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Such A Deal

Loch Arbour and Allenhurst Eyeing A Merger

The Asbury Park Sun reports that the Village of Loch Arbour is moving forward with its plan to seek a merger with its neighbor to the north, the Borough of Allenhurst.

250px-census_bureau_map_of_loch_arbour_new_jersey2Loch Arbour is .1 square mile and home to 196 people, according to the 2010 U.S. census.  The metropolis of Allenhurst in three times the size of of Loch Arbour by land mass, but has a much lower population density of 496 residents per the most recent census.   Should the towns merge, they would form a municipality just south of Deal, the 1.3 square mile borough that is home to 750 year round residents.

Loch Arbour has a municipal budget of $1,243,058.  That’s $6,342 per capita or $25,368 per family of four.  Allenhurst’s municipal budget in $4,344,268; $8,760 per capita.

250px-census_bureau_map_of_allenhurst_new_jersey1Obviously, it is not municipal spending that is prompting the 196 Loch Arbourians to give up their sovereignty.  It is school spending. 

Loch Arbour sends its 20 school age children to the Ocean Township Schools. The Corzine administration invalidated a school funding agreement between Loch Arbour and Ocean Township that was worth about $300,000 per year.  The new formula required Loch Arbour to pay school taxes based upon their property values.  That $300K became $1.6 million.    Allenhurst sends it school kids to the Asbury Park school system, an Abbott District that the entire state subsidizes.  If the merger goes through, property taxes in Loch Arbour will fall from an average of about $24,000 per home to less than $9000.   Not bad, relative to property taxes throughout the rest of the state, for homes valued at over $1.4 million on average. 

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Posted: April 22nd, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Property Taxes | Tags: , , , , | 10 Comments »

10 Comments on “Such A Deal”

  1. MergerCentral said at 11:05 am on April 22nd, 2012:

    What would happen to the property taxes in Allenhurst? This is exactly why Abbott school districts are killing this state. I would love to see the data on how many kids from Allenhurst actually attend Asbury Park HS. I bet less than 10 kids total.

  2. truth hurts said at 11:50 am on April 22nd, 2012:

    The Abbott schools are crushing this states budget. Its a failing program that throws good money at bad situations and is a blatant abuse of us taxpayers. The extreme expenditures and extravagances of neptune, Asbury and Long Branch school districts is disgusting and extreme. Its further taxpayer abuse. The positive to this merger would be to eliminate a few police patrolman hopefully. The police unions and the $120k a year policeman are pushing this state faster into bankruptcy. The liberals and NJEA and PBA are doing everything they can to bankrupt this state and yet the outragous salaries and benefits keep going up. Hopefully this merger will eliminate some overpaid public union employees during this great recession.

  3. nbrefugee said at 1:33 pm on April 22nd, 2012:

    If the Princetons can merge. these two nothing towns should be able to merge, but actually merge withsomeone else. The Princetons will havce a combined population of 28,000 when merged. That should be the benchmark for continued merging with other towns in Monmouth.

  4. Mahatmacane Jeeves said at 2:57 pm on April 22nd, 2012:

    I agree, although marginally, with nbrefugee. I firmly believe that the mergers should be county-wide, with one unified police dept and one unified DPW/Highway department. Let every town bear the exact same burden (per capita) as the next. Couple that with a county-wide school system and we might begin to see some tax savings.

  5. truth hurts said at 4:24 pm on April 22nd, 2012:

    Merge the schools in Monmouth county? Now, that would be a great idea that would save a lot of taxpayer money. Does anyone have any info on this ? Any talk of this ?

  6. speedkillsu said at 3:21 pm on April 23rd, 2012:

    It still amazes me that we all pay the highest property taxes in the nation of which 60% to 75% are for schools …..yet we have NO choice ,we are forced to send our kids to schools that our politicians insist upon !

  7. Justified Right said at 4:56 pm on April 23rd, 2012:

    Don’t get me started Art….

  8. ArtGallagher said at 5:24 pm on April 23rd, 2012:

    Justified Right said at 4:56 pm on April 23rd, 2012:
    Don’t get me started Art….

    You’re already started Tommy. Don’t back off….

  9. New Guy said at 6:22 pm on April 23rd, 2012:

    Corsine nixed the deal that the town had, did you expect these smart, well to do, successful people to sit back and take it up the rear. I am suprised it took this long for them to get this ball rolling. I also question why commercial properties have to pay school taxes. Maybe the laws should be changed so that no one may use a commercial property address for school perposes. But I doubt they do already.

  10. Bob English said at 7:18 am on April 24th, 2012:

    Truth…There have been articles in the papers the past couple days regarding school consolidation. There was a big push in the last year or two of Corzines term to get the ball rolling on this. There is quite a bit of cost involved and from what I have read in the paper yesterday and today, it is not a priority for the current administration.

    http://www.app.com/article/20120424/NJNEWS1002/304240015/Forced-school-consolidation-off-table?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage