Exterior, Tavistock Country Club. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.
In a state governed by home-rule politics, the Borough of Tavistock lays claim to a distinction dubious even by New Jersey standards.
As a community of nine residents spread across five households in four homes, according to 2020 U.S. Census data, it’s the smallest incorporated municipality in a state that has 564 of them.
Created in 1921 to skirt Haddonfield blue laws outlawing golf on Sundays, Tavistock Country Club comprises the majority of the 300-acre enclave, but relies upon the borough next door to provide its public services.
The rates and terms established in the most recently enacted shared services agreement (SSA) have been unchanged since May 26, 1992, when Mayors Jack Tarditi of Haddonfield and George J. Buff, III of Tavistock agreed to them.
The SSA stipulates that Haddonfield will handle Tavistock’s police, fire, and trash/recycling/brush removal; provide the services of its fire marshal, construction code official, and sanitary inspector; and perform “street repairs and street cleaning.”
It establishes a price of $5,500 for those services in 1992 — plus $5,300 for the 1991 tax year — and ties future increases to “the percentage increase in the local tax rate of the Borough of Haddonfield.”
Whether due to the initial price in that agreement, or the fact that the general and effective tax rates for each borough have tracked more than one percentage point apart in 21 of the last 26 years, according to NJ Treasury data, the SSA hasn’t been re-evaluated in three decades.
Haddonfield Mayor Colleen Bianco-Bezich says it’s time to do just that.
The existing SSA is “so old it doesn’t even qualify” under the rules governing current shared services agreements, Bianco Bezich said. As the cost of public services continues to climb, she’s looking to renegotiate.
“We really need to execute new, contemporary agreements that work for all of us,” the mayor said.
According to a study of taxable property in Tavistock Borough by its tax assessor, Brian Schneider, its four homes and 174-acre country club are valued at $25.918 million. Schneider’s study notes that in 2023, Tavistock was reassessed at a 100-percent ratio, which is unlikely to change “since there is rarely a usable sale that occurs in that municipality.”
Comparatively, Haddonfield was assessed at 81.71 percent of its total value in 2024. Even by dropping the assessed value of Tavistock properties to $21.178 million, its residents still pay far less than what their Haddonfield neighbors pay for public services.
In 2021, Tavistock paid Haddonfield $27,502 for its police, fire, and public works services. In 2022, that figure rose to $29,078, and to $32,187 in 2023.
Were Tavistock to have been taxed at the same rate as the rest of Haddonfield, the $32,187 bill would jump to $127,069 for those same purposes. Tavistock would also pay another $166,037 to Camden County.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In an earlier version of this story, we reported that taxing Tavistock as if it were another Haddonfield neighborhood would add another $382,054 to the Haddonfield public education system. That information was sourced from the tax assessor’s report referenced above.
However, that report doesn’t take into account that in 2009, Haddonfield Public Schools absorbed the “non-operating” Tavistock school district, and Tavistock has been a part of the Haddonfield school district ever since.
Because both districts merged, they share a merged allocation rate, meaning the state determines annually how much Tavistock pays towards its share of the Haddonfield school district.
The amount is prorated by population. Currently, Tavistock sends two schoolchildren to Haddonfield; in 2024, its regional school district tax was $31,000.
Haddonfield Board of Education Business Administrator Michael Catalano reached out to correct the record on what is an uncommon public education arrangement shared by the two boroughs.
“No matter what happens with the SSA, it has no effect on the levy,” Catalano said.
Comparatively, Tavistock adopted a total municipal budget of $186,141 for 2024, with less than $24,000 dedicated to public safety.
“There’s no part of me that wants to go to a neighboring town and say, ‘You should be paying four times what you’re paying me,’” Bianco Bezich said. “But the reality is we can’t continue subsidizing another community’s benefits and public services as our residents continue to get taxed.
“If [Tavistock] were taxed as if they were Haddonfield, we would see a significant increase [in revenues],” she said.
To put it in perspective, adding another $127,000 to the Haddonfield annual budget would cover about half the cost of its local firefighter stipend program, or the salary and benefits of a full-time police officer, the mayor said.
Those comparisons also underscore another component of Bianco Bezich’s argument that Tavistock should pay more for its services — namely, that the community is placing greater demands on Haddonfield first responders.
According to the mayor, Tavistock generates an outsized number of service calls to Haddonfield Police. Annual call volumes have steadily increased (from 98 in 2021, to 162 in 2022, to 210 in 2023), doubling in three years.
Three-quarters of those 470 calls have sent police to one address: the private country club at 100 Tavistock Lane. Fully 90 percent of all calls originating in Tavistock were for Haddonfield police to check on that property.
Given its amount of usage of Haddonfield services, and the cost of underwriting those services versus the revenue Tavistock pays to receive them, Bianco Bezich said the present course of action is unsustainable.
The Haddonfield mayor said she likely would seek an incremental increase from Tavistock on a schedule that ramps up its costs to an equalized assessment on par with Haddonfield rates within the next three to five years.
In the event that the two communities can’t come to terms, either may discontinue the SSA by resolution 90 days before the end of a given calendar year. That puts everyone on a short deadline for 2025.
“I tried to initiate this conversation at the start of the year because it’s really important that we form a neighborly agreement or go our separate ways,” Bianco Bezich said.
“We have 60 days to essentially align on an increase, but understanding that they’ve already passed their municipal budget for the year,” she said.
In an e-mail to NJ Pen, Tavistock Mayor Joe Del Duca said his borough is aware that Haddonfield wants to renegotiate the SSA, but declined to comment substantially on the details of the arrangement.
“We are reviewing the facts and figures and will negotiate in good faith with Haddonfield,” Del Duca wrote. “We are certainly willing to pay our fair share for services rendered.
“We have had this relationship with Haddonfield for over 50 years, and I am confident we will reach an agreement satisfactory to all concerned,” he wrote.
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