ENOUGH!!! i'm am so sick of this. We need an outside accountant to come into this city and see where the already high taxes we pay are going. Since buying at the end of 2005 we're now paying 250 more a MONTH in taxes.

its time to clean house everywhere in this damn town

Board of Education elections are April 15th.

Quote:
Maybe the rank and file is underpaid, but Superintendent Epps already makes over $231,000 per year.


http://www.talkingpolitics.net/Charles-Epps.htm

Tax bump in Jersey City's new school budget

Friday, March 28, 2008
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

In a 5-0-1 vote, the Jersey City Board of Education has adopted a $627.4 million budget that comes with a slight bump in taxes.

As driven by a state formula, the total amount to be raised by local property taxes is $86.12 million.

That translates to a $38 hike for owners of properties assessed at $100,000, said Jersey City Business Administrator Brian O'Reilly.

Board members Peter Donnelly, Franklin Williams and Sue Mack missed Wednesday's meeting and Anthony Cucci abstained.

Run by a state-appointed superintendent since 1989, the Jersey City school district is scheduled to return to local control in a matter of weeks. Nonetheless, it continues to receive an enormous amount of state aid, given its status as one of the state's poorest districts.

The newly adopted budget contains $477.8 million in state aid, representing 76 percent of the spending plan.

This budget is up roughly $9 million from this year's $618 million amount.

The increase is mostly due to increases in salaries and benefits for employees, said Business Administrator Joann Gilman.

The district is placing solar panels on the roofs of Schools 22, 28 and 8, Gilman said. The project will cost nearly $5 million, with the state Board of Public Utilities paying for half of it. Cucci abstained "as a tribute to" Gilman, who after 25 years with the district is leaving at the end of June to take another job.

"Here at a time when the schools are being returned (to local control), the time when she is most needed, she is going," Cucci said. "I don't think they (the administration) dropped the ball (in trying to retain her). But sometimes there are other forces at work."