The Senate today approved Senator Steven Oroho’s legislation to help small towns fill vacancies on government boards.

The Senate approved Sen. Steven Oroho’s legislation to make it easier for small towns to find volunteers to serve on local boards of health. (Flickr)

Every New Jersey municipality, by law, is required to have a board of health, and towns with 20,000 residents or less are permitted to fill the board seats with members of the township committee. Oroho’s bill (S-652) expands current law to include municipalities with populations of 30,000 or less in the exception.

“For the many small towns in our state, it can be extremely difficult, even impossible, to find enough volunteers to commit the time to sit on the health board,” said Oroho (R-24). “By building on the sensible and efficient solution that has been effective for many of the State’s smallest towns, this bill will help ease the struggles and frustrations of more local governments wrestling with the challenges of meeting the requirements for a functioning board.”

The issue came to the attention of the 24th District legislators after discussions with officials from Andover Borough. An identical bill, A-117, was introduced by Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths (both R-24).

“We are doing away with an onerous mandate on small municipalities and making it easier for local governments to meet their statutory responsibility to protect the health, safety and welfare of residents,” Oroho said. “Eliminating State mandates makes it easier for municipalities to control spending and hold the line on local property taxes.”