The Legislature hereby finds and declares that it is in the public interest to encourage contiguous municipalities to consider consolidation as a means of insuring more rational control of growth and development, more efficient provision of local services and more effective public administration; that the existing laws of this State are inadequate to encourage local consideration of consolidation in many instances where such action might be desirable; and, that the State should provide technical and financial assistance to encourage such consideration in those instances where it may be appropriate, and where voluntarily agreed to by the municipalities involved.

The Legislature further declares that, since political and administrative consolidation of separate municipalities is an act of high public importance to which are attached many unforeseen difficulties and obstacles, the successful completion of a plan of consolidation, once approved by a vote of the residents of the municipalities involved, shall constitute a public purpose of this State; and, therefore, that the grant of powers under this act is intended to be as broad as is consistent with the Constitution of New Jersey and with general law relating to local government, and shall be construed as liberally as possible in regard to the consolidated municipality’s right to organize its own form of government, to organize its structure and to alter or abolish previously existing municipal agencies, subject to the general mandate of performing services and to the provisions of the plan of consolidation approved by the voters.

L.1977, c. 435, s. 2, eff. March 1, 1978.