By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
At their second meeting the Transition Task Force began making decisions to move forward with the consolidation of the two Princetons.
Its first decision was to ask for a proposal from the Center for Government Research, the Rochester, N.Y.-based nonprofit organization that assisted the Joint Shared Services Consolidation Commission with its work.
The center will offer a menu of options of the services the organization can provide, such as project management, prioritization and developing realistic goals and timelines for achieving those goals, with costs for those services before the task force’s next meeting in two weeks.
The group also discussed hiring an independent attorney to guide them in the many legal matters they will encounter. They agreed to seek advice from the municipal attorneys until they could find one of their own.
They also heard very basic plans from the two municipal administrators for department organizational charts.
In the near future they will have more meetings and fact-finding meetings with all of the municipal departments.
A budget discussion was tabled until there is more information on what they will need to move forward and have a Center for Government Research estimate.
The municipal administrators have asked department heads to begin to think about transition costs. They will begin to compare operating budgets for redundancies for additional savings.
For example, each finance department budgets for an audit. In the new combined municipality, there will only be one audit needed, providing for additional savings.

