction of more shared services,” said Councilman Roger Martindell. “It’s been difficult to engage the township on that, but they’ve reached out — this could open the door for future shared services. This ($13,000) is a reasonable price to pay to open that door.”
   Everyone on council agreed taking steps toward sharing services was a good thing.
   ”The township had not been willing to move on these issues,” said Mr. Goldfarb. “They have said they ‘we are not going to consider these issues while consolidation is on the table,’ so it’s been very difficult to make progress at all and I’m very concerned based on history that if consolidation is rejected, they will be completely non-receptive to anything along these lines for several years after that. I think this is the right time to make progress, even if its’ small.”
   ”So basically we’re spending $13,000 plus the cost of the assessor’s move to get the township to consolidate these two things?” questioned Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller. “I was questioning the way this agreement came about. You don’t feel we could make progress without this little deal?”
   Mr. Goldfarb said his preference would have been a one-third-two-third split, but he “did not prevail in that discussion” at the Consolidation Committee.
   ”It’s not $13,000 to buy off the township,” said Mr. Wilkes, “It’s $13,000 to improve services.”
   Councilman Andrew Koontz tried to put it into perspective and recalled action taken at last week’s meeting.
   ”What we have are the details of the negotiation, a negotiation I think went well. Stepping back you can see it from both sides, and there’s a case to be made for the 50-50 split, a very strong case to be made for the 50-50 spilt,” he said. “Let’s take a step back — what did we talk about last week? We made a resolution we were going to actively pursue shared services with the township, other municipalities, the county whatever and the fact that we’re coming in here with a very strong agreement between the communities to pursue not one but two new shared services, I think is a tremendous victory in less than a week.”
   ”And that took a little horse trading, to me horse trading isn’t a naughty phrase,” Mr. Koontz continued. “Hooray I’m glad we were able to do that and glad folks using common sense managed to meet in a room and find middle ground that’s the best for everybody.”