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NORTH JERSEY - Trooper ticket surcharge proposed
(by Rebecca Scanlon - News Editor - September 17, 2008)
NORTH JERSEY - Tough economic times have politicians searching for means of easing the taxpayers’ burden, and one politician has proposed a way to fund State Police operations — add a surcharge onto some traffic tickets.
Senator Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat from Cape May County, has floated the idea of a ticket surcharge as a way of generating money to lessen the $80 million that it costs the State Police to provide coverage to rural towns, some of which fall within his district.
Van Drew began searching for alternative ways of funding the program after Governor Jon Corzine said that these rural towns would have to pay $12.5 million toward the program.
Riverdale Mayor William Budesheim said that it's about time that the 89 rural towns start paying for their police services when the other 167 municipalities have been paying additional taxes for their local police services.
"I understand that when it was formed 70-80 years ago, that was the State Police's initial role," Budesheim said, but free rural policing is an antiquated idea. "Why shouldn’t they (pay for the services now)?
"The police budget is the single largest item in municipal budgets," Budesheim said.
Ringwood Mayor Walter Davison said that he didn't know much about the proposal, but that it didn't sound like something he would support for Ringwood residents. Locals already face numerous economic pressures, he said, and the proposed ticket surcharge seems like another burden, even if it is levied only against those who receive motor vehicle violations.
"Ringwood residents get tickets. This doesn't wash with me. It seems like another tax to me," he said. "I wouldn't support anything like that until I knew more about it."
While Van Drew had initially proposed a $40 surcharge on tickets, it has been lowered to $9. Also, Van Drew said that half of the funds would help pay for State Police services in rural towns, and half would be earmarked for tax relief in non-rural towns and would be proportioned by how much the local police costs in each town.
Budesheim said that if such a surcharge were imposed, he doubted local governments would see much in the end. Last year, Riverdale collected about $900,000 in court fines and kept only about $340,000 of it, he said.
"If they would let the towns keep their ticket money…(Governor Jon) Corzine could keep his state aid," Budesheim said.
Michele Mount, director of public affairs for AAA's Automobile Club, said that the club is against the proposed surcharge.
"We all pay taxes, especially property taxes in New Jersey," Mount said. Taxes should fund essential services, she said, and a ticket surcharge would "put an unfair burden on taxpayers, especially motorists, to pay for police services.
"It's unfair for motorists to foot the bill for (rural) towns," Mount said.
Van Drew said that the governor's office has expressed to his office that it is not favorable to any motor vehicle ticket surcharge, but the goal of the senator's quest is to find relief for residents of rural towns.
Plight of rural towns
Presently, 89 rural towns — those too small to fund a full-time department — receive free patrol services, 76 of these on a full-time basis, at a cost to the state of about $80 million.
"This is what the State Police was put in place for," Van Drew said.
According to Van Drew, the rural policing cost-sharing that the state has proposed would break the backs of some rural citizens — some of the towns have tax levies of $1 million and would be charged $500,000. It would raise taxes 27 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, he said.
Van Drew, whose jurisdiction covers rural towns as well as those that have their own police forces, said that the cost-sharing plan wouldn't decrease taxes in towns that have their own police forces.
"It isn't going to make it better for non-rural towns to raise property taxes (in rural towns)," Van Drew said. The senator, who is a dentist, said he uses the analogy, "If you have two patients in pain, by hurting one patient, you're not going to help the other."
Van Drew has come up with several alternatives to the state's proposed rural policing cost sharing — and the ticket surcharge is third on the list.
"My job…is to really advocate that this is not the fairest way," he said.
First, Van Drew is appealing to the state to put off the new charges until a more equitable arrangement could be developed. If that fails to gain support, Van Drew would pursue a do-over of the formula to make payments more balanced. The ticket surcharge is the third option.
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