Public Forum on Shared Services Report Slated for June

Scotch Plains and Fanwood residents should expect to see the results of last year's shared services study in early June.

During a meeting of the Scotch Plains Council this week, Mayor Nancy Malool stated that council members in both towns have received the report and will be reviewing it in the coming weeks. The report was handed over to members of the Shared Services Committee in January, but due to some technical issues found, it took them up until now to finalize the report for distribution.

Details of the report will be released to the public in June after the councils have reviewed it.

Scotch Plains council members on Tuesday expressed the need for Dan Mason, the president of Jersey Professional Management, which led the study, to come to them and explain the report in detail.

A few weeks ago, Mason approached the Shared Services Committee with a proposal to be paid $25,000 to continue his work this year and help with implementation. The committee — made up in Fanwood of Mayor Colleen Mahr, Donna Dolce, David Valian and Borough Administrator Clerk Eleanor McGovern, and in Scotch Plains of Mayor Malool, Councilman Jeffrey Strauss, Building Official Robert Lacosta, and CFO Lori Majeski — worked closely with Mason while the study was being completed last year.

Malool noted that the committee rejected Mason's $25,000 proposal on the grounds that they haven't even decided if they'll implement any of the suggestions in the report. Mason came back to the committee with a lower number, which the committee turned around and cut again until they agreed to a $5,000 fee to cover his services through the public forums and the rest of the committee meetings in June. Scotch Plains would pay $2,500 and Fanwood the remaining half.

Council members questioned why such a service wasn't covered under the $48,000 grant money that was given to Jersey Professional Management last year to perform the study.

"The guy gave me a proposal, I question why the presentation part isn't part of the original proposal," Councilman Kevin Glover said. "He should at least explain it to us."

Malool noted that the $48,000 was intended to cover Mason's work through the end of 2009, when the report was delivered to the committee, but that it was fair to ask him to come to the council and explain the report and to talk about what they'd be getting for the additional $2,500.

"He wrote the report, he should explain it to us, the town council," Councilman Dominick Bratti said. "Last year we didn't have a town newsletter because it would cost $8,000, so even though this is only $2,500, we can't use those words anymore that it's only x amount of dollars."

On a similar note at the meeting, the council also approved a resolution to pay Jersey Professional Management $2,200 to continue its work with the Shared Services Coordinating Council – a joint project with Fanwood and the Board of Education that has been in existence for close to a decade. Members from all three parties meet every other month to discuss shared services initiatives. The longtime project is separate from the shared services report, which was commissioned last year to study in-depth the potential for cost savings in every municipal department in the two towns.

In regards to the Shared Services Coordinating Council, Councilman Glover questioned if they've ever considered working with anyone other than Mason and Jersey Professional Management, noting that perhaps it'd prove beneficial to get an opinion from another firm.

"There's some advantage to having a historical perspective of working in the two towns, on the other side there's an advantage to a new perspective," Mayor Malool acknowledged.

But, she pointed out that the three parties have already been meeting with Jersey Professional Mangement for four months now in 2010. Town Manager Christopher Marion said that because Fanwood and the Board of Education have both already accepted to pay $2,200 each to continue the work, it was in Scotch Plains' best interest to do the same, then explore options for other firms in 2011.