Opinion - Rural Police Funding
Don’t subsidize rural policing
ASBURY PARK PRESS EDITORIAL
State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, is proposing a $40-per-summons surcharge on all motor vehicle violations to be used to underwrite State Police patrols in 89 towns that previously had received the service for free.
It’s a wrong-headed response to the problem - small towns, mostly rural, being allowed to avail themselves of a service without having to pay the full cost. Instead, the towns should be given a reasonable period of time - two to three years - to either wean themselves off State Police coverage or pay 100 percent of its cost.
Options for the towns would include creating their own police force, contracting with an adjacent police department for coverage or working with other small towns to create a regional police department.
For the first time this year, the 89 towns whose taxpayers never have paid for police coverage are being asked to pick up a portion of the tab. Their combined obligation is $12.6 million - only about 15 percent of the $80 million it costs the state to provide the patrols. The towns should be responsible for the entire share.
Van Drew’s surcharge, which would generate an estimated $160 million, is another in a long line of stealth taxes. It not only would pay for the full cost of providing State Police coverage to small towns, it would distribute $80 million to municipalities with full-time police departments.
The surcharge could end up doubling traffic fines for technical motor vehicle violations that don’t warrant such stiff financial penalties. More importantly, says Steven Carrellas, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Motorists Association, it would create “another opportunity for some towns to grab statewide money for their own problems instead of finding real solutions to their high property taxes.”
Van Drew says he is “still researching” variations on his plan - perhaps imposing the surcharge only on the most serious motor vehicle violations or letting the small towns keep the revenue collected from the violations. He should scrap the idea altogether. And the state should make small towns assume full responsibility for the cost of police coverage.
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