N.J. Education Dept. offers advice on merging small towns

A New Jersey commission that wants tiny towns to merge yesterday got tips from the state Department of Education, which this month began folding small school districts into larger ones nearby.

Gov. Corzine last year began to push mergers and shared services between public entities as a way to eliminate duplication and reduce taxes. The state has 566 municipalities, the most per square mile in the country, and 616 school districts.

State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy appeared before the Local Unit Alignment Reorganization and Consolidation Commission (LUARC) yesterday to explain the hurdles she had to overcome before she was able to merge 13 school districts on July 1. They were consolidated under a law that mandated elimination of nonoperating school districts - those that pay tuition to send their children to larger districts. Another 13 districts are scheduled for mergers next year.

"For four decades we've been talking about eliminating those school districts," Davy said. Some, such as Tavistock in Camden County, have as few as three students, she said.

LUARC commissioners smiled and nodded, recalling that a similar amount of time has passed since studies and plans to reduce the glut of municipalities had failed to produce results. In recent months, the group has considered 34 to 36 possible pairings, including Medford Lakes and Medford Township; Riverton and Palmyra; Bordentown Township and Bordentown City; Pennsauken and Merchantville; Hi-Nella and Stratford; and Swedesboro and Woolwich.

Gary J. Passanante, a LUARC commissioner, said that seven or eight pairs or groups of municipalities are expected to be chosen by next month so that discussions can begin with local officials. The mergers would require voter approval, said Passanante, who explained that they must involve compatible towns and must yield cost savings through elimination of inefficiences. Passanante is mayor of Stratford, a small town in Camden County.

"We need a win," said Commissioner Robert F. Casey, who said a wave of successful mergers could serve as a model for other communities.

Casey said that the proposed mergers for towns and school districts should be the same.

"If you're moving in one direction, and we're moving in another, we're not going to win voters over," he said, explaining that full-town mergers would include schools, by law.

Davy agreed, especially because the Department of Education's next step is to get school districts that send their children to regional high schools to come together as one K-12 district. Those mergers, she said, must be approved by voters, and she welcomed working with the commission to swing public sentiment in favor of the consolidations.

"Unless we can make a compelling case, we're not likely to have a lot of success" in persuading voters to make changes, Davy said.

She said she planned to emphasize how children from various elementary districts - which may have different approaches to education - suffer when they attend a regional high school. She also aims to zero in on money wasted by duplication of school administrators, human resources personnel, reading coordinators, and other staff.

"It will require some salesmanship," she said.

Passanante agreed that solid data and the art of persuasion will be needed to break down barriers created by the tradition of home rule.

Officials in some little municipalities, he said, are happy with a small-town atmosphere and their volunteer staffs, but that's because "they don't know what they are missing. . . . They don't really deliver all the services that their residents may be entitled to."

It's time, he said, to educate town officials and residents about what they might get from government, and at what savings.

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