“I’m watching businesses leave our state. A lot of it is in the district I represent,” said Auth. “I totaled up all the county budgets throughout the state. It’s like $6.5 billion a year in New Jersey. That’s a lot of money.”
State Assemblyman Robert Auth thinks the Garden State Abolish Its County Government
by Michael Grass February 8, 2015
State Assemblyman Robert Auth thinks so and has proposed a first step to do just that. He’s introduced a measure that would direct a state commission to recommend ways to the legislature on how best to eliminate New Jersey’s counties.
“It’s just duplicative services,” Auth told The Star-Ledger. “The budget and the state’s economy are in such a bad way at this point that one of these local forms of government has to go. And in our state it would be county government.”
Auth thinks that the state government and municipal governments can provide the services that New Jersey’s 21 county governments provide.
Usually with the topic of local government consolidation, discussions revolve around municipalities dissolving or consolidating services with a county government—not the other way around.
John Donnadio, executive director of the New Jersey Association of Counties, told The Star-Ledger that “we should be looking at consolidating and dissolving municipalities as opposed to county government.”
New Jersey is a complicated place to say the least. It has 565 municipal governments, many of them concentrated in the northern part of the state, adjacent to New York City.
While Auth, who lives in Bergen County, might be frustrated with county government in North Jersey he may want to take a field trip to South Jersey.
https://www.govexec.com/state-local/2015/02/new-jersey-counties/104835/
So let me understand this.State Assemblyman Robert Auth wants to get rid of the County Government and John Donnadio, executive director of the New Jersey Association of Counties wants to get rid of the municipal government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Maybe we should get rid of both forms of government and let the feds do it.
Way too many municipal governments that should be consolidated.
Way too many Boards of Education they should be consolidated. Around 2/3 of your property taxes
This would be a great step. It would go a long way in eliminating the multi-layered and often over-lapping forms of Government. It’s a system that’s simply fuels the ongoing incentives to commit corruption.
Connecticut got rid of most of theirs 55 odd years ago… the state, as I understand it, is still functional.