NORTHFIELD — Atlantic County commissioners voted Wednesday to accept up to $1 million in state funding to offset costs of its Central Municipal Court handling State Police summonses from nonparticipating municipalities for the past two years.
The vote occurred at a special emergency meeting, needed because news of the funding came suddenly and the state required the vote by July 11, officials said.
The next regularly scheduled meeting was July 16.
“We believe there was a flaw in the legislation that’s been corrected, and now this money is going to be made available through a LEAP grant,” said County Executive Dennis Levinson of the state’s Local Efficiency Achievement Program.
Levinson said the grant funds will go back to participating towns to offset their costs.
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In January, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Vince Polistina and Assembly members Don Guardian and Claire Swift, all R-Atlantic, that amended the original law that allowed counties to create pilot central courts, to put the onus on towns that keep independent municipal courts to handle their own State Police cases.
For its first two years, the central court handled all 23 municipalities’ State Police cases.
Atlantic County Superior Court Assignment Judge Michael Blee attended the virtual meeting and said the changes in the law start Aug. 1.
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The county court will have to finalize all State Police cases pending before it, he said, which is likely to take some months.
“It is an incredible step in the right direction from an efficiency standpoint and a fairness standpoint,” Blee said of the new law.
Blee thanked Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Jacquelyn Suárez for her role in helping the court get the LEAP funding.
“It’s a great day for the Central Municipal Court,” Blee said.
Fewer than half of the county’s 23 municipalities are participating in the Atlantic County municipal court pilot program, which is designed to save taxpayers’ money through shared services.
Levinson said he hopes more will join, now that they will have responsibility for their own State Police cases so their savings will increase.
Atlantic County’s Central Municipal Court opened Jan. 1, 2022.
Levinson said all participating towns but Northfield have saved money under the program. Northfield left the county court at the start of the year and joined a shared court with Hammonton.
Northfield became the second municipality to exit the Atlantic County Central Municipal Court last week for the Joint Municipal Court of Hammonton, joining Hamilton Township, which left in May. Leaders from those municipalities have cited net revenue for the court falling short of the expectations that had been set when they joined the central court in 2021.
“The reason they weren’t saving money is they had a terrific deal with Linwood,” Levinson said, calling it an aberration.
Towns that joined the central court will now save even more money with the legislation change and LEAP grant kicking in, Levinson said. He could not provide an estimate of what percentage of cases the central court has handled that will now go back to towns.
“And the towns which were not getting those State Police cases (but now will get them), obviously their costs are going to go up,” Levinson said. “Who’s going to pay for it? The taxpayers.”
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