Contrary to popular belief, Buena Vista Township and other rural communities do pay for State Police services. Buena Vista Township gives the state of New Jersey almost $20,000 a year from court fines, most of which come from the State Police. Our community is allowed to keep the court costs only, while passing the fines on to the state. Communities that have their own police departments actually keep most of the court fines, which go toward funding their court and local police. Troop A headquarters for the New Jersey State Police is located in our township. They do not pay property taxes or a host fee to our local government.

Buena Vista is also restricted by Pinelands regulations that limit our growth and ratable base, making it nearly impossible to cover the ever-increasing costs to provide services to our residents.

We would gladly pay our own way with police services if we had the freedoms that other communities have. Don't penalize our community by cutting both state aid and attempting to charge us for State Police services.

TERESA KELLY

Deputy Mayor

Buena Vista Township

'Stupid committee'

strikes again'

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at the rally to save the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. At that time, I said that Gov. Jon S. Corzine must have convened a "stupid committee" that advised him to do the following: send sex offenders to southern New Jersey, eliminate the Department of Agriculture in the Garden State, close Parvin State Park and shut down the Motor Vehicles Commission in Vineland, southern New Jersey's largest city, and send folks to Bridgeton.

Well, this "committee" strikes again, and for the sake of being non-offensive, I will refer to this committee as the "North Jersey bad advice committee." The newest idea is to make our rural communities pay for their use of the State Police. Are you joking, governor? We already pay for the State Police with our taxes. Do you want us to pay twice?

May I humbly suggest to the governor and his "committee" that southern New Jersey is not just Camden - which, by the way, gets millions of dollars of our tax money as well as the State Police to assist its municipal police force. The residents of Cumberland County don't need our State Police siphoned off to Camden. State Police are needed here to protect our rural communities. We don't need to be the dumping ground for ways to balance the state budget. I implore the governor to treat southern New Jersey as he would want to be treated if he actually lived here, and for a change, stand up for southern New Jersey.

ARTHUR MARCHAND

Cumberland County Surrogate

Bridgeton

Dennis Township

can't afford patrols

Regarding the May 11 editorial, "State Police: Finding a fair solution," which addressed rural southern New Jersey communities being required to pay for State Police service:

The Press referred to Dennis Township as a "wealthy community." Perhaps a different perspective can be offered on this matter.

Dennis Township is a classic example of a rural community. The township budget is about $5 million a year. The township has diligently created budgets that are efficient and cut costs when feasible. The result is the lowest local purpose tax of any town that levies such a tax in Cape May County. In addition, more than 50 percent of the township is wetlands, pinelands, etc., and therefore owned and regulated by the state and federal government.

Five state roads dissect Dennis Township: Route 9, Route 47, Route 83, Route 347 and the Garden State Parkway. It is simply wrong to demand Dennis Township residents pay New Jersey to safeguard and patrol property and roads that the state owns and operates.

Hopefully, at minimum, The Press of Atlantic City will at least recognize the absurdity of this proposal and the unfair burden it would place on Dennis residents.

But the reprieve might be short-lived. The state is expected to revisit the issue in six months, in time for rural towns to strike their 2009 budgets.

"It's a temporary get-out-of-jail-free pass," Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello said.

He and Woodbine Mayor William Pikolycky served on a special committee examining the issue for the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.

The state's 2008-09 budget still earmarks $20.9 million in fees on rural towns for the State Police coverage they receive. The state spends $80 million on these patrols, Corzine spokesman Jim Gardiner said.

Since the state budget operates on a fiscal year, the municipalities will have to pay in early 2009.

"The short answer is the budget still assumes the $20.9 million reimbursement of State Police services," he said.

The state also is pursuing reimbursement from Camden and Irvington, which rely on supplemental State Police patrols, he said.

Hope Township Mayor Timothy McDonough said the league received word from the state Treasurer's Office about a compromise. The state would back off the proposal this year with the goal of charging towns next year.

This is hardly the end of the dispute. Rural towns say their tax bases are too small to support the fees, last estimated at around $330 per household. This will lead to enormous tax hikes.

"I'm trying to be realistic here," Hope Township Mayor Timothy McDonough said. "The State Police was formed in 1921 to patrol the rural areas. Why was that? They didn't have the commercial or residential bases to support their own police departments."

McDonough said his rural town in Warren County's dairy country enacted zoning rules to protect its bucolic charm. As a result, the township has little private business to prop up taxes.

Rural towns in Atlantic and Cape May counties face similar problems imposed by state regulations protecting the 1.1-million-acre Pinelands National Reserve. These regulations keep wealthy factories and industrial businesses out of towns such as Woodbine or Buena Vista Township.

"I can't say how difficult it is bringing a new store or new ratable here because of these restrictions," Chiarello said.

Likewise, proposals to expand the role of county sheriffs offices have not gone very far.

He said the township might be willing to contribute a fair and reasonable amount for policing but the current proposal would hike taxes by more than 20 percent.

He thinks a better way would be to strike a formula based on each town's property base. Under that system, a wealthier town such as Upper Township would pay more than a smaller, poorer town such as Woodbine.

State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, said one solution might be to increase the fines levied on lawbreakers.

"Who should pay for this? People using the system and breaking the law? Or people who are just taxpayers already paying high property taxes?" he said. "It should be people using the system. For example, if you have a repeat DUI, that should carry a very expensive surcharge."

Unfortunately, the state is now trying to play hardball with the small rural communities, telling us that we will now pay approximately $330 per household. The state is looking to collect $20 million from 89 towns. There are six rural towns here in Atlantic County. While the state in general has exploded with growth, I know the six towns in Atlantic County have not. Five out of the six are very quiet towns. Estell Manor and Port Republic have the lowest crime rate in Atlantic County, and with Estell Manor being 53 square miles, we may be the lowest crime rated town in New Jersey. The State Police patrol where crime activity occurs. So what would my town be paying for in return for a low State Police presence? State Highway 50 runs through my town. The state asking us to pay them to patrol their own highway amounts to nothing less than highway robbery. Not to mention the state owns more than 54 percent of our city.

My city of Estell Manor is targeted as a Pinelands preservation district because of the vast amount of water our city has from the Cohansey Aquifer. As the state is considering putting a referendum question on the ballot this year to create a tax on water, perhaps Estell Manor should put a tax on the state for preserving our drinking water that much of New Jersey enjoys. After all, Trenton keeps talking about what it fair.

Speaking of being fair, will the shore communities pay for the Marine Police patrols? Will Camden, Newark, and other larger cities who have their own police departments pay for all of the State Police patrols in their cities? Will Jersey City pay for the Homeland Security units in their city? Will any town that utilizes the services of the State Police Crime Lab pay for evidence sent there for analysis?

What Trenton is doing to my town and the others is banditry and illegal. Is Trenton willing to break the law to squeeze us? Commit extortion? I proposed a solution last year to the Attorney General: Create a surcharge in all municipal courts for all guilty verdicts. That surcharge should be called a State Police Assessment Fee. Put this fee on those who create the need for police services, instead of those that do not. Trenton does keep all traffic fines. Local municipalities do not. We have been paying all along.

Trenton should also eliminate the nearly 1,000 political patronage jobs, in which those no-show employees receive in excess of $100,000 not including their benefit package. That would save more than $100 million dollars that could be shaved off this year's budget, plus the millions for surcharges from the courts.

If my last two sentences were inserted into the Goldman Sacs Financial accounting practices, perhaps Trenton would take notice.

The Pinelands Commission suggested raising the fees last month to offset cuts in state funding. The commission expects to lose $926,000 in 2009 and about $1.1 million in 2010. The proposed changes range from a new $200 fee for a single-family home to $9,375 to build a new municipal building. The fee hikes are expected to generate about $70,000, said Paul Leakan, a Pinelands Commission spokesman.

Egg Harbor Township, Estell Manor and Galloway Township officials oppose the idea and stated the increase would put a financial hardship on local governments, builders and, ultimately, taxpayers. Egg Harbor and Galloway townships passed resolutions against the proposal last week; Estell Manor approved one May 7. Hamilton Township is considering similar resolution and Assemblymen John Amodeo and Vince Polistina, both R-Atlantic, sent out letters last month urging other municipalities to join in. The resolutions are symbolic and are not legally binding.

Egg Harbor Township Mayor James "Sonny" McCullough said he has no sympathy for the Pinelands Commission because many communities are experiencing state-aid cuts. McCullough noted the township, along with other high-development zones, such as Hamilton and Galloway, had to spend money for years to expand the municipal building, schools and recreational parks to meet the population boom.

"They want to charge a municipality a fee to review our (future) building plans? Here they are, forcing all this growth on us and creating more financial problems for us," McCullough said.

Hamilton Township Mayor Charles Pritchard said he is concerned the fee increases would affect commercial and residential development and the local budget. While Hamilton Township does not plan to erect a new municipal building, Pritchard said it might expand the Public Works yard.

Galloway Township Mayor Tom Bassford said his community faces the same problem. "They force growth on you and then when you want commercial development they make it so expensive and cumbersome a lot of developments do not want to deal with them," he said.

Galloway's resolution said the Pinelands Commission should streamline the building process "to jump start growth and job creation" and "cut the size of the bureaucracy." Estell Manor's resolution called for the commission to clear up the backlog in development applications "before asking the taxpayers for more money."

Buena Vista Mayor Chuck Chiarello, who is chairman of the Pinelands Municipal Council, said the fee hike has been an important issue among many towns and it was the topic of discussion at a meeting Wednesday. The council, which is comprised of the 53 mayors, reviews changes to the rules that govern the Pinelands region. On Wednesday, it created a subcommittee to review the fee increases, and the subcommittee plans to meet with Pinelands Commission members about the issue July 30.

Chiarello said the council and his township have not taken a stance yet. On a personal level, Chiarello said he understands the frustrations both sides feel on the issue. Chiarello noted that fee hikes aren't unusual, although he did have a problem with the commission setting up new building fees for municipalities and questioned whether the proposed increases are comparable to that of other state agencies who handle development applications.

"In this day and age, nobody is in favor of anything going up," Chiarello said. "Unfortunately, that doesn't stop things from going up."

To e-mail Michelle Lee:

MLee@pressofac.com

TO LEARN MORE

To review a copy of the plan to raise fees on development applications, visit

www.nj.gov/pinelands

"There was no estimation or standards to give credits to rural areas," said East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser, president of the state League of Municipalities. He led off the discussion at Tuesday's league-sponsored Property Tax Relief Restoration Summit.

"It just appears they didn't really look at the statistics when they said, 'This is it,'" Bowser said.

But state Treasurer David Rousseau said it was unrealistic for towns to expect more aid when schools and hospitals also face steep budget cuts.

He defended the state's decision last week to use an unexpected $533 million to pay down debt rather than spend on operating costs, saying it reduced debt payments by $133 million.

Using the money this year would have only pushed debt problems back a year, when revenue is expected to be less than previously anticipated.

He also said that if legislators do not pass an early retirement package for state employees, then the projected $135 million savings will have to come from elsewhere.

The state's $32.8 billion budget included $168.3 million in proposed municipal aid cuts. These included $37 million to towns smaller than 10,000 people.

But with the state agreeing to increase aid to the 280 smallest towns by $14.9 million last week, the crowd of displeased local officials at the War Memorial was about half the size of similar league-sponsored events this spring.

The new state aid figures add $946,271 to 32 towns in The Press of Atlantic City's coverage area of Atlantic, Cumberland, Cape May and southern Burlington and southern Ocean counties. Two-thirds of it goes to 23 towns the state initially told that a portion of their aid, called CMPTRA, was being eliminated.

The big winners were Cape May County's Woodbine and Atlantic County's Egg Harbor City and Buena Borough. Each town will get more than $90,000 from the state after initially expecting zero CMPTRA funding.

But another 14 area towns targeted for zero CMPTRA funding will get no money back. All but Cape May County's Dennis Township and Atlantic County's Port Republic are shore communities.

State officials Tuesday said cuts were widespread and reflect an uneasy time.

"The world has changed, ladies and gentlemen. The world has changed for each and every one of us," said Assembly Republican Budget Officer Joseph R. Malone, R-Ocean, Monmouth, Burlington, Middlesex. "The economy of the state is in such a recession that unless we do something, the questions will not be restoration; it will be a question of how we are going to function."

But small town officials still faced concerns. Marianne Smith, the township manager for Hardyston Township, Sussex County, said unfunded mandates cost the town more than $100,000 annually, as she gave the panel a pair of spreadsheets listing the specific municipal and school district costs.

Local officials said they have their own worries.

Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello worried how a state goal to have towns pay 25 percent of State Police costs would affect the township. Buena Vista would have to raise its taxes by about $0.10 per $100 assessed value to cover the roughly $200,000 cost, he said.

Facing a state-driven 14.1-cent tax-rate hike, Chiarello said last week's extra $20,324 would lower taxes by about 0.75 cents.

Atlantic City Business Administrator Carol A. Fredericks said bigger towns could look inward for savings. She said internal analyses have said the resort could save more than $1 million in various ways. "We don't come to the state until we have gotten our own house in order," she said.

Woodbine Mayor Bill Pikolycky said even though the borough will get 164,410 in CMPTRA funding, up from nothing, Woodbine faces a roughly 35 percent state aid cut.

"This is when the fairness that everyone is talking about should be applied," he said.

To e-mail Derek Harper at The Press:

dharper@pressofac.com

AID RESTORATION

The state Department of Community Affairs announced Friday that it would restore $14.9 million of the $37 million cut to towns smaller than 10,000 people. These towns will see the biggest increases.

Town Increase New Total

Atlantic County

Buena Borough$91,339$91,339

Egg Harbor City$114,962$114,962

Mullica Township$30,178$138,821

Northfield$33,272 $153,057

Gov. Jon S. Corzine's proposal to require rural towns to pay for State Police coverage is not the first, but may be the most serious attempt yet to force small towns to either set up their own police force or pay for the state to provide protection. The issue is one of basic fairness: Most New Jersey taxpayers pay for their own local police force through property taxes, then pay again in state taxes to subsidize police coverage in some small towns.

At one time, this may not have been a problem. But with the state's budget crisis - and with some of these rural areas growing into more sizable, semi-suburban communities - it is no longer fair or sensible. In addition, many of these small towns are contiguous and could consider a regional solution.

Buena Vista Township, Weymouth Township, Estell Manor, Folsom, Mullica Township and Egg Harbor City are doing just that. The firt four use State Police; Mullica and Egg Harbor City now pay for their own police. They are using a $20,000 state grant to study the best way to provide regional protection. One option being considered is having the Atlantic County Sheriff's Office provide coverage. A fee formula must be part of that study: Sheriff Jim McGettigan pointed out - rightly - that it wouldn't be fair to have the eastern part of the county pay for the sheriff to patrol the western portion.

That being said, this is the kind of solution that other towns that rely on State Police should be exploring now. Heck, they should have explored it years ago.

Corzine is proposing to require the 89 communities that rely on State Police to collectively pay $20.5 million for protection. The formula to work out how much each community would pay has not yet been drawn up, but is expected out next week, according to spokesmen for the state Treasury Department and attorney general.

That formula is essential. The rationale for requiring small towns to pay for State Police protection is one of fairness - and that rationale is undermined if the pain is not spread fairly as well.

The Office of Legislative Services has issued a report breaking down the payments. OLS apparently used a formula proposed but never adopted two years ago that was anything but fair in southern New Jersey. That formula exempted two of the wealthiest and most populated towns in southern New Jersey without a police force - Upper Township and Dennis Township - from any payment, simply because they were in Cape May County, where wealth along the coastline wildly skewed the numbers. Upper, by the way, has a municipal tax rate of zero. Meanwhile, relatively poor towns like Buena Vista Township got socked. The inequity was not lost on Buena Vista and certain other towns two years ago. They squawked - loudly.

WOODLAND TOWNSHIP - Canoes, cranberries and crime?

Driving along Chatsworth Road in Woodland Township, Burlington County, bogs and boat rental sites are frequent sights; criminal activity is not.

But the township, home to Ocean Spray bogs, a slew of campgrounds and the annual Cranberry Festival, has a crime rate higher than any of the 24 southern New Jersey towns patrolled by New Jersey State Police, according to the past seven Uniform Crime Reports.

Woodland is not among the nine local towns that would start paying for police protection under the proposed state budget.

On average, the 14 southern New Jersey towns that would not pay for State Police coverage under the proposal are slightly larger, less populated, tax residents less for local services and have a lower crime rate and higher assessed land value than those that would pay, according to Uniform Crime Report data.

Expected to pay a combined $3.21 million for State Police services are Estell Manor and Folsom in Atlantic County, Bass River and Washington townships in Burlington County, and Commercial, Downe, Fairfield, Lawrence and Maurice River townships in Cumberland County. The average crime rate in those towns is 20.11 crimes per 1,000 people, compared with 17.99 per 1,000 in towns that would not pay under the proposal.

In all, 89 rural municipalities would contribute $20.5 million to fund rural State Police patrols under the proposed state budget. In addition, those paying towns must hand over a surcharge: $330 per housing unit.

The state Attorney General's Office does not anticipate effects on Corbin City, Port Republic and Buena Vista and Weymouth townships in Atlantic County, Woodbine and Dennis and Upper townships in Cape May County, Shiloh, Deerfield, Hopewell, Stow Creek and Upper Deerfield townships in Cumberland County, Eagleswood Township in Ocean County or Woodland Township.

State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones cautioned against using crime rates to gauge policing needs.

"I've patrolled very rural areas," Jones said. "Those campgrounds have full-time residents, and some of those areas tend to be areas with higher levels of crime like trespassing and simple assault."

Also common in rural areas are charges for trespassing on all-terrain vehicles, Jones said. Indeed, in a section of Woodland off Route 72, roads change 300 feet north of the highway from asphalt to dirt, and signs warning ATV's to slow down and keep out are far more frequently encountered than people.

At 530 people, Corbin City is the smallest of the state-policed towns. Upper Township has the largest population, at 12,115. Upper also boasts the highest assessed land value but does not collect a local purpose tax from its residents.

Upper Township Mayor Richard Palombo said population and land area - Upper is fourth-largest geographically among local rural towns - aren't necessarily great indicators of policing needs, especially in areas with high proportions of open space and state land also patrolled by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Palombo said he and officials in nearby communities started to explore cost-cutting options shortly after the state announced municipal aid would be cut in 2009, and merging court systems is still on the table.

Rumors that Upper would be among the 89 towns statewide that might have to pay for State Police patrols prompted local leaders to start researching at what point it would become cost-prohibitive should they have to pay, he said.

"We can't help but plan ahead," Palombo said. "We'd be shirking our responsibility if we didn't."

It was the first time Upper Township considered starting its own force, as the people are satisfied with the job done by State Police, Palombo said, and keeping them would have been the communities' first choice.

The last time a community moved away from State Police protection to start its own department happened so long ago that no one from the State Police's Trenton headquarters knows when it last happened, according to Jones.