The Farmer, The Train, and the Commuter

The Saga of New Jersey’s Too Many Towns and the Impact on School Districts

On Rt. 31 in Hunterdon County, drivers in either direction first pass a sign that says “Entering Clinton Twp.” Then, a mere few moments later, another sign that reads “Entering Town of Clinton”. Then, just to reinforce, another not far after, reiterating “Entering Clinton Township” (or Township of Clinton).

The uninitiated could be forgiven for thinking these signs say the same thing thrice. New Jerseyans, however, know better. Indeed, there is a Clinton Township that surrounds entirely a smaller municipality called “Clinton Town”, which is a mere several blocks by comparison.

It is a story repeated in County after County. In Monmouth, a Freehold Township surrounds the entirety of Freehold Boro. In Morris County, Chester is entirely encompassed by Chester Township.

It is something of a joke in NJ the number of municipalities – and subsequently, the number of school districts – we seem to have. It isn’t your imagination – NJ has more municipalities per capita than the State of California, which comprises most of the West Coast of the country. This may seem like a silly fact from which nothing material arises, but in fact, it is often cited as one of the reasons NJ has such high property taxes. With each municipality comes a unique set of services – sometimes, a new police force and fire brigade; even more often, a whole new school district with all of the taxes those require.

But how did it get this way? And is there a realistic way to “fix” this problem?

Once upon a time, there was a sleepy little farming State to the West of New York City. This State was made up of 125 Townships (in 1834), many of which had been created by charter from the King of England before the American Revolution. Most Townships had very little in the form of local governance. Dirt roads weaved throughout the fertile landscape, and each Township elected members to the Board of Chosen Freeholders.

Until the trains showed up.

At first, there was a boon for farmers who desired their goods to move more quickly to the New York City market. However, it also brought a new type of resident to New Jersey: commuters. Before the Civil War, Orange (Essex county) became the first commuter hub in the nation – a sign of what was to come elsewhere, where NY and Philly commuters started to populate near railroad hubs and brought with them a desire for added services, better schools, and better roads… sounds familiar, right? The local farming population knew that this meant higher taxes, of course, and so the battle lines were set: the local NJ natives vs the NY transplants and commuters… and they all lived happily ever after…

The old “town meeting” government style was showing its age as the State started to show its growth. In 1878, the Legislature passed the “Borough Act”, which allowed landowners in 4 square mile with at least 1,000 people to, by referendum, form a “borough”.

You read that correctly – there was no Legislature required. The people could just…make a new town. And they did. Over and over again.

What spurred much of the debate was actually schools and, as fate would have it, the always self-important Bergen County happened to be actually important in defining what would be termed “borough-itis.” A term that should be a household name in NJ given the impacts. School districts at the time were entirely independent of the municipalities. Accordingly, townships could contain a number of school districts: Bergen County's Franklin Township in the early 1890s contained eleven school districts serving 774 students.

Thus was the story until the 1890s, when NJ native and Democrat Grover Cleveland was President and overseeing a financial recession in the Panic of 1893. In the 1893 elections, the Republicans took control of the NJ Assembly, propelled forward by the now dominant heavily Republican commuter class (vs the Democrat farmer class). Though the Borough Act had been little used since its passage, 1894 onwards saw it balloon, propelled by Bergen County, where the war between the Democrat “Punkin Dusters” and Republican commuters was raging at its height. Many of the early boroughs formed due to disagreements over paying for road paving. The Assembly, “pro-borough” as it was, passed several additional laws, including allowing Boroughs their own freeholder. (Back then, each municipality sent a Freeholder to the County Seat. At its height, Bergen County had 28, before NJ changed the law to limit to 9 total.)

This all cumulated in school reform with Chapter CCCXXXV of the Public Laws of 1894. That act, passed on May 25, provided that "the several school districts in each township shall be consolidated into one school district". It also provided "that each city, borough, and incorporated town, shall be a school district, separate and distinct from the township school district".

The crazy in Bergen County and around the State got worse. There were 40 boros created in 1894 and 1895 alone, and 26 of them were in Bergen County. Though the legislature attempted to step the tide by saying a borough could only have their own schools if they had at least 400 people, it only truly stopped in 1896, when the Legislature determined that only the Legislature itself could approve the formation of new municipalities.

The politics then simply moved to the Legislature, who had some additional boroughitis of its own in the 1920s, after which not many new ones have formed, leaving, for example, Bergen County at 70 municipalities in a small area.

Former NJ Assembly Speaker Alan Karcher sums it up as follows:

“The ultimate cost to the state's taxpayers ... directly attributable to the Republican reforms of 1894, is incalculable. One need only take an afternoon drive through Bergen County. The only evidence that you have traversed one borough in the last five minutes and are now entering another, which may take only three minutes to cross, is a sign. Otherwise, it is virtually impossible to tell one fungible borough from the other. Yet each has its own most prized possession, and prized it should be considering its cost: its own school district.”

So, can it be fixed? Can boroughitis be undone?

The truth is, some have already tried, and the most recent merging of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township shows that some voters do recognize the cost savings to be had by not duplicating efforts. However, just as school districts were the impetus for many new boroughs, it should be expected that school districts would be a large component of why consolidation will be difficult. Combining districts sounds fantastic to taxpayers, but not as much to those getting paid by a district who could disappear – would their contracts carry over to a new, merged district? Would the new district have use for all of the schools in the individual districts that used to comprise it?

Does every borough/Town need its own school? NJ circa 1894 certainly thought so, but perhaps we have aged enough to know that not to be true. We all know it takes a village to raise a child; perhaps our predecessors took that adage a bit too seriously, to the point where they simply made their own village up to do it.

What actions do you think can be taken to combine the school districts?