PRINCETON: Assemblyman talks about bill on consolidation funds

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
A bill to help municipalities pay for consolidation has been introduced to the Legislature by two local Assembly people and the Joint Shared Services Consolidation Commission got to speak with one of the sponsors at its meeting this week.
”What this bill does is allow municipalities to amortize the non-recurring expenses specific to the consolidation order five years using emergency appropriation notes,” said Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, R-16, after the meeting explaining his bill in-depth. “What it is doing is providing a suggested funding mechanism.”
Examples of non-recurring expenses would be moving, combining records, drawing tax and flood maps, new uniforms and repainting cars among other things.
The amortization would allow consolidating towns to stretch out paying the costs of consolidation over five years with bonding.
”It’s not something you would typically bond for, it’s not a public works project,” said Mr Ciattarelli. “We’re talking about things … that are not funded with traditional municipal bonds.”
He believes in funding and promoting consolidation so deeply that he is willing to cut funding or raise taxes at the state level to achieve it.
”What I mean by that is this: if we build into this legislation that the state is going to pick up year one,” said Mr. Ciattarelli. “What I’ve recommended are areas to cut spending in order to be able to afford this new expense. If we can’t find areas in which to cut, or we’re not in agreement, then let’s raise income taxes.”
His ideas for cuts in government spending are to trim the municipal aid budgets.
”There have been a great number of municipalities that have been getting what’s called emergency aid/transitional aid,” he said. “They’ve been given ample time to get their house in order with all this transitional aid. They should get less transitional aid as time goes by and use that money for municipalities that have taken the initiative that the Princetons have.”
Legislatively identifying funding consolidations allows municipalities to skip going to the Local Finance Board, which is a process in Trenton.
Mr. Ciattarelli, a freshman in the assembly, took over sponsorship of the bill after the sudden death of the original sponsor, Peter Biondi, last November.
”I picked up the ball because Biondi had this in last year’s Legislature,” he said. “But, it didn’t make it to committee, so it was my obligation to renew it for the new Legislature.”
The bill, A471, is waiting to go before committee. “Our goal is to have it before committee, approved by the Legislature and on the governor’s desk for signature before the end of the first quarter,” said Mr. Ciattarelli.
The new assemblyman would like to see the bill expanded and amendments added in committee. He would like to see the state commit money to helping municipalities consolidate.
”I would like to see built into this legislation is language specific to the state picking up the cost of year one, in all cases, not just Princeton,” he said.
In addition to that he would like to expand the bill to include county consolidations, which could include items like a consolidated emergency services dispatch.