FDU Poll: Most Voters Want Towns to Share Services

Most New Jersey voters say sharing municipal services is a good idea, according to the most recent poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind center. But Republicans like the idea better than Democrats, and men like it better than women, according to the poll.

New Jersey has 566 municipalities, most of which are working to make sense of an ever-toughening budget climate. So PublicMind director Peter Woolley said he's not surprised by the results.

“Given every town’s problems with tight budgets, high property taxes, and pension contributions, perhaps sharing services is an idea whose time has finally come,” Woolley, a political scientist, said in a release from FDU. “It used to be that shared services were a good idea for someone else’s town. Now voters are suggesting it’s a good idea for their town too,” he added.

According to the poll, 71 percent say in order to save money, sharing services like police, fire and school administration is a good idea, while 19 percent say it’s a bad idea.  Three of four Republicans (76 percent) say it’s a good idea, and so do two of three Democrats (67 percent).

The statistics are similar when voters are asked about whether their own towns should be sharing services. Among the shared services arrangements in place in Jefferson Township:

• Jefferson Township provides all building inspection services, including plan review, to Mount Arlington;
• Jefferson Township provides electrical services inspection to Mount Olive;
• Jefferson Township provides animal control services to Mount Arlington;
• Jefferson Township shares DPW equipment, including a hop box (used to make asphalt), a crack ceiling machine, a street sweeper and vacuum trucks, with Randolph and Hopatcong.

Asked specifically about sharing their police services with a neighboring town, 64 percent of voters agree it’s a good idea, while 29 percent object, according to the poll. On that issue, 71 percent of men say sharing cops is a good idea, but only 58 percent of women agree, according to the poll.

The gender divide is seen on the issue of sharing school administration as well. Overall, 66 percent of polled voters said it was a good idea, while 25 percent were against it. But 71 percent of men were for sharing school administration, while only 61 percent of women liked the idea.

On sharing fire services with another town: 66 percent of those polled were for it, and 27 percent were against it. Seventy-one percent of men liked the idea; only 60 percent of women liked it.

“Of course, the devil is in the details when trying to merge services,” said Woolley. “The service providers themselves are often the first ones to object to a change in how things are administered.”

The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 711 registered voters statewide was conducted by telephone using both landlines and cell phones from March 29 through April 4 and has a margin of error or plus or minus 4 percentage points.