These Northern Monmouth Towns Could Vanish In Municipal Merger

In a desperate effort to cut taxes and fix New Jersey's finances, a group of lawmakers in Trenton is considering consolidating towns, and getting rid of towns that have fewer than 5,000 year-round residents.

And Monmouth Beach, Highlands and Atlantic Highlands are on that list.

Those towns would be merged with larger, surrounding municipalities and share police, fire and other municipal services, as well as schools. There are 191 total towns on the list, according to a memo obtained by NJ.com and made public Thursday.

This is just one of many ideas currently being secretly discussed in Trenton right now, as part of a panel put together by Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney. The panel that he convened, called the Economic and Fiscal Policy Working Group, is currently mulling up to 60 ideas to lower New Jersey's property taxes, balance the budget and reform the state's underfunded pension mess. The ideas are particularly needed after President Trump eliminated New Jersey's property tax deduction.

The towns on the list in northern Monmouth County are:

1. Atlantic Highlands, population 4,318
2. Highlands, population 4,900
3. Monmouth Beach, population 3,249

Allentown (pop. 1,890) and Englishtown (pop. 2,189) are also on the list, as is even Shrewsbury (population 4,000). See the list of the entire 191 towns here.