TOMS RIVER – The Township Council hired a company to do an efficiency study with the goal of reducing costs while not reducing the quality of services.
The contract is to a company called Government Strategy Group, headquartered in New Providence, New Jersey. The work was bid out and the cost is not to exceed $150,000.
This six-figure cost is an investment, said council members Matthew Lotano, Joshua Kopp and Kevin Geoghegan. Acquiring a group to do this work was one of their campaign promises. They expect it will reap millions of dollars in savings.
This study will provide a “road map” to a more efficient, less expensive way of running the town, Lotano said. He added that the council is not waiting to get the results of the study back; if there are ways to cut costs without cutting services they will do so. For example, they are continuing the hiring freeze for non-essential workers.
One thing Kopp said he learned by being a councilman is that the town is a lot more complex than it looks to an outsider. The study will provide fact-based advice that the governing body can use to make informed decisions about how to run operations.
“Throughout the transition and into the early months of the year, we kept getting conflicting answers and push back about reforms we want to implement,” said Kopp. “We need, and Toms River taxpayers deserve, unbiased solutions to the challenges we face.”
“It’s been almost 40 years since we critically examined our Township government with a study like this,” said Geoghegan. “Our town and the level of services provided have changed since that time. Society has changed and their expectation of government has changed except for wanting the best, cheapest service for their tax dollars. We look forward to the findings of this study so we can make informed and educated decisions about the operations of various departments and their financial spending going forward.”
In other news, the Bey Lea Golf Course brought in $68,000 more during June of 2020 than it did during June of 2019, Councilwoman Laurie Huryk noted in the financial reports of the town. The course is also “almost caught up” with how much it made year-to-date.
This is good news, she said, considering that the course saw much less use due to COVID-19, and that the township officials were starting to worry about how to manage the expenses of the course in the future.
