What Happened?
The neighboring communities of Bridgewater and Somerville in New Jersey have agreed to share a municipal court that will involve the consolidation of two municipal courts into a single entity to reduce costs and increase efficiency. By merging the cities’ assets, officials aim to enhance services for residents while generating at least $600,000 in annual savings.
The Goal
Somerville and Bridgewater’s partnership in municipal court servicing represents a growing trend across New Jersey and nationwide. While shared services strategies and local government consolidation is becoming more familiar for municipalities looking to reduce costs while maintaining or improving delivery of services, shared courts are quickly gaining popularity. State and federal officials are acknowledging the potential savings from shared services and are encouraging local governments to find ways to collaborate for more efficient performance.
There are many different types of consolidation and shared services strategies currently in practice. In Somerville and Bridgewater, it was important for each municipality to maintain its individuality to ensure residents understood their needs came first, while significant savings were achieved for each locality.
The final approved strategy allows for Somerville’s municipal court sessions to be held twice a month at the Bridgewater location. This will allow Somerville to eliminate personnel costs as well as expenses associated with renting a facility for its limited court needs. Because the cities already share a judge for all sessions, the merging of assets was relatively painless.
Study-Supported Consolidation Effort
In Lebanon, Ohio, the National Center for State Courts conducted a Warren County court consolidation study to determine the potential savings, obstacles and strategies for merging assets. The study resulted in four options for municipal court consolidation between Franklin and Lebanon and local officials have accepted two for more in-depth investigation.
The approved initiatives called for the elimination of the Lebanon court and add those services to the Franklin court, or creation of a single county municipal court and remove all local entities. The consolidation strategies also suggested the creation of full-time judicial positions to ensure residents had adequate access to services.
Due to the location of Franklin within the county and demand for municipal court services, the city will likely maintain a court presence locally. Sending the local residents and police force from Franklin to another city for municipal court services, it could end up costing around $200,000 annually. Eliminating the Lebanon municipal court and adjoining it with the Franklin services in place is projected to save Lebanon about $308,000 a year, while the city would still retain $80,000 from ordinance fines.
Furthermore, Carefree and Cave Creek in Arizona have agreed to create a consolidated municipal court to reduce losses associated with high court costs for each city. The agreement calls for Carefree to operate the court in Cave Creek’s infrastructure. Carefree is expected to lose $213,118 in operating losses next year if it maintains its current municipal court. The agreement would make better use of a single court’s infrastructure between the two cities that average less than 2,000 cases per year total.
Smart Teamwork
Gov1 has followed court consolidation nationwide from Ohio to New Jersey to Oregon.