(Bloomberg News) The days of on-demand trash pickup are dwindling for residents of Millburn, the northern New Jersey community best known for The Mall at Short Hills, where Cartier diamonds meet Dior fashions.
Homeowners in the town of 18,700 people 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Manhattan have only a few more days to summon a public-works truck for no charge to collect whatever they neglected to set out on garbage day. On Jan. 1, a cheaper private hauler will replace municipal employees collecting trash in the township, whose median household income of $170,000 a year is more than triple the national average.
"You would call, and they would come, and that's not going to happen," Mayor Sandy Haimoff, 73, said in a telephone interview. "People will realize they have to get the garbage out the night before."
Even as poorer cities such as Camden and Newark struggle with reduced state aid that has made them shrink police forces, some of the wealthiest towns in the second-richest U.S. state are also rethinking expenses that once seemed routine as they cope with Governor Chris Christie's 2 percent cap on annual property-tax growth. The governor, a 49-year-old first-term Republican, cut aid to towns last year as he limited annual increases in local taxes, forcing mayors to weigh worker firings and program reductions.
Montclair, a bedroom community of about 37,000 people 12 miles west of Manhattan, shed 10 percent of its workforce in the past two years, said township manager Marc Dashield. This year it cut library funding to a state minimum of $2.36 million, from $3.13 million, and scrapped the budget for the Arts Council and First Night, an alcohol-free New Year's Eve celebration.
"When we made our cuts, we had to make a decision and say, 'These are the core functions of government,' and anything outside was open to examination," Dashield said in a telephone interview. "The Arts Council was a great thing for this community. First Night was a great thing for this community. But it was outside the parameters."
A property-tax cap in neighboring New York that will take effect Jan. 1 will have a similar impact, Moody's Investors Service said in a July report. Governor Andrew Cuomo in June signed a law that prohibits any annual increase above 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower, unless 60 percent of voters agree.
Moody's cited that cap this month when it downgraded the credit ratings of the village of Suffern and the city of Long Beach.
Medford, Long Hill
In New Jersey, Moody's gave the Burlington County township of Medford's rating a negative outlook in November after the town deferred school-tax payments. In June, the company lowered its rating on the Morris County township of Long Hill to Aa3, the fourth-highest investment grade, from Aa2.