Rural areas already get policing they pay for

Local rural towns are beginning to fear that the end of an era is fast approaching.

When the New Jersey State Police organized in the 1920s, it began as a means to provide protection for the state's rural inhabitants who lived in communities that didn't have the tax base to start their own police departments.

As population and crime rates increased in growing municipalities across the state, more and more towns decided to create their own police forces. Today, however, 73 municipalities in the state still rely on the state police for local coverage. Many of the towns are still some of the state's most rural and/or those still too small to fund their own police forces.

But in recent years, the state government has considered either assessing fees to these rural towns for state police coverage or eliminating the coverage altogether.

Last month, these towns discovered that Gov. Jon S. Corzine's administration will be no different. When the governor introduced his $30.9 billion budget proposal, it included plans to generate $24 million revenue by charging certain rural communities fees for relying on state police patrols.

Corzine shouldn't try to offset the state's $4.3 billion deficit on the backs of rural municipalities that rely on the state police for protection. These municipalities already pay state taxes to offset the cost of this service.

Where are township officials in towns like Millstone Township and Upper Freehold Township going to come up with the money for the new fees? Like most municipalities in New Jersey, many of these areas are already struggling to budget for necessary municipal services among multiple state-mandated projects and frozen or decreased state aid.

If the measure passes, we're wondering what it would take for the state to just eliminate reliance on state police patrol altogether. If that happens, how will small municipalities like the borough of Roosevelt come up with the funding for police coverage? Even creating an interlocal agreement or a regional police department would be costly to a town like Roosevelt, where officials already struggle to get adequate fire and first aid coverage.

If Corzine decides to charge these rural places for such coverage, those fees should afford these areas better policing. Police response time should decrease. There should be more police presence in neighborhoods. More troopers should patrol straight-away, cut-through roads to stop speeding commuters from infringing on the farming and rural lifestyles residents in these areas lead.

All of that seems unlikely to happen, though, because these rural municipalities already get the coverage that they pay for through taxes. Corzine should just take a drive through the country roads of Monmouth County and count how many - if any - cruisers he sees.

But, these areas don't really need to start a new era in state police coverage because they are still areas of New Jersey existing in an era without much crime.