Local Innovation: Somerset County Plans Police Consolidation

This is what I like to see, Save Jerseyans. Somerset County is working out a plan to combine the county’s 19 police forces into one countywide police department. The ambitious measure would save the municipalities as much as 18 million dollars per year, and with the way costs continue to rise, possibly even more.

The county has asked the separate departments to nominate 2 members each to an advisory board that will spend the next six months working out the feasibility, costs, and benefits of this plan. The task force will not just work the plan out in an abstract manner, but instead will be actually devising patrol schedules, standardizing procedures across the county, and even integrating the different labor contracts.

The plan would also call for a reduction in the police force by 86 cops, who would be cut through attrition over 5 years. Unlike many of the other cities and counties in New Jersey who are cutting police forces, Somerset County is likely to be one of the safest locations in the state. However, that is not to say that some are not concerned about the cuts.

A shared service police force would be a huge boost to efficiency in one of the most expensive sectors of municipal spending throughout the state. While the plan may not be perfect (which is why the six months are necessary, as well as a transitional period where I am sure more issues will need to be worked out) it is exactly what needs to be put on display in a state with the highest property taxes in the nation. If this experiment works out well, I would expect that other counties, in our state and in others, would eagerly adopt a similar strategy of their own.

Wouldn’t they be crazy not to? The cap on property taxes is not going anywhere, and although it is not a hard cap, municipalities are going to struggle to stay within the bounds that begin next year. Somerset County should be commended for its effort, there are plenty of counties in this state (mine included) who do so little in the way of innovation but ask for so much in the way of taxes. Local governments need to be open to giving up control of certain parts of their miniature fiefdoms in the name of fiscal responsibility in what are surely challenging times ahead.

Brian McGovern
About Brian McGovern 748 Articles
Brian McGovern wears many hats these days including Voorhees Township GOP Municipal Chairman, South Jersey attorney, and co-owner of the Republican campaign consulting firm Exit 3 Strategies, Inc.