It is the Size And Scope of Local Government

I am looking and the local news and the fight over the Web site that Jake has started. I also see the not giving Joe and Sandra their respective chance as Council President and Board President. I am seeing this all this as a side show in West Orange that masks the true issue.  I also see Joey D and the Freeholder doing this and that like opening a paddle boat dock in the park but missing the point. The true problem is that local government has become too big too powerful and in many ways is harming the people it is suppose to protect.   Lets discuss our three local government the Board of Education, The Township, and the County of Essex 

The board of Education of West Orange is chartered as a subset of the state government to provide good educational option at a fair price to taxpayers for the children who reside in the about twelve square miles that is West Orange.  While many good things do occur in our schools they are big and authoritarian.  It spends over $140 million dollars a year (about 90% paid by local property taxes) to provide educational service for about 7,000 students.  It offer a one size fit all.  Take our schools or pay on your own to send you children some place else plus pay property taxes to us. It employs over a 1,000 people and only about $57 million is going to the general line items called regular classroom instruction and special education instruction.  The board laments about a lack of classroom space and over crowded schools in one the one hand and elects to import special needs students on the other hand from outside West Orange.  The test results are a mixed bag with mean college board score only at or a little less then state average.  The problem is not the lack of money the problem is our schools have grown so big that they think of the adults who run them as a political constituency and a class of people to protect and stopped focusing on students and education.  It no longer provides good value to tax payers. It needs massive reform which will most likely never occur until or unless vouchers, or charters offer competition to this monopoly to make it change for the better.

The town spend over $70 million a year mostly derived from property taxes for about 46,000 people who reside here. The town ceased being friendly to business who could help offset the large tax burden.  The zoning rule are very tough.  Ordinances on every thing from signage, to hours of operation make it hard.  The town operates a police force, a fire department, parks, administers sanitation mostly by outsourced contracts, and enforce numerous codes from buildings, to health codes.  In addition it operate a library, roads, and collects money for a sewage authority.  Plus it runs a municipal court.
   The town is busy keeping property owners from cutting trees down in their own yards.   The town has partner with a developer of questionable credit worthiness into a downtown development project that will neither help the downtown nor help offset taxes   The town seems to forget that property owner have rights.

The county has a budget of about $770 million dollars for about 787 thousand residents.  Also has it has off books utility authority and economic development authority budgets.  The county operates jails, golf course, parks, an airports, roads, has a roll with the state in operating a vocational school, and community college, and it runs certain mental health facilities.  It also has a vast welfare system called the department of citizen services that does little to help people move to self sufficiency and does much to keep those who are poor dependent on government programs and services  . It also runs a Sheriffs office on top of and above the 22 municipal police forces in the county. The county has mean household income of about $58,000 but mean property tax bills of about $10,000.  Frankly New Jersey either need towns or counties not both.  

Thus it is very difficult for normal middle class people to make a living and stay in West Orange.  It is very difficult for business to come to this town and this county and employ people. 

So what do we do about this huge local government? We need schools, we need roads, we need police and fire service, the trash needs to be picked up.

The question is how much of this stuff do we need.  Do we need all 1,000 employees in the board of education.  Between the West Orange Police and the Essex County Sheriff we have hundreds of law enforcement person to protect us.  Is all necessary is it all efficient?  Do we need government in the housing and real estate busies? Can we figure out how to repair and maintain our roads better and for less.

My answer is one we have come to ask for two much from local government. We need only the basics.  We don't need mini golf via the county, we don't need town government in the realty market.  We need to coordinate the town, the schools, and the county better to do more with less.  We need to have our schools focus on education and not as general community improvement centers.

So the task we the voters need to hold our elected official accountable to in local election to improve our home for the long run is to make our leaders reduce the size and scope of local government.   We as citizens need to focus on this as opposed to who is fighting with whom.  Also if the local government was smaller it would be less able and less likely to behave in an imperial fashion as was evident in the recent cease and desist letter that turned farcical.  Furthermore if local government taxed and regulated less business would grow and the smaller local government could thrive on a bigger tax base