Shared Services Pilot Bill Allows for Firing of Tenured Employees

Legislation to establish a pilot program for municipal shared services in five New Jersey counties, including Camden County, will head to the desk of Gov. Chris Christie for signature.

The new law would allow local governments to fire a tenured municipal clerk, CFO, assessor, tax collector, public works manager, or treasurer "to effectuate a shared service agreement," according to a press release from its Fifth Legislative District sponsor Senator Donald Norcross (D-Camden/Gloucester).


"It is contrary to public policy that the tenure rights of certain local personnel should effectively prohibit shared services agreements for the services provided by those local personnel, thereby depriving property taxpayers of property tax relief," the language of the amended bill reads.

According to the press release from the Fifth Legislative District, the bill was drafted in response to the case of Nancy Doman, a tenured Audubon clerk terminated by the borough as part of a cost-saving initiative with Magnolia.

Doman sued to keep her job, and won in 2011; since that time, Norcross has been working on legislation that would make dismissals like hers legal within the state.

A nearly 30-year-old law had protected clerks in New Jersey with tenure after five years.

"The argument is that tenure buffers them from politics, so that they are not under pressure to respond to the party in power, making it easier to maintain the neutrality we expect in elections," Rutgers professor David Redlawsk told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2011. "The other side of the coin is that they are no longer accountable to anyone."

Audubon Mayor John Ward and Magnolia Mayor Betty Ann Cowling Carson were quoted in the statement from Fifth District legislators as supporting the potential cost savings provided by such a measure. 

The bill does include a clause that would allow any tenured employee terminated under a shared-service contract "to be re-hired and regain tenured status if the agreement expires or is cancelled within two years following the employee’s dismissal," according to the statement.

Collingswood has already signed agreements to share code enforcement officials and other labor as part of the seven-town Colonial Alliance, and is part of a regional feasibility study to determine whether Colonial Alliance member municipalities could also share police chiefs, detectives and administrative help.