Princeton Borough and Township combine police forces ahead of consolidation

The last major hurdle to complete the merging of two New Jersey municipalities will happen tomorrow. 

At a briefing last night by the Princeton Transition Task Force, Princeton Borough Administrator Bob Bruschi said all of the towns’ major city departments have been merged except one.

“Wednesday will be the last big merger of the bigger departments. That’s when the police departments will all be located in one facility,” he said.

In addition to a single police headquarters, the combined police forces also officially begin patrolling together tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m. Voters approved combining Princeton Borough and Princeton Township last year.

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Projected cost savings

The entire process of combining city departments to adjusting salaries coming up with leaf pick-up schedules has taken 12 months. Bruschi said the goal of consolidation is to cut operating costs, something he said appears likely.

“Well the projected savings are going to be somewhere in the area of $2.2 to $2.4 million dollars, which is significantly more than the original savings that was anticipated. It’s about 40 percent higher. A lot of that has to do with expedited retirements that occurred plus we’ve been able to find savings that we found as we started to combine budgets,” he said.

The new municipality, simply called Princeton, will become a reality on Jan. 1, 2013 with a new mayor and council.

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