Gov. Chris Christie tells local residents consolidating municipal governments and school districts will result in lower taxes during an Aug. 19 meeting on the beachfront in Long Branch. Christie addressed a variety of topics, including beach dunes and the state’s pension woes, during the “No Pain, No Gain” tour stop. Municipalities and school districts should consider consolidating as a way to slow escalating taxes and costs, Gov. Chris Christie told a crowd gathered at an amphitheater on the Long Branch beachfront Aug. 19.
“The only way that we are going to push it back is if we deal with some of these inherent costs,” Christie said during the latest stop on his “No Pain, No Gain: A Conversation at the Jersey Shore” tour.
“We have too many school boards. We have 565 municipalities, and we have over 600 school boards.
“Every one of those places has a mayor and council and has a CFO and administrator. They all have their own police force and own fire department.”
AccordingtoChristie,sincea2percentcap on increases in the tax levy was imposed in 2010, property taxes have increased by only 1.7 percent annually, significantly less than the 7 percent annual increase of the previous 10 years.
He said costs could decrease further if municipalities, particularly smaller ones, consolidate with their neighbors.
Sea Bright, which sustained heavy damage during Sandy and bears a large share of regional school taxes, formed a committee earlier this year to study consolidation with Monmouth Beach, Rumson and Middletown. While the study is ongoing, the borough is investigating opportunities for shared services.
Christie said residents often approach him on the topic but rarely think it is a good idea for their community.
“We have this weird thing in New Jersey — we all like our own little town and want to keep our own little town,” Christie said. “We like the name, we like the post office, and we want to keep that stuff.”
According to Christie, a bill promoting consolidation and shared services has passed the state Senate but has not been able to gain the approval of the Assembly. Christie also addressed pension and health insurance funding for public employees, which he said are both in debt by more than $40 billion.
“We spend less money today than we did seven years ago,” he said. “We have 6,000 fewer state employees today than we did the day I took the office in January 2010.”
However, Christie said there is still a $40 billion pension problem to fix.
“Next year, for the first time in New Jersey history, we will pay more for retirees’ benefits than we will pay for all of our active employees,” he said.
Christie said the state would have to raise $4 billion in additional tax revenues to make the required pension payments for the next four years.
“In the last four years, 60 cents of every new dollar we’ve had has gone to pension, public-sector health care and debt service,” he said. “That’s money that we don’t have to spend on education, on our hospitals and our health care system.”
The governor said he has put together a commission of nine experts charged with finding solutions to escalating pension and health benefit costs.
At the meeting, Christie took questions from audience members, including residents of Long Branch, Rumson, Eatontown and Monmouth Beach.
Some of the topics included alimony reform, taxes, small-business issues and workers’ compensation reform.
When asked if he would run for president in 2015, Christie said he has not yet decided.
Long Branch resident Bruce McCloud, whose home in the Beachfront North I zone was taken through eminent domain during the city’s redevelopment of the beachfront, asked Christie about the controversial use of eminent domain.
Christie, while not addressing the city issues directly, said his administration would use that power if necessary to ensure that dunes are built along the coastline as a protection against damage from storms like Sandy.
“I think eminent domain should be used very carefully and very sparingly, but when the public interest needs to be served by it, I think that is the way it should be used,” he said.
“We are building these dunes, and we are doing it because I never want to see again what I saw on Oct. 29, 2012.”