Municipal Shared Services

Consolidating municipal services has been referred to as a sil-ver-bullet solution to curbing New Jersey's high property taxes, but because of the hodgepodge of civil service and non-civil service governed municipalities throughout the state, including within Atlantic County, consolidation isn't a simple feat.

In Atlantic County, neighboring towns often have opposing systems, limiting service-merging opportunities.

Within the civil service system, job positions are governed by the policies and procedures of the State Civil Service, typically requiring a State Civil Service test be taken and that applicants pass the specified test with a certifiable score.

Civil service municipalities must also adhere to the civil service commission's rules for hiring, promoting and firing its public employees, which is what causes a hurdle in consolidation of services.

Towns enter into civil service by passing a referendum, as many New Jersey towns had in decades past because the form of government gives automatic job preference to veterans
.

That "was a popular idea after the wars, when you had people coming back looking for jobs," Swain said, but in terms of consolidating services, it has shown to be an impediment.

If a civil service municipality were to merge a service with a non-civil service municipality, the latter would have to convert its employees in that department to civil service.

Atlantic County

Civil Service municipalities:

Atlantic City, Ventnor, Margate, Somers Point, Egg Harbor City, Buena Borough, Hammonton and Pleasantville

Non-Civil Service municipalities:

Longport, Linwood, Northfield, Egg Harbor Township Absecon, Brigantine, BuenaVistaTownship, Corbin City, Estell Manor, Folsom, Galloway Township, Hamilton Township, MullicaTownship, Port Republic and Weymouth Township

SHARED SERVICES vs. CONSOLIDATION

With shared services, one of the municipalities in the partnership takes on the duty of host, while the other or others become the receivers. The host takes care of paying the salaries of those associated with the service, while their receiver or receivers pays them a portion of the total service cost.

For example, Northfield and Linwood share a police chief, Robert James. Since Northfield is the host, James is on its payroll while Linwood pays Northfield a portion of his salary. The advantage of sharing the service is that the two cities share the cost, saving taxpayers' money. The service doesn't change, it just combines.

Consolidating services, however, means the departments would literally merge. For example, if Northfield and Somers point merged police departments, there would be one department, with fewer vehicles, officers and one building to maintain in terms of bills.

Entire article at

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/eedition/news/civil-service-rules-impede-town-mergers/article_47d5ff96-25ef-5cad-9c9c-6add871d584b.html