Shared Services to be Bedminster's Focus, Mayor Says

Just re-elected to his second term on committee, Steve Parker has been chosen as the newest mayor—and he’s looking to put a focus on shared services in 2013.

“I am looking at shared services with anyone,” he said. “I don’t think I would rule any town out. It is difficult because every subject is different, whether you are talking about courts or others.”

Parker is taking the place of former Mayor Robert Holtaway, who opted not to run for re-election this year.

After being elected to a new term in November, Parker was chosen by his fellow committee members as mayor in a straw vote in mid-November, and was officially voted in to the position at the Jan. 2 reorganization meeting.

And now, Parker’s focus is on maintaining quality of life and continuing to improve the township.

As for shared services, Parker said they tend to concentrate on partnering with Far Hills, Peapack, Bernardsville and Bernards.

“There is a great affiliation with the high school, and we share the Hills, so you look for things that you already have naturally in common,” he said. “You look to bordering neighbors.”

Parker said they have already had discussions about shared court services, which they tried to do with Bernards, but they have had ongoing discussions with Bernardsville about other possibilities.

“The discussions are really in the early stages,” he said.

One option, Parker said, would be to share senior van services, which many towns throughout the county already have.

“We have one that goes a couple days out of the week, and other neighboring towns do too,” he said. “For budget reasons we went from five days to three, and we don’t know if the vans are completely full.”

“if you are driving to Chester and you have to drive past Peapack, would it hurt to stop in Bedminster?” he asked. “This is something that should be fairly obvious to understand."

Parker said he thinks it would make a lot of sense to have cooperative arrangements with different towns. And, he said, they are already having preliminary discussions with the Bedminster Township Board of Education for certain shared services.

“Anytime you look to have a merger, someone is perceived as a winner or loser, and you don’t want that,” he said. “We want to make sure we are looking to do something that has a benefit to both entities.”

And of course, one of the most important issues at this point, Parker said, is the upcoming budget and trying to make sure they are as reasonable as possible.

“That is the short term, and the long term is shared services to get there,” he said.

The big ticket item, Parker said, is the capital budget, and that is something the township looks at well in advance.

“Not every year’s budget is in a vacuum,” he said. “We don’t look simply at the one year, we look at things we had to buy in 2012, but knew we have to buy in 2013, 2014 and 2015. We update our multi-year plan.”

Plus, Parker said, capital budgeted items are not purchased early in the year, like major road improvements or equipment for fire departments or police.

“Those aren’t things they are spending on in the first half of the year, and if they do, they probably would have been budgeted last year,” he said.

And fortunately, Parker said, the township will not have to spend funds on real repairs after Superstorm Sandy.

“Our major infrastructure problems were less than for other towns,” he said.

Now, Parker said, the township will look ahead at possible snowstorms, although they seem to be faring well so far.

“We think about the snow budget every year,” he said. “It’s tempting if you have a good year to take one line item and cut it a little, but we try not to do it. There could be a snow event, or there could be several.”

But for the most part, Parker said, taxes and the budget will be the things that hit people most in the coming year. In addition, he said, there will be considerations about how to preserve open space, taking into account the November vote allowing for 20 percent of open space taxes to be used for maintenance.

“We will look to that and the farmland preservation committee to see how that will work,” he said. “It will be less pressure on the regular operating budget.”

Parker said they will continue focusing on ways to improve the township.

“There are projects that will need to be done, and new challenges that we haven’t been able to do in the past,” he said.