Consolidation Commission finalizes recommendations

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The Joint Consolidation/Shared Services Study Commission finalized its recommendations for consolidating the Borough and Township’s police and public works departments at a meeting on Tuesday evening.

If the commission votes to recommend consolidation on May 25 and both governing bodies approve the ballot measure, a referendum on consolidation will appear on the November ballot. It would have to pass with a majority in both the Borough and the Township to take effect.

Borough Councilman David Goldfarb, a member of the finance subcommittee and candidate for Borough mayor, suggested the commission recommend two referendums, one in support of full consolidation and one in support of a shared services program.

If the consolidation referendum were to fail but the shared services referendum was passed in both municipalities, the commission’s recommended program of shared services would become binding, he explained.

Township Mayor Chad Goerner, chairman of the finance subcommittee, said the commission was not formed with the authority to propose two referenda.

“As the one that worked together with both municipalities to develop the proposal for the [commission], it was clear to me that the intent of the governing bodies was the intent to have either the consolidation referendum on the ballot or a shared services referendum either for public works and police or, singularly, police,” Goerner said.

Commission member Patrick Simon said he did not believe a referendum for shared services could be written to become binding on the municipalities, noting that shared services arrangements can be established and dissolved by the existing municipal governments without a popular referendum.

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The commission voted to finalize the plan recommended by the police department, in which an initial combined force of 60 sworn officers would be gradually reduced to 51 over a period of up to three years.

The combined department would enhance the departments’ current services by establishing officer positions dedicated to certain roles, including two traffic officers and three community service officers.

“Essentially, it’s based on attrition rather than layoffs,” Ryan Lilienthal, a member of the police subcommittee, explained. Subcommittee chairman Bill Metro was unable to attend the meeting.

Lilienthal explained that the schedule of reducing the department’s headcount allowed for the force to shrink naturally, as several officers will likely soon leave the two forces after becoming eligible for retirement.

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Yet Goldfarb said the attrition-based approach was inconsistent with the method used to reduce staff in other departments.

“We would be making a decision based on our unwillingness to lay off police officers, when, in fact, many of the recommendations outside of the police department that we have discussed in other areas would require layoffs in the short term,” Goldfarb said.

“During the initial period, there is a very interesting concern about maintaining the level of supervision during the change,” Lilienthal said. “I don’t believe that the other recommendations in any single department would be impacted by a change of staff size like we would see in the police force.”

Goldfarb and commission member Patrick Simon voted against finalizing the recommendation for a shared service police department.

“I agree with all of the recommendations. I believe that, with a little more work, we could have a specific proposal that would be prepared to be placed on the ballot,” Goldfarb said, adding that he hoped to see a shared service plan emerge that was detailed enough to stand as an independent referendum.

The commission also finalized the recommendations of the public works subcommittee, despite reservations from the public works departments and some commission members.

The recommended model for consolidation would consolidate both municipalities’ engineering, public works, recreation maintenance and sewer operating functions into a single department.

The subcommittee does not recommend a shared service program for public works.

“[Public works staff members] still have strong reservations about being included in this overall structure,” public works subcommittee chairwoman Valerie Haynes said, noting that staff members had cited concerns about decreased departmental autonomy regarding staffing decisions and a loss of responsiveness. “It’s given us some pause,” Haynes said. “We’ve had some hesitation.”

She suggested “that on day one of January 2012, that recreation not be incorporated in the municipality, but that the future governing body would keep this option as something they were looking toward and, as the opportunity presented itself, perhaps to make the change over time.”

“I’d prefer just to resist that kind of decree, because, if you yield once, you’re going to hear it from everybody,” Goldfarb said in response.

Carol Golden, chairwoman of the community engagement subcommittee, said the public works departments’ reservations may influence popular opinion on consolidation and voted against finalizing the recommendation.

“I feel very strongly that this could kill consolidation,” Golden said, explaining that the department is so beloved that voters “are not going to vote for consolidation if they think it’s going to wreck the [recreation] department ... I really think we would shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Golden also suggested that the commission not include the public works consolidation proposal as a part of the referendum but rather make a recommendation to the governing body of the new municipality to consider consolidating the recreation department.

“I wouldn’t fall on my sword to put [recreation] under this super-umbrella,” Jim Pascale, administrator of the Township administration department, said. He said he considered the span of oversight control written into the recommendation to be too great and that it would reduce the department’s flexibility.

The commission postponed finalizing the finance subcommittee’s recommendations, instead arranging for a final finance meeting on Monday. However, the commission reviewed the data for tax impact of consolidation for both the Borough and the Township.

Goldfarb said he thought the report’s presentation of the data overrepresented the potential savings to Borough residents because it was based on real estate property values that oscillated and were currently at a high point.

“I believe that it is both misleading and is there because we are trying to present the greatest possible benefit [of consolidation] to the community,” Goldfarb said.

“When you say ‘intentionally misleading,’ it bothers me,” commission chairman Anthony Lahnston said. “As the chairman of the commission, it bothers me a lot.”

“We need to do this inside of a snapshot in time,” Goerner said. “If we take the equalization ratio differentials that we have today, there is an effect at this point in time that adjusts the tax baseline lower for the average Borough resident.” He added that all the figures in the report were calculated based on current tax levels.