Everyone knows that mayor Fulop is going to do wonderful things for JC. But 8% is a bit steep. If we cut spending alongside, I am sure the increase would be a bit tolerable. The thing with taxes in a blue state like Jersey is that they only go up, but hardly come down. Hope we don't have to live with this 8% forever.

Taxes have gone up near 20% in the last 4 years where the biggest was in 2010.

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Couldn't agree more. The city's fiscal mess wasn't created overnight, and it won't get fixed overnight. In the meantime, the city still has to function, bills have to be paid, and here we are halfway through the year with NO budget. An 8% tax hike absolutely sucks, but imagine what the tax hike would have been like if Healy had been re-elected (and with no attempt at structural reform for the long term). It would've been well into the double digits probably. I seem to recall after Healy's re-election four years ago we were walloped with something on the order of a 17% or 18% tax hike.

Anybody who voted for Fulop thinking there would be massive layoffs, meaningful restructuring and some sort of tax cut (especially after they had been frozen in the year leading up to the election) less than two weeks into a new administration is tripping on some awesome magical thinking.

And why does a city of the size of JC need two deputy mayors?

Where are the spending cuts? No word about eliminating wasteful agencies.

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Since you are in such a giving mood why not pay my share as well?

I would give him a break on the tax increase IF he first audited the departments, increased efficiency, got rid of some of the cushy, political dole jobs.

Instead, he creates new positions, wants to increase pay....and he delayed the reval.........so who knows when that will kick in......adding to the ever increasing tax burden.

Besides ending city vehicle abuse.......Steve has not had a great start, early in his administration.

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This kind of reminds me of working in Iraq in 2003. It's been a week - where's the miracle?

Cleaning up a mess is less fun and less politically gratifying than creating a mess. Let's not forget that our special mess accrued not just over a near-decade, but over generations. Most recently, politically inconvenient decisions were conveniently kicked down the road just past the '13 election. Is the idea that we'll right the ship for free and all get a check in the process?

I'm willing to invest time, as well as to pay as needed, to put JC on a track to excellence.

6:00 pm

Note the cityofjerseycity.com website doesn't show the time (it just says SPECIAL) but if you look at the agenda... it is there.

Please also look at the agenda. Look at some of the numbers and how they are being revised. That is the shocker.

http://cityofjerseycity.com/citycouncil.aspx?id=864

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Please folks. Please show up tomorrow at the City Council meeting. Bring signs.


What time?

Bumping this up.

Please folks. Please show up tomorrow at the City Council meeting. Bring signs.

Apparently because it is a first reading, there is no speakers list and the voice of the people is being suppressed.

Demand the Council table this for further study. This is too soon and we haven't seen any cuts or consolidation that was promised yet.

Did you get an 8% Raise? Where is the reform. Team Fulop has been planning this take over since 2010. They pointed to their PLAN constantly during the campaign.

Where are the layoff and the cuts in spending?

And for the Newcomers and Interlopers... who bought here in the past ten years... where is the tax reval giving US tax relief? Canceled by Mayor Fulop, despite being approved by the County and State.

(note to certain folks, not a rant, reality check more like it)

Thanks.

This is really disappointing. Better fix it by next year and give tax relief or Fulop will have no credit with me. One year to make it right. Cut jobs cut wasteful services make the city leaner and meaner! Good step this week with the desk audits, let's make it count!

What is with all these raises? People are taking huge job cuts in the private sector just to be employed and the City is giving out raises like this! Shameful.

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We'll get hit with an increase from the County too. No worries there.

So let me get this right the final prediction is that the city is going to raise the taxes by nearly 4% and not 8% ?

UPDATE: Amended Jersey City budget will include nearly 4 percent tax increase; includes salary increases in mayor?s office, others




07.09.13 - 04:28 pm



JERSEY CITY ? In preparation for the July 10 special council meeting to amend the Jersey City?s 2013 budget, the city clerk?s office has released details of the amendments to be considered. They would increase taxes by 3.92 percent.

City Council President Rolando Lavarro Jr. has scheduled a special City Council meeting for Wednesday at 6 p.m. to introduce an amendment to the 2013 municipal budget.

The 2013 calendar year is half over and Jersey City has yet to pass a municipal budget for the year. Former Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy presented a $486 million 2013 city budget to the council in February, and the governing body held a public hearing on the spending plan, but never adopted it.

The eight-page budget amendment includes several line items of note.

For example, wages and salaries in the mayor?s office will be upped from $929,650 to $1,029,650 ? an increase of $100,000. Wages in the revamped Mayor?s Action Bureau will increase by $180,137, from $366,863 to $547,000.

The city?s website touts a ?new and improved? Action Bureau whose ?goal is to provide [residents] with quality information, courteous customer service, and quick turn-around on quality-of-life complaints.?

Details on how new Mayor Steven Fulop plans to overhaul and improve the Mayor?s Action Bureau have yet to be released. But during a series of town hall meetings Fulop held throughout the city in June, many residents expressed a desire for better constituency services from municipal departments. An expanded Action Bureau may be Fulop?s attempt to address these criticisms.

Salaries in the city?s law department will also be increased under the amended budget, from $2,998,221 to $3,173,221 ? an increase of $175,000. There will also be salary and wage increases in the city?s Department of Public Works and in the Department of Housing, Economic Development, and Commerce.

General expenditures under the amended budget will rise from $500,097,007 to $515,923,451. About $95,272,529 of the city?s 2013 expenditures are excluded from state-mandated spending caps, and the amount of money to be raised from taxes increases by $15,935,378 in the amended budget.

It remains to be seen how the Fulop administration plans to address the budget shortfall and cover increased staffing in certain departments.

On Tuesday Mayor Fulop announced that his administration will conduct a desk audit of city workers and programs to, according to the mayor, ?make every employee and every office accountable and working to its fullest potential for the residents and business owners.? ? E. Assata Wright

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

A measure that would boost Jersey City property taxes by 8 percent is set to be approved at Wednesday?s City Council meeting.

The council, which convened for its new term just last Monday, faces a multi-million shortfall in the $500 million proposed budget, a shortfall Mayor Steve Fulop blames on his predecessor, former Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

?The Healy administration introduced a budget that left taxpayers with a $20 million structural deficit,? Fulop said in a statement. ?Our team is looking forward to turning the page and closing the chapter on the Healy legacy, but unfortunately he left the taxpayers one final gift.?

Fulop became mayor on July 1 after a bruising campaign against Healy during which Fulop attacked Healy for property-tax hikes.

Blaming prior administrations for new tax increases is nothing new. Healy himself did it in his most recent reelection campaign, saying a tax hike in 2005 resulted from his attempts to clean up a financial mess he said he inherited when he was first elected mayor the previous year.

When the city introduced its 2013 spending plan earlier this year, the budget had no tax increase. But Fulop says the Healy administration padded the budget with millions in unrealistic revenue projections so that Healy could campaign for reelection on a ?no new taxes? platform.........

Full Story Here