Joint town court staff will work for Westwood
Ruocco thanked the borough administrators of both towns—Hillsdale’s Mike Ghassali and Westwood’s Durene Ayer—and officials in both towns for making the agreement possible.
In an email Dec. 13 following Hillsdale’s vote, Ruocco said, “The staff of the two courts will become one and all will be employees of Westwood. The latter will assume responsibility for ensuring compliance with all standards, training and staff certifications.”
“Hillsdale will reimburse Westwood for its portion of expenses relating to the Shared Municipal Court Services staff based on the prorated share of actual costs of court operations as determined by the percentage of cases that are attributable to Hillsdale,” he added.
Ruocco said, “The identities of the Westwood and Hillsdale Courts will remain separate, but their business will be conducted in one building at 101 Washington Ave. in Westwood by a combined staff. Records, revenues, fees, and fines will all be administered separately by borough,” said the mayor, who also briefly described the agreement at the Dec. 12 council meeting.
Hillsdale councilwoman Abby Lundy and councilman Anthony DeRosa also thanked Ghassali for effecting the shared service agreement.
Westwood Mayor Ray Arroyo told us he had tasked Ayer to “be receptive to inquiries regarding potential opportunities for savings through service consolidations.”
“We have previously tried, and failed, to combine police department dispatch services, first with Hillsdale, and then Emerson. This past year, we were successful in combining Hillsdale’s municipal court with ours. In order to keep pace with inflation driving labor, energy, insurance and material costs to new heights, the pressure to restructure has only grown,” said Arroyo.
He added, “Therefore, we will continue to work with our neighboring municipalities to identify other departments which could be shared in an effort to control the costs of municipal services.”
Added Ruocco, “Sharing services among municipalities has been endorsed by state and municipal officials for many years as an effective cost-saving approach that improves the efficiency of the covered service without a loss in quality.”
Ruocco said, “For example, several years ago, Hillsdale entered into a shared service arrangement with the County for police dispatch services that has been a financial and technological success, allowing our police officials to focus on other matters. It is my hope that this trend toward shared municipal services will continue, providing relief for residents living in one of the most heavily taxed states in the nation.”