>Up-front costs causing towns to hit brakes on consolidation
A lack of third-party consultants and a scarcity of state funding could put the brakes on municipal consolidation efforts, a panel of experts from the Princetons, Merchantville and Cherry Hill said today at an event sponsored by Courage to Connect New Jersey, a nonprofit that educates residents about consolidation.
“In the three previous efforts to consolidate the Princetons, the citizen commissions didn’t bring on an independent consultant, which we’ve found has taken the public fear factor out of the process and contributed to a large part of our success this time around,” Princeton Township Mayor Chad Goerner said. “But our consultant cost about $76,000, and the state only paid $37,500. We also applied for state funding for the projected $1.7 million transition costs after getting approved to consolidate, but we haven’t heard back from them yet.” (Eder, NJBIZ)
