Towns Seek Public Input on Shared Services Tonight

The Scotch Plains and Fanwood governments have begun exploring ways to share more services, and they want your input as they start the process.

Tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, the two towns will host a public forum to discuss the pros and cons of the idea.

“There are no substantive answers yet, just questions,” Scotch Plains councilman Jeffrey Strauss said during a recent council meeting. “This will serve as an opportunity to talk and comment on the shared services study.”

The two towns are using Jersey Consultants out of Cranford to oversee the project, which is already underway to some extent. Department heads from both towns have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss what they think would work, and what wouldn’t.

Neither town knows what will result from the study yet.

Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr said she doesn’t want to assume it will save the towns money until she sees the results of the study.

“You really have to run the numbers to make sure that that’s true,” Mahr said. “We would think it would mean financial savings, but it’ll also be interesting to see if merging departments doesn’t make better financial sense, but does make better service sense.”

The governments hope to have a recommendation from the study by the end of the year.

Read our earlier story on the issue here.