It's called "home rule." It is debated off and on in NJ when living costs soar.

I don't know the details of the history of the effort to combine services. I'm sure it has been written up somewhere.

One reason no one ever achieves cost control is that there is an endless supply of Manhattan couples who come out here to raise their families. They are high income and don't mind paying the outrageous taxes (we are highest in the nation) because they would spend that anyway on private schools in NYC.

Look up some of the salaries for school principals and superintendents.

It's the same in the colleges and universities. In one county college I know of, the president pulls in almost half a million with her bonus plus she gets a free vehicle.

I know all this because I'm in the teacher's union; former college prof but now consultant to public school system. And no I do not have a big fat contract but I do have a job I love and can work my own hours. Essentially no boss.

Racism and classism are major components of home rule.

Affluent people live in townships and boroughs where their taxes pay for very good public schools. The high taxes make homes in these towns unaffordable to the average person. New Jersey's poorest people are mostly concentrated in cities with not-so-great public school systems.

In a few areas school systems have merged in order to save money. Instead of each town having its own school board, administrators, bus system and cafeteria system, they economize by operating a regional school system.

I grew up in New Jersey and live here now, but for some time I lived in Maryland, where each county has its own school system. The city of Baltimore, with its own public schools, is the exception.

PS - Welcome to New Jersey!

New York city has the most seggregated schools, which is extra insane w how diverse the city is. Also those small boros might be hundreds of years old. My childhood town near Philly is 336 years old. All the housing discrimination and access cases involved my town and the neighboring town so NJ had an early start to the modern post civil rights segregation.

Manchester High School incorporates the towns of Haledon, North Haledon, and Prospect Park. Each town contributes to the school system according to its aggregate wealth of residents.

A few years ago, North Haledon wanted to break its compact with Manchester and to send its children to Midland Park. Midland Park is in another nearby county. It is more upper middle class. It is more "white." It is more academically inclined as the students from Haledon and Prospect Park for the most part are more quasi-urban insofar as they don't want to be in school, they don't hope to proceed to college, and a better life. (I know because I've taught in both districts.)

And the court wouldn't allow North Haledon to break away and go to another district to educate its children. Mostly because Haledon and Prospect Park could not afford to finance its high school without North Haledon and its removal would result in de facto segregation.

This was more than 20 years ago. Here's the court's decision.
https://www.law.com/njlawjournal/almID/900005413163/

My point is that you could try to combine towns and services, but it doesn't always work to the efficiency in some situations of individual entities.

every school district have a Superintendent, no matter how small the population. A friend lived in a school district with 600 students and a Superintendent who spoke "jargon" as a primary language.

Our sister town is South Orange. While there are two town councils, we share a municipal court system that was merged around 10 years ago.. Our fire departments were combined a few yers ago to form the South Essex fire department.

Our two towns are run by one Board of Ed. This is a substantial savings. We don't pay for two superintendents and their staff to sit drinking coffee in two heated or air conditioned buildings.

There are many "SOMA" signs around the towns to support the shared sense of community.

So why doesn't this happen more often? Well, let's take schools. How do we know that our neighbors in Millburn won't go about wanting us to pay for books like a biography of Harriet Tubman or books supporting lifestyles that Jesus wouldn't approve of? Or even worse, teaching about that stuff?

Fortunately, M/So are known to be two of the most supportive communities of gays and minorities in the nation. I now this because the NYT says so,

Also, there are a lot of people who would like the ego trip of being the mayor or a town council member.


Attend a few council meeting and get to work on this. It can be done.

in Riverdale. Everytime they do a blast, the buildings here at The Grande shake, sometimes to the point where we get non structural cracks in the condos. We are probably half the population of this boro, yet the council pretty much ignored our concerns about the continual blasting. To me it reeks of one ore more people on the council on the take.

NJ has different type of incorporated municipal government: borough, township, town, city, and village. Borough is just the most common, with village the most rare.

Wikipedia explainer of Local government in New Jersey

And welcome to NJ, from a lifelong resident of the state.

My kingdom for an edit function.