And this doesn t include the numerous utilities and authorities created by each county. As one journalist noted, even if you figured out how your own county worked, you couldn t assume you knew how things worked in the other 20. Small as it is, New Jersey probably possesses within its narrow borders more governance per square mile than any other state. All of these bulge with officials patiently awaiting their generous pensions. And all enjoy the power to tax, which, as Chief Justice Marshall told us many years ago, is the power to destroy.
Counties get their money from the municipalities.
In Essex County, the percentage of property taxes paid by municipalities to support county government ranges from 25 percent to nearly 40 percent of their total tax collections. Sixty percent of what county governments do is mandated by the State. Counties, for example, finance and operate the jails, the prosecutors offices and the sheriffs departments. Yet all of these are in the service of state laws, and it certainly would be better if we eliminated the extra layer of bureaucracy and simply allowed the state to pay for them. Of the remaining 40 percent, some spending is legitimate, like maintaining public parks whose boundaries extend beyond one town.