Pixabay/Cost sharing
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
MARGATE Former Ventnor Mayor Tim Kreisher is making the rounds to offer Downbeach and mainland area communities the opportunity to participate in shared services programs. Sharing of services creates economies of scale and can reduce the cost of providing certain services, which provides relief to taxpayers.
Kreisher attended the Nov. 3 Board of Commissioners meeting to suggest Margate participate in five new shared services concepts that can reduce costs. He said he would conduct webinars with subject experts over the next several weeks to discuss each program separately.
The NJ Department of Community Affairs created the Local Efficiency Achievement Program, known as LEAP, to help local governments streamline operations and reduce costs.
Atlantic County received 30% of the grants approved statewide, and Margate has participated in three of them, Kreisher said.
Challenge grants offer up to $150,000 to municipalities and counties, implementation grants cover the one-time cost of shared services activities, and a county coordinator fellowship grant provides counties with $50,000 toward hiring a fellow to coordinate shared services within municipalities. Kreischer is the coordinator for Atlantic County.
Downbeach towns have already participated by sharing with their counterparts the cost of purchasing an emergency communications trailer. The implementation grant provided 75% of the cost of purchasing a trailer equipped as a mobile office and technology command center for use during emergencies or large community events.
Longport was the lead agency on a LEAP grant that allowed CRS Rating System communities to share in the cost of purchasing the Forerunner software program used for floodplain management.
New ideas being kicked around include providing electric storage of public records and documents on the cloud, which can be searched by approved employees and reduce the number of Open Public Records Act requests. The $23,000 cost could be reduced to $7,000 per municipality, a 30% savings, he said.
Kreisher said the Atlantic County Improvement Authority has agreed to share the use of its vendor who performs lead based paint inspections at HUD properties. State law now requires a lead based paint inspection whenever an apartment is rented, or a property sold.
It can be cumbersome for small municipalities, Kreisher said. If we bundle them together, with the economies of scale, it will be a lower price.
Kreisher said another idea is to address cyber security, which some companies offer based on the number of users.
By bundling everyone together, municipalities can reduce costs, he said.
Another idea that may be one all Downbeach towns can agree on is to purchase a decibel meter to address noise complaints at short term rental properties. It's costly to purchase the meters, and even costlier to train police.
Instead of each town having six officers trained, we can do three each and then pull from other municipalities when needed, he said.
The last idea Kreisher presented is sharing in the county's contract with a cash management company. The cash management program monitors interest rates to provide higher yields on investments, he said.
I'm just giving you an overview and trying to determine interest in attending the webinars on each topic to get a more detailed explanation, Kreisher said.
He also said the state is considering increasing the grant threshold to $400,000 from $150,000, which could provide even more opportunities for local municipal shared services agreements.
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