PACKET EDITORIAL, July 28
By: Packet Editorial
Why does New Jersey need county government?
This heretical thought came to us recently when we received the umpteenth copy of the agenda of an upcoming meeting of the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Glancing through it, we wondered whether there is a single service performed by county government that couldn’t be delivered just as efficiently and effectively by a governmental entity that is one level above or one level below the county.
Think about it. The framers of the U.S. Constitution established three levels of government: federal, state and local. Our New Jersey forebears, in their wisdom, inserted a fourth level, between state and local, and gave it a hodgepodge of responsibilities that it continues to exercise more out of tradition than modern-day utility.
The county highway system, for example, developed when some towns wanted to blacktop their main thoroughfares and others wanted to keep theirs as dirt roads; in the interest of promoting a regional transportation network, the county took over maintenance of certain highways that crossed municipal boundaries. Similarly, municipal trolley and bus lines that linked fast-growing communities within a region became part of county public-transit systems. Garbage collection and disposal, sewer and water services, community colleges and other regional activities also lent themselves to county oversight or operation.
In its heyday, county government also provided a host of agricultural services, administered a wide array of health and welfare programs, assured equitability in the assessment of property taxes and ran much of the judicial system.
That was then. This is now.
Today, the judiciary has been taken over almost entirely by the state. Tax equitability is assured by the state. Health and agricultural services are provided by the state. Welfare (as we know it) is administered by the state.
Those old municipal trolley and bus lines that were taken over by the counties several decades ago have since been taken over by NJ Transit. Water and sewer services are provided by private companies and utilities authorities that operate independent of county government. Numerous court decisions have stripped counties of their authority to control garbage collection and disposal.
Community colleges are still organized at the county level (and, with a couple of exceptions, still go by the name of the county in which they are located), but they operate, for all practical purposes, under administrative and pedagogical dictates established by the state. And the only characteristic that distinguishes a county highway from a state highway is a pentagonal sign with a three-digit number starting with a 5 or a 6 – and even parts of some of those highways are maintained by the state.
It would be one thing if county governments in New Jersey had the wherewithal to function as true regional entities, equipped with the statutory authority and financial resources necessary to overcome municipal rivalries, manage growth, preserve open space, equalize tax burdens and provide for the efficient delivery of important public services to residents across municipal lines. But county governments in New Jersey have little legislative authority and even less taxing power. They offer neither the carrot nor the stick that can motivate municipalities, or their residents, to think of them as anything more than redundant and unnecessary.
Some years ago, Connecticut abolished county government. The state took over most of the duties and responsibilities from the counties; the municipalities assumed the rest. Few citizens noticed the change. New Jersey, a state of similar size and population density, might want to take a close look at Connecticut’s experience. We just might find a lesson in civics that’s appropriate to the 21st century.