Finally, several Atlantic County towns that rely on State Police protection have seen the handwriting on the wall – and are starting to draw up their own plan for avoiding a budgetary crisis. The remaining towns covered by State Police should be doing the same. This issue isn’t going away.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s proposal to require rural towns to pay for State Police coverage is not the first, but may be the most serious attempt yet to force small towns to either set up their own police force or pay for the state to provide protection. The issue is one of basic fairness: Most New Jersey taxpayers pay for their own local police force through property taxes, then pay again in state taxes to subsidize police coverage in some small towns.

At one time, this may not have been a problem. But with the state’s budget crisis – and with some of these rural areas growing into more sizable, semi-suburban communities – it is no longer fair or sensible. In addition, many of these small towns are contiguous and could consider a regional solution.

Buena Vista Township, Weymouth Township, Estell Manor, Folsom, Mullica Township and Egg Harbor City are doing just that. The firt four use State Police; Mullica and Egg Harbor City now pay for their own police. They are using a $20,000 state grant to study the best way to provide regional protection. One option being considered is having the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office provide coverage. A fee formula must be part of that study: Sheriff Jim McGettigan pointed out – rightly – that it wouldn’t be fair to have the eastern part of the county pay for the sheriff to patrol the western portion.

That being said, this is the kind of solution that other towns that rely on State Police should be exploring now. Heck, they should have explored it years ago.

Corzine is proposing to require the 89 communities that rely on State Police to collectively pay $20.5 million for protection. The formula to work out how much each community would pay has not yet been drawn up, but is expected out next week, according to spokesmen for the state Treasury Department and attorney general.

That formula is essential. The rationale for requiring small towns to pay for State Police protection is one of fairness – and that rationale is undermined if the pain is not spread fairly as well.

The Office of Legislative Services has issued a report breaking down the payments. OLS apparently used a formula proposed but never adopted two years ago that was anything but fair in southern New Jersey. That formula exempted two of the wealthiest and most populated towns in southern New Jersey without a police force – Upper Township and Dennis Township – fromany payment, simply because they were in Cape May County, where wealth along the coastline wildly skewed the numbers. Upper, by the way, has a municipal tax rate of zero. Meanwhile, relatively poor towns like Buena Vista Township got socked. The inequity was not lost on Buena Vista and certain other towns two years ago. They squawked – loudly.

Buena Vista is now among the towns acting responsibly to try to come up with a regional solution. The state should make sure these towns feel that the pain this year is being spread with logic and fairness.