Township Explains, Defends Newest Shared Services Agreements with Ocean

Township administrator David Breeden offered more details on the Barnegat’s latest shared services agreement with Ocean Township at Tuesday’s Township Committee meeting, prompting pushback from some residents who were critical of the deal and of Breeden’s own renegotiated contract. 

In a joint meeting Feb. 8, Barnegat and Ocean agreed to share a tax collector, zoning officer and recreation director. As part of the agreement, Barnegat laid off the three employees who filled those positions, replacing them in Town Hall with their Ocean counterparts. The employees now serve both townships, with Ocean picking up 40 percent of their salary costs.

Breeden said the agreement is the latest in a multi-phase plan for extensive shared services agreements between the two neighboring townships that has already resulted in hundreds of thousands in savings. More agreements are in the works, he said. 

“You start off easy with the stuff you know you can do well,” Breeden said. “You become successful, and then build upon your success.”

The partnership between the two townships formally began in 2010, when Breeden began serving as Ocean’s administrator in addition to his Barnegat duties, primarily so he could arrange cost-saving shared services agreements. Since then, the townships have started sharing construction code inspectors, pooled their public works resources and entered a joint solid waste contract.

Now, by replacing the three Barnegat employees with Ocean staff, Barnegat has cut $311,000 in salary costs. The total position value of the Ocean replacements is $250,000, Breeden said, and Barnegat will pay 60 percent of their salaries.

“Some people have asked, ‘How can the Ocean Township employees come over here and do their work?’” Breeden said. “The answer is efficiency with experience.” With experience, employees can tackle more responsibility, he said, and technology that frees staff from being chained to their desks makes them more efficient.

Both townships have also seen a decrease in the number of zoning permits filed recently, Breeden added. The combined total of permits filed in 2011 came out to about four per day, he said – a volume one zoning officer can handle.

When it comes to more shared service agreements, said Breeden, “everything is on the table.” But further partnerships will never include a discussion of consolidation of the two municipalities. 

“Each town deserves its own identity,” he said. “The vast majority of consolidation efforts in New Jersey have failed. It’s always framed in such a way that one town is seen as taking over another.” Barnegat and Ocean are achieving significant savings by overlapping where they can, said Breeden. “Shared services is the way to go,” he said.

Some residents who listened to Breeden’s presentation were critical of another agreement that came out of the joint meeting: Breeden’s own renewed 5-year contract, which offers him $171,700, the promise of a possible 1.75 percent merit raise, a car and a pledge to pay for a Master’s degree.

“There’s a lot in there that really needs to be explained,” said Frank Pecci. He said it wasn’t clear how the township would establish whether Breeden deserved an annual raise, or whether each year’s raise would be based on the 2012 base salary or on subsequent years’ salaries. 

“Who establishes his goals?” Pecci said. “Nobody’s going to say Dave didn’t do a good job, and he’s going to get it. That following year, that base is going to be bigger. Is the merit based on that? If so, you’re really expanding.”

Others took issue with the latest agreement. Marianne Clemente said the committee should have been more upfront with Barnegat residents about its plan for the combined positions before the deal went through at a meeting held in the next town over.

“Why wouldn’t you be presenting this at our meeting, or at least at both meetings?” she said. “We pay the primary bulk of the contracts for these things.” 

She also said the township should have had made shared services a priority years ago. “There are ways to do it,” Clemente said. “You just didn’t want to do it until the governor started pushing for it.” 

Angelo Mureo, who served on the zoning board in the past, said he felt cuts were made in the wrong departments. 

“I appreciate any effort you make to stabilize our taxes,” he said. But having dealt with zoning board officers around the state, he said he believed Barnegat’s was among the best. Meanwhile, Barnegat retained both a tax assessor and a deputy tax assessor.

“What stuns me and confuses me, but doesn’t surprise me, is that in a town of Barnegat’s size, most towns have one tax assessor, and many towns share a tax assessor,” he said.

Breeden said the next phase of shared services would consider other positions that could be combined.

“In some points, you’ve enlightened me,” Mayor Al Cirulli said in response to Mureo’s complaint. “We’ll look into what we can do.”