VILLAS — Lower Township is considering a proposal to welcome Middle Township into its shared municipal court with Wildwood Crest.
Township Manager Mike Laffey said that over the past several months, the township has been investigating and discussing the sharing of court services both towns.
“We met with administrators from both municipalities and have discussed the possibility of moving forward with that,” Laffey said Aug. 3. “Now we’re into the final stages of trying to come up with a plan to make that happen at this point.”
Mayor Frank Sippel said shared service agreements are one way to save money.
Deputy Manager Christina Lewis led a presentation on what responsibilities Lower Township would assume as the host municipality and the overall benefits for all three communities.
The purpose of a combined court system, rather than each municipality operating independently, is for the court to function as a single administrative entity serving all three municipalities.
“The goal is to improve operational efficiency, provide consistent court administration and shared operational resources,” Lewis said. “Each municipality [would] still maintain its own local identity and enforcement authority.”
Fiscal benefits
— Reducing administrative duplication by consolidating the courts into a single location rather than maintaining three separate locations or offices
— Reducing long-term personnel costs by allowing participating municipalities to share staffing resources instead of hiring and maintaining separate administrative support for each
— Reducing overhead expenses including office equipment, technology, maintenance, supply and administrative support
— Providing greater financial stability by allowing participating municipalities to share operational costs rather than each municipality absorbing those costs independently
The organizational structure would include one court administrator, supported by a deputy court administrator and two violation clerks. The court administrator would oversee the operations. The deputy court administrator would manage the day-to-day workflow and the staff would serve all three municipalities through a single office.
“The judge, prosecutor and the public defender would serve the shared court together,” Lewis said. “Each municipality continues to issue summonses, file complaints, enforce local ordinances and the shared court staff will schedule hearings, process payments, maintain court records, process warrants and dispositions and still provide customer service.”
Regarding combined annual filings for 2025, Lewis said that, based on the most recent statistics, the shared court would process about 12,000 cases, including motor vehicle violations, parking tickets, disorderly persons offenses and municipal ordinance violations such as property maintenance, zoning, animal control, beaches, rental property and other quality-of-life issues.
“The overall benefit for residents [is] one centralized location with consistent customer service and a standard court administration,” Lewis said. “For municipalities, it would reduce duplication of administrative function, promote operational consistency and enable more efficient resources by sharing.”
Lower Township, as the host municipality, would administer core operations, coordinate the staffing, maintain compliance with requirements and oversee all the financial reporting.
“Most importantly, each municipality still retains its own identity, ordinances and enforces the authority while benefiting from a professionally managed shared municipal court,” Lewis said.
Sippel thanked Laffey and Lewis for their work and presentation and added that there is still more work to be done.
“Shared service is the way to go to save money nowadays,” Councilman Tom Conrad said. “We have to pursue everything we can.”
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave
