Commission approves debt consolidation

The commission, composed of 10 representatives from the Borough and the Township, is meeting regularly over several months to consider the practical advantages and disadvantages of consolidating the two municipalities under one government.

The commission voted unanimously to make a recommendation that, if consolidated, the two municipalities would combine their debts and manage a single debt under one system of taxation.

“When we went through the numbers, the differential was so minor that we felt that [a single consolidated debt] was the more appropriate way to go,” said Chad Goerner, Township mayor and chair of the commission’s finance subcommittee.

In previous meetings, the commission had considered alternate plans for combining the municipalities’ existing debts, including preserving two segregated debts and paying them off separately to allow former Borough and Township properties to be taxed at different rates.

William Metro, chair of the commission’s subcommittee on the police department, also reaffirmed the subcommittee’s plan to reduce the headcount of total officers in a consolidated department.

Several commission members, however, said they were disappointed and thought the subcommittee on the police department was unprepared to make its recommendation for the organizational structure of the consolidated police department.

“The issue is the need to create the appropriate overhead infrastructure, and we haven’t gotten into what that model would be,” Metro said.

“We really need to have that recommendation at the next meeting,” commission chair Anton Lahnston said.

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The police department subcommittee is also working on plans for a shared dispatch system.

The municipal consolidation subcommittee recommended against the establishment of wards, or administrative districts, within the consolidated Princeton.

Under a ward system, the new Princeton municipality would be divided into four ward districts. The municipality’s six-member legislative council would be composed of one member elected from each of the four wards and two members elected by the entire municipality.

Bernard Miller, chair of the municipal consolidation subcommittee, said the ward system could pose significant disadvantages to the community.

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Wards would be drawn by a ward commission from the county level, not by local residents, Miller said, and “voters would be approving a ward form of government without approving where the wards would be.”

The commission reaffirmed its recommendation of the Borough form of government for a consolidated Princeton in response to some public concerns.

The municipalities, once consolidated, would be able to ask the state legislature to approve a hybrid form of government.

“If we consolidate and the community thinks of a hybrid that it would like, the community can pursue a charter reform, pursue approval by the legislature,” Borough Councilman David Goldfarb said.

The engineering departments, if consolidated, may be a source of savings. Even if the committee does not recommend municipal consolidation for the November ballot, the public works committee is considering restructuring the Borough and Township engineering departments into one jointly administered department.

“If it’s a consolidation and the engineering is consolidated, we have the opportunity of doing the work in-house that we’re currently contracting out; that provides a possible $160,000 in savings,” Valerie Haynes, chair of the public works subcommittee, said.

In the next week, the public works subcommittee will be meeting with representatives from the Borough and Township recreation departments to assess the possible savings on shared facilities and equipment.

The community engagement subcommittee also reported on its first focus group, which was composed of randomly selected representatives from the district and aimed to collect community feedback. The second focus group will meet tomorrow tonight.

Communiversity, a community event to be hosted by the University on April 30, will be the community engagement subcommittee’s most visible public outreach effort. Carol Golden, chair of the subcommittee, announced plans to manage a booth representing the commission and answering community members’ questions about consolidation issues.

The commission is in the process of making issue-by-issue recommendations in preparation for a public presentation on May 25. If the commission still wishes to pursue consolidation after the May 25 meeting, it will ask the Center for Governmental Research to prepare a final report, which the commission will consult in its final decision of whether or not to recommend that a referendum on consolidation be placed on the November ballot.