North Wildwood, Wildwood and Wildwood Crest to seek state grant for feasibility study for shared fire/EMS services

PRESS RELEASE

The City of North Wildwood, the City of Wildwood and the Borough of Wildwood Crest have announced jointly that the three municipalities will join forces to apply for a state grant for the purpose of conducting a study to discuss the feasibility of the three communities sharing paid fire and emergency medical services (EMS).

The three communities plan to apply for a Challenge Grant through the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Local Efficiency Achievement Program (LEAP), which incentivizes the sharing of services with the goal of reducing cost, delivering municipal services in a more efficient manner and generates increased value for each dollar spent while ensuring the local units remain responsible stewards of the public trust.

LEAP provides counties, municipalities, school districts, authorities and fire districts assistance for the study or implementation of promising shared services projects undertaken pursuant to the Uniform Shared Service and Consolidation Act, according to information from the NJ DCA website.

The three municipalities have agreed that volunteer operations would not be part of this study, thus meaning that Wildwood Crest would only be a part of a study involving EMS. The study would be used to determine the feasibility of North Wildwood  and Wildwood to share services for paid fire services and the feasibility of North Wildwood, Wildwood and Wildwood Crest to share EMS.

The three participating municipalities have agreed to hire and independent form to study these types of shared services while taking advantage of the NJ DCA LEAP grant. This will enable the elected officials and taxpayers in all three municipalities to take an honest look at the possibility of sharing these services in an effort plan for the future.

The state has set aside a total of $3.15 million in LEAP Challenge Grant funds, with up to $150,000 set aside for each county for up to three municipal grants of $50,000 each. If no other entity in a county applies, one application could qualify for the entire $150,000. Funds can be used to support a variety of costs relating to investigating, development and undertaking a shared service project.

Decisions pertaining to the sharing of these services will not be made in the near future, according to all three municipalities. Any discussions on the sharing of these services will be continent upon the results of this independent study.