Last week the Mount Arlington, New Jersey, Township Council released a report from an independent consulting firm called Blue Shield Consulting Services. The purpose of commissioning the report was to ascertain whether or not the Mount Arlington Police Department should be merged with one of the surrounding localities. Since I grew up in Mount Arlington and my family still lives there (and I visit there quite often and have even thought about moving back at some point), I have some comments on this issue. But first, the rest of the story….
The report suggested that it would save Mount Arlington multiple millions of dollars to consolidate their police force with an adjoining municipality. There is a grassroots organization based out of Roxbury that disagrees, though (I think it’s Roxbury – the founder lives in Roxbury, but is a former Mount Arlington resident – not sure what the deal is here). On their website (saveMAPD.com), they show that they’ve got around 1140 signatures on an online petition. The problem with this, though, is that some of these petition signers are not Mount Arlington residents, but instead they are former residents like I am.
The folks behind saveMAPD.com commissioned a counter report that (obviously) disagreed with the Blue Shield Consulting Services report. As a side note, this just goes to show you that in the academic and consulting worlds you can get anyone to write you a report using facts that support your case! I think that’s obviously what happened with the saveMAPD.com folks, but I wonder if that’s how the Township Council prefaced their conversation with Blue Shield Consulting Services. Who knows this information besides those who are actually behind closed doors, right?
Anyway, that’s not my gripe with this situation. In fact, I don’t think I have a gripe with the situation as much as I have two comments to make about it all. First, the fact that consolidation of a police department that covers a few square miles is a debated issue has got to have our friends out in the Midwest and South rolling over with laughter. To those folks I say, “Welcome, friends, to New Jersey! This is a state that is made up of 566 fiefdoms that each fight, scratch, and claw for their territory! This is the state of the political bosses and good old boy system. This is – New Jersey!”
My second point is that you have to wonder about the legitimacy of the Township Council’s position on the consolidation. They’ve taken the stance that consolidating will save the township money. Okay, fine. As a student of public policy the very first thing you learn about taxes and local municipalities (and state governments for that matter) is that once they raise a tax rate, they NEVER lower it! Sure, you may have a few extreme examples from around the nation, but the chances of this “saved money” from the consolidation equating to a lower tax rate is slim at best.
So you have to competing sides arguing for two inherently awkward positions. New Jersey should be much more regionalized when it comes to service provisions. If done correctly, this would ease costs and (more importantly for those of us who live in the state) put an end to the abuse of power that is prevalent in the local police forces around New Jersey. At the same time, there will always be people who fight against regionalization because it means that some jurisdiction is going to lose some measure of power. Further, some folks will have hurt feelings about losing fiefdom-specific services.
My issue is that no matter what happens the one thing that you can be sure of is that the tax rate will NOT go down – and THAT, folks, is something worth getting mad about.
Joe,
I am afraid you are correct about he taxes. But in NJ you have way too many chiefs for the the rank and file. Consolidation of everything regionally would at least put a dent in the tax situation. Many areas of northern NJ have regional high schools, this was don mostly out of necessity because of the small municipality sizes. However, the municipalities still have to have a superintendent of schools. I believe it is Neptune down your way has a superintendent but no schools, does this make sense? I say we need to start somewhere, and with police that would be fine. HAving worked in a police department that promoted heavily, I can tell you too many chiefs is what is raising our taxes.
I don’t know if it’s Neptune – they’ve got quite a bit of schools in town.
There is a town down the shore here that has a school board and no schools, though. That’s a stroke of genius!
I stumbled across your blog and I have a few comments. #1, you can probably get anyone to write a report that supports a particular position as with the Blue Shield Report. However, in the case of the Cusack/Martinez report comissioned by SaveMAPD.com, we had absolutely NO leverage since they offered to write the report for free after they read how poorly the Blue Shield report was written and conducted. When 2 experts tell you they will write a report for free, there really is no leverage and you can count on it being truly unbiased. Not only was the SaveMAPD.com report truly unbiased, but it was backed up with sufficient facts, evidience and information to support its conclusions. The only truly unbiased report, is a free report….
Hi David – glad you found us! The root of my problem with the entire situation up in Mount Arlington is the tax issue (and this is a problem that I’ve seen in other areas around the nation, too). No matter whether or not the police forces are merged or maintained or something else, the tax rate will not go down. That’s a shame and it’s something that citizens should be angry about.
You’ve done a good job of advocating for the maintenance of the Mount Arlington Police Department – I’d like to see someone take the same vigor in advocating for the tax rate to be lowered.
Anyway, it sounds like the police force being merged is no longer an issue up in Mount Arlington – congratulations on the success of your campaign!
Yes, you’re right..that is a totally different issue. “My” issue has a successful outcome and it would require a new effort to address the “tax” issue. As you mention in your blog, I am not a resident of Mt. Arlington (I live in the neighboring town), but have lived in MTA for 20+ years and my parents and grandmother still live there so I had a vested interest in doing what I thought was best for MTA with regard to police services. If and when I move back into MTA, I might choose to begin a movement to investiage why legal and engineering fees in MTA are “through the roof”. IN a town of 5,500, there is no valid reason that a town needs to pay more in legal and engineering fees than the entire budge of the MTA Police Dept.! If residents of MTA really want to save money, real money, the price tag for engineering fees and legal fees really need to be investiaged. I think in this case, the mayor and council simply chose to look to try and save money in the wrong place…they chose to try and save money in the most well run and efficient department in MTA…doesn’t make sense. Thanks and good luck to you.