Just as I predicted! Why don't the urban cities want to pay their fair share??

Getting the money back
Mayors want their business district $$$ from the state

by Al Sullivan
Reporter staff writer
Nov 16, 2014

Mayors and other urban officials gathered in the Walmart parking lot in North Bergen on Nov. 10 to support a bill proposed by Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto to reinstate state funds for business districts, or Urban Enterprise Zones.

The bill would mandate that a portion of sales tax revenues go back to some municipalities each year, an estimated $27 million, in an effort to spur urban economic development and reinvigorate the previously highly-successful UEZ program.

The program lowers the sales tax rate to 3.5 percent charged by businesses within UEZ zones. The state then returns a portion back to municipalities to pay for services within those zones, such as street cleaning, police protection, and promotional events.

But in February 2010, Gov. Christopher Christie began to withhold UEZ funds from municipalities to help balance the state budget. At the time, the governor said he intended to revamp the program so that whatever funds were available would be specifically targeted to development, not ancillary services such as police.

Christie wasn?t the first to tap into UEZ funding. Gov. Jon Corzine used some of these funds for his own budget in 2008, but restored full funding the next year, something Christie has yet to do.

The Urban Enterprise Zone Program was enacted by the New Jersey State Legislature in 1983 to help stimulate new economic activity and reduce unemployment within the boundaries of each zone. The establishment of these zones has helped provide incentives for businesses to come to downtown urban areas that have suffered a loss of business to suburban malls, and to occupy vacant properties or build new ones.

Read more: Hudson Reporter - Getting the money back Mayors want their business district
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