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Hurray for a governor who makes towns and school districts actually look where their money is being spent and learn some fiscal responsibility!

"The new cap keeps towns, school districts and counties from increasing spending and taxes more than 2 percent, but permits exceptions for certain costs local officials don't control such as employee pensions and health care. Emergencies and debt payments also are exempt from the cap restriction. The new law applies the next time local governments and school districts draw up their budgets."

CB Online

Exactly what does this cap mean. Corzine put a 4% cap in place but property taxes still rose more than that - I think. Does this mean that one would see a 2% rise in property taxes regardless of the property valuations?

Hurray for bankrupting local government!

So how does this affect us in Jersey City? Didn't these bozos make up some BS ordinance to get around the tax cap anyway? What good is the tax cap if the local scum bags find a way around it?

Christie Signs 2% Cap on New Jersey Property Taxes

July 13, 2010
Businessweek

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose state has the highest property taxes in the U.S., signed legislation capping annual increases in the levies at 2 percent.

The measure reduces the current 4 percent threshold on real-estate taxes, the prime funding source for schools and local governments, and cuts the number of exemptions to four from 14. Christie, a first-term Republican, said the new limits will affect calendar-year budgets that begin in January 2011.

Christie and the Democratic-led Legislature agreed on the cap July 3 after lawmakers resisted his call for a constitutional amendment limiting the increases to 2.5 percent. The governor vetoed an earlier 2.9 percent statutory limit approved by lawmakers as he called a special session of the Legislature and pushed for stricter restrictions.

?This is all about making New Jersey affordable again,? Christie said. ?We?ve waited 30 years for a solution to the property tax problem in New Jersey and we?ve waited for politicians to fix it. They didn?t. This puts the solution in your hands.?

Christie, 47, signed the legislation in Hamilton, a Mercer County township of 92,000 residents where the average property- tax bill last year was $5,893, according to Mayor John Bencivengo.

$7,281 Bill

New Jersey property taxes rose 72 percent from 1999 to 2009 to an average of $7,281, according to data from the state Department of Community Affairs. Towns, schools and counties raised a total of $24 billion through the levy last year.

Christie, the first Republican elected governor of New Jersey since 1997, defeated Democrat Jon Corzine in November after pledging to end chronic budget deficits without raising sales, personal-income or business taxes. He has said curbing increases in local property taxes would make the state more affordable for residents and help it lure new businesses.

Corzine enacted a 4 percent cap in 2007 after property-tax bills climbed 7 percent in 2006 and 7.2 percent in 2005. Average taxes increased 3.3 percent last year, according to the community-affairs department data.

With the new cap, governments may be granted exemptions to cover bond payments, higher health insurance or pension costs and natural disasters. They would be allowed to exceed the limit with approval from a majority of voters in a public referendum.

State Aid

Christie?s $29.4 billion state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 trimmed aid to schools by $820 million and to municipalities by $445 million. Towns and districts have warned of service cuts and firings because of the aid reductions.

?The quality of education will undoubtedly suffer in New Jersey,? said Steve Baker, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, a union representing about 200,000 current and retired teachers, in an interview. Program cuts and firings ?are going to be repeated next year. You?re going to see more layoffs and more program cuts on top of that.?

Hamilton cut costs to avoid raising its share of the property-tax levy, according to Bencivengo, a Republican, who said 50 jobs have been eliminated since he took office in 2008. The town?s average real estate bill will rise $45 to $5,938 this year because of higher school and county taxes, he said. Residents under Christie?s budget also will lose property-tax rebates, which averaged $955 last year, he said.

Civil Service

Peter Lyden, a spokesman for the state Civil Service Commission, said 121 local governments have filed applications since January seeking to fire as many as 1,908 workers. In all of 2009, 82 towns applied to cut 965 jobs, he said.

?Something had to be done? to control property-tax increases, said Bencivengo, who attended the bill-signing. ?We all realize that.?

William Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, which represents mayors and councils, said the Legislature will need to enact laws to help towns curb expenses including personnel costs and medical rates so they can stay within the cap.

Christie has proposed a 33-point package allowing towns to opt out of civil-service laws and cap contract awards in order to lower spending. It also would curb payouts for unused sick- leave and vacation days, and end the ?bumping? rights that let the highest-paid, senior workers avoid layoffs.

?We?re going to have to work to give local officials the tools to work under this,? said bill sponsor and Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat from West Deptford who has set a schedule for legislative committees to remain in session during their summer recess to consider the bills. ?That?s next.?

Dressel said he doesn?t see the same urgency to enact the rest of Christie?s proposals as he did with the tax cap.

?The only thing municipalities can do in order to really meet the cap is to have more layoffs and more cuts,? he said in a telephone interview.

--Editors: Stacie Servetah, Mark Schoifet

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Trenton, New Jersey, at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net.