SUMMARY 1. An Amendment is urgently needed to the general revenue sharing act intra-county entitle ments which unjustly enriches most of the affluent, densely populated, suburban townships, principally at the expense of many of the State's 2. This "Township Inequity" is a serious problem in New Jersey alone. 3. The "Inequity" has worsened in New Jersey as municipalities have inde- 4. Special legislation is sought to amend the "township" definition in the same classification as other New Jersey municipalities for purposes 5. It is specifically urged that relief be granted by amending Sec. 108 STATEMENT My name is Richard I. Bonsal. I am a business man, and also a Commissioner of the Town of Montclair in the County of Essex in New Jersey, where I have served as Director of the Department of Public Works since 1976 and Director of the Department of Revenue and Finance from 1972 to 1976. Since 1977, the Town of Montclair, the Cities of Trenton, Paterson, Plainfield and other municipalities have worked cooperatively to correct a serious inequity in New Jersey's intra-county general revenue sharing entitlements which has unjustly enriched most of the affluent, densely populated, suburban townships, principally at the expense of many of the State's large cities. Earlier efforts to correct this problem date from the inception of the general revenue sharing program in 1972. We are here to urge that this "Township Inequity" be eliminated by amending the definition of "township" in Sec. 108 (D) (3) of the act by the addition of the underlined words as follows: (3) TOWNSHIPS. The term "township" includes equivalent subdivisions of government having different designations (such as "towns") and shall be determined on the basis of the same principles as are used by the Bureau of the Census for general statistical purposes, except that, for the State of New Jersey, local governiments classified as type 3 (townships) by the Bureau of the Census, shall be reclassified as type 2 (places), for the purpose of this Act only. The existing definition of "township" in Sec. 108 (D) (3) results in the creation in each county of three intra-county "pots", one each for the county government, the townships and the "places", i.e., the cities, towns, villages and boroughs as a group. Since the income factor does not apply in the formula by which the act apportions the intra-county "pots", there is a large overallocation to the township "pot" and a large underallocation to the places "pot" in each county in which townships as a group have a high per capita income and places as a group have a low per capita income. The intra "pot" allocations are then excessively high for such townships and woefully low for such places. Many counties in New Jersey are afflicted with this problem, which has become known as the "Township Inequity". The effect of the proposed amendment to Sec. 108 (D) (3) would be to provide for only two "pots", instead of three, for intra-county allocations in New Jersey, one for the county government and the other for all of the municipal governments including the townships. Thus all municipalities in New Jersey would be treated equitably by the same allocation procedure. This is appropriate because the entirety of the State's territorial limits is divided into general purpose municipalities and general purpose townships, none of which overlap. In other words, in New Jersey, the term "township" is used interchangeably with the "place" terms of "city", "town", "village" and borough", as a designation only, with no functional differences. This "distinc tion without a difference" does not justify separate funding for general revenue sharing purposes, with the resulting disparities. The Bureau of the Census has determined that only six States are organized like New Jersey with all of their municipalities having general purpose governments, regardless of designation, with no unorganized areas and no dependent jurisdications 1. The other five such States are Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. Of these six, New Jersey alone has sought, over a period of many years down to the present, to have the "Township Inequity" corrected. Thus we seek special legislation to correct the "Township Inequity" in New Jersey alone. The Louisiana Rule is a precedent for such special legislation, which we hope will become known as the "New Jersey Rule". In 1976, I received a letter from the General Counsel of the Treasury, Richard R. Albrecht, dated September 1 of that year 2, expressing the awareness of Treasury of the degree to which New Jersey's townships and places are governmentally similar, but advising that the Bureau of the Census did not seem to feel that it could justify reclassifying the governments below the county level in our State. The letter also expressed concern about the impact of such reclassification on the other States which are organized as New Jersey is. Now, however, with the precedent of the Louisiana Rule, our proposed amendment to Sec. 108 (D) (3) will maintain the integrity of the demographic concerns of the Bureau of the Census and will not impact on any other State, 1 Source: U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1977 Census of Governments, Volume 1, No. 1, Governmental Organization, page 3, column 2 |