Why does NJ have counties?

cramer said:

What about the community colleges?   They receive about 20% of their funding from the county and 18% from the state. The rest comes tuition and fees. 

If the state abolishes counties (I'm not holding my breath), I expect they will work out a new system for the community colleges.   I'm pretty sure that every state in the US has community colleges, but many are not county-based (even though most states DO have counties.)

Apollo_T said:

YEAH,  like the idea.  Let's make it happen soon.

Are you volunteering?

PVW said:

xavier67 said:

Just to put NJ's "too much local government issue" in national perspective:

National avg of government units per 10,000 population: 30

NY: 17.7 

PA: 38.5

DE: 37.2

NJ: 15.6 (34th in rank)

Obviously, this is because NJ is one of the densely populated states in the country. But it also suggests that NJ's "too many municipalities leads to fiscal inefficiency" problem may be overblown.

Haven't see that metric before - could you post a link to the source? Thx.

Here is the NJ Spotlight article about it. http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/11/17/size-doesn-t-matter-study-of-nj-municipal-government-costs-concludes/

Citing a Rutgers study, it says:

"The study also questions the validity of the often-cited statistic that “New Jersey has more municipalities per square mile than any other [state] in the country,” which is used to justify the “folk hypothesis” that New Jersey has “too many municipalities and too much government.”

That statistic, however, simply reflects New Jersey’s status as the most densely populated state in the country, Caprio and Pfeiffer noted. With 15.6 government units per 10,000 population, New Jersey actually has about half as much government as the national average, and lags just behind New York (17.7 government units per 10,000 residents) and far behind both Pennsylvania (38.5) and Delaware (37.2).
In fact, New Jersey ranks just 34th in the nation in the number of general governments per capita, the study pointed out."

I read the study, and unless I missed something it doesn't address counties at all, or school districts.  Just municipal governments. 

FilmCarp said:

I read the study, and unless I missed something it doesn't address counties at all, or school districts.  Just municipal governments. 

I think it was tangential to my OP - but I was still curious so had asked for the source. 

FilmCarp said:

I read the study, and unless I missed something it doesn't address counties at all, or school districts.  Just municipal governments. 

"Put another way, measured by the number of general governments per 10,000 population, the state ranks 34th of 50. These rather remarkable rankings also apply across all units of government, such
as special districts. Specifically, 35 other states have more total governmental units and special districts per 10,000 people than does New Jersey."

State, county, and 'special districts,' yes.

School districts, no.  But then school districts are not technically governments.  Consolidating school districts would be a different conversation.

max_weisenfeld said:

FilmCarp said:

I read the study, and unless I missed something it doesn't address counties at all, or school districts.  Just municipal governments. 

"Put another way, measured by the number of general governments per 10,000 population, the state ranks 34th of 50. These rather remarkable rankings also apply across all units of government, such
as special districts. Specifically, 35 other states have more total governmental units and special districts per 10,000 people than does New Jersey."

State, county, and 'special districts,' yes.

School districts, no.  But then school districts are not technically governments.  Consolidating school districts would be a different conversation.

I'm coming at this more from the perspective of government being more responsive and citizens feeling more engaged, less from a taxation or budget standpoint. I'd be curious if there has been any research comparing states that have abolished counties to others that haven't, comparing on metrics such as citizen satisfaction, various good governance metrics, etc. How does NJ compare to CT or MA, for instance?

To put it another way, I'm really asking about the layers of government a given citizen has to interact with - so if there are 10 or 10,000 municipal governments, that's not necessarily relevant as you only live in on town, but it does make a difference if there's a county government or not. My hunch is that people in states without county governments are better served, but I don't know if there's actually anything to back this up.

Why not draw new borders for the states as well.  I always feel like we are more connected with NY than south Jersey.  So lets' end NJ once and for all.  201 and 973 area codes will become part of NY and the rest can be part of PA.  That should save a bundle.  

mikescott said:

Why not draw new borders for the states as well.  I always feel like we are more connected with NY than south Jersey.  So lets' end NJ once and for all.  201 and 973 area codes will become part of NY and the rest can be part of PA.  That should save a bundle.  

Here's a redrawn map -

http://www.tjc.com/38states/

thanks.  much better.  

back to the underlying question.  To provide yet another layer of taxing authority to steal our money.