Report warns of 13B budget gap without consolidating services

If the state, municipalities, counties and school districts in New Jersey continue business as usual to provide government services, they could face a combined gap of up to $13 billion between revenues and services by 2017, according to a report by a nonpartisan commission under the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers.

If the state, municipalities, counties and school districts in New Jersey continue business as usual to provide government services, they could face a combined gap of up to $13 billion between revenues and services by 2017, according to a report by a nonpartisan commission under the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers.

“Unless we rethink what services we want from our government and how we want to deliver and pay for them, we will face a starkly different New Jersey,” said Feather O’Connor Houstoun, a former state treasurer who contributed to the report. “We can figure these things out and protect the quality of services, but we won’t get there by going along with the budget cut of the year and then dealing with this gap.”

While the “Facing Our Future” report identifies the need for budget review and action, the group also provides 17 specific, measureable options that can be implemented to protect a variety of services at different levels of government.

“We have a 19th century government facing 21st century challenges, on top of challenging economic times,” said Sam Crane, principal of Crane Consulting LLC and former state treasurer, who cited the need for expanded e-government and consolidated information-technology services to close the gap between spending and services.

In the report, the fiscal experts proposed that the state offer incentive grants to encourage regional shared services and consolidation. To give the consolidation option weight, the group pointed to the recently approved merger of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, which is projected to create $3.1 million in savings at full implementation in 2014.

Other savings options explored in the report — which was presented to state officials and bipartisan legislators in February — include supporting countywide tax assessment, centralizing emergency response systems, transitioning institutionalized developmental disability services to community-based care, and adopting an internet sales tax, which is also in a bill currently sitting in the state Legislature.