PRINCETON: Forum: Merging Princetons well prepared

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   After years of failed attempts, the two Princetons are less than a month away from a historic merger.
   ”All I can say is: 28 days to go,” said Borough Administrator Robert W. Bruschi on Monday at a public forum updating the community about the merger.
   At the event, the Transition Task Force, the 12-member body made up of representatives of both towns, highlighted some of its work during the past 11 months. The Task Force delved into all layers of municipal government, including finance, personnel and public safety. Their job was to provide recommendations the two governing bodies could put into place.
   To parse out the work, the Task Force created eight subcommittees, said Joseph Stefko, president and CEO of Rochester, New York-based CGR, the group’s project management consultant. One of the things the personnel subcommittee looked at, he said, was coming up with severance options, “recognizing that there were going to be departmental consolidations between the township and the borough, which likely would have had some workforce implications.”
   Ultimately, he said, an early retirement option was ruled out because it would not “necessarily achieve” the cost savings or the work force sizing goals of the consolidation plan.
   He showed there are an estimated $2.5 million in separation-related costs due to the merger, plus $1.1 million in what are termed as coincidental costs that would have been incurred no matter if the towns were merging or not. State government has offered to pick up 20 percent of transition costs.
   The historic consolidation comes at a time when New Jersey municipalities are under increasing pressure to reduce or contain costs and share services with other communities. Last week, the state Senate passed a bill requiring towns to share services or risk losing some of their state aid. Princeton officials believe other towns around the state will be watching how the merger works and if the cost savings come in as promised.
   The crowd at the library included township and borough mayors Chad Goerner and Yina Moore and others who helped bring the merger about.
   Anton Lahnston led the Consolidation Study Commission, the group that spent 2010 and 2011 looking at merging the two towns. Although he said there are areas he could nit-pick at, he was impressed with how the consolidation was carried out.
   ”What I think’s been done is fabulous,” he said after the forum. “I give a lot of credit to the administrators and to the staff, the employees, for really doing something that was tough. It was a big challenge.”
   ”It’s gone amazingly well,” Mr. Bruschi said.
   Former Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, also attending Monday’s forum, said he had been working on consolidation for many years. While past merger attempts failed, Mr. Reed pointed to the role a newer breed of Princeton residents played in making this one succeed.
   ”There were a lot of young people that came into the process this time around that really made a difference,” he said. “This wasn’t necessarily a product of the graybeards and the town fathers deciding what’s good for you. It was really the people who had moved here in the last 10 or 12 years (asking) ‘why can’t we have better government and how did we get this difference between the borough and the township in the first place?’”