Well if you did not vote in the last election (which was many of us) then you shouldn't complain. Maybe now some of us will realize how important it is to get involved in our local government so that our economic future is not sold down the river. Jersey City administrations past and present simply sold us out by not choosing to make the hard choices that need to be made to cut spending and get worker contracts under control. Consequently highly paid government employees now make 22% more on average than in the private sector.

One time quick fixes used to solve the budget deficits were not the way for the city to go over the years. Our local government wimped out on us and now we as taxpayers will suffer for it.

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we know fox news is a sham. this is now about JC's budget absurdities

furloughs wont make a dent.

just fire anyone who works for Jersey City but lives in bayonne, hoboken, bradley beach, etc.

that'll clear out the highest earners and some of the people who actually know what they're doing (no overlap between those two groups).

then, exact a hiring freeze for two solid years at least...

wait for it... wait for it...

and then hire loads of jc people in time for the next election.

BAM

PILOTs generate more money for the city than would not be generated, although they do deny money to the school district and the county. All of Hudson county is supplementing Jersey City's development when the city issues abatements; the county doesn't get a cut and so must collect more from non-beneficiary towns. Whether you are pro or anti development, PILOTs have kept municipal property taxes down, and more abatements and new PILOT payments could fill the budget gap.

As to the revaluation, the property tax rate will fall when it is completed because the total value of the city had risen. After a reval, the total collected revenue remains the same and the rate is adjusted to reflect produce the same total revenue. Hence the rate will drop, though some property owners will end up paying more if their properties appreciated at a faster pace. While individuals' tax bills may rise, the total rate will fall, meaning the council could still raise the rate in the future and end up with more revenue and a lower rate than today.

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The guy who stole... er, failed to return... a rental car for more than 3 months? No, he's an innovator and for those few days... he wasn't consuming city resources.

Quick way to save the City $100K. Fire Deputy Mayor Kabili Tayari now ! The guy knows nothing and does nothing !

Also: some city properties to sell/ auction: * the old Frank Conwell school #3 on Bright Street = condo conversion. Hell, let's just do the condo conversion in house and clear the profit for the city. Is it against the law for a (community) development corporation to BE the developer when it's not focused on affordable housing in particular?
View Larger Map * clear out the old #3 annex on Bright St b/t Barrow and Grove.
View Larger Map

FAB is right. 70-80 percent of the City budget goes to Police and Fire. Those departments are full of high paying positions for people who effectively do nothing and don't even live in the City. Healy and the Council should never have agreed to new contracts with Police and Fire that gave them increases. In a fiscal crisis like the city is in, all salaries should be frozen across the board until the budget gap is closed.

Sorry, y'all but I'm leaning to Ian's side on this one.

The reevaluation will disrupt some people who in the meantime are "underpaying" in terms of their property.

We are all overpaying in terms of the value/ enjoyment/ services for our rental and owned properties, as there are many quality of life concerns which chip-chop-chip away at us.

But, I think while Ian's point addresses the need for city services to improve the area... and THUS it's desirability/ property values/ resale values... some problems of infrastructure and governance are too complicatedly expensive to understand in terms of tax dollars. That is: there's SO MUCH duplicative, venal, selfish behavior in this city... often by non-residents... that it's difficult to see how to take them off the gravy train they're riding.

In the meantime... cleaning up the area, etc. as he addressed, is already part of the existing budget and doesn't require lawsuits, lobbying, changes to pay-to-play, fights with the union, etc.

For instance, enforcing the new state law about crosswalks and running red lights... that could raise A BUNCH monthly... and as T-Bird noted it could mostly be applied to out-of-towners.

But... I think we should continue to look into this more.

Xerxes and CoryBraiterman.. as much as I disagree with you two about the adaptive reuse for the downtown Embankment , you often have a lot of fiscally prudent insights for city governance. What do you think?

+1 VanVorster. Ian I would ordinarily agree with you in the context of general social needs but I think we have witnessed enough of our share of pilots, inflated hierarchy and double dipping recently. The later especially is very bad in terms of pension cost and limiting employment opportunities. I also take issue with the comment on 1/3 assessed houses, you seem to have forgotten the ratio in your equation. Certainly my house is currently overvalued based on this formula and the drop in sale values.

What I am really concerned is the city seemingly completely behind the curve. So they raised 2 millions by raising property taxes again, but the deficit will be 56 millions. How can they solve this? Arguably the reval won't save that. It seems to me that we are moving fast to a situation of default and on that one, I would argue to start with the great Schundler bond before any pensions. The later will likely be impacted imho.

JC could save a siht load of money by firing the Healy Administration and over-paid top-end cops and fire guys

from the CNN article:

"He added that raising property taxes will likely result in massive foreclosure rates, which is unacceptable.

Booker said he is making the severe cutbacks "to avoid a tax shock to our city."



I feel a shock coming.....

Here's a link to the story on two websites.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/22/news/ ... ark_budget_cuts/index.htm


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ma ... to_Vs0HlxVC631kUsEb2jCbML

+1 VanVorster. Ian - your goals are noble and I also believe in having a robust public sector that provides the services that make a city more than just tolerable. I'm willing to pay for it, too. But we are the highest taxed people in the country to begin with and have very little to none of the things that you mention.

Based on what we already pay, don't you think we should be in much better shape w/r/t these very basic items on your wishlist? Do you think more tax money is going to solve it? The amount of property taxes that funds the city budget have increased 83% in the past six years. Do you feel as though things are 83% better? Or whatever the inflation-adjust percentage would be?

Whether a small number of people (which, in the bigger scheme of things, brownstone owners are) have a better tax arrangement is beside the point - and going to end very soon with the coming revaluation. No, the bigger point is that government in NJ, Hudson County and Jersey City has failed the people. NJ is a failed state in many ways.

I think I pay more than my fair share of taxes and I don't have any children in the school system (and never will) and can't fathom where my money is exactly going when I have to change a tire at least once a year due to roads/potholes that look like we're in Fallujah, debris/litter everywhere and the streets not looking as good as they should be, cuts in the Museum and Library hours, etc. I am far from some vitriolic Tea Partier lamenting big wasteful government and calling Obama a socialist. I do however concur with Teacher and surmise that my taxes are going to pay for egregious salaries for those at the top of government, pensions, cars/gas cards, and other money that gets confiscated/hidden.

Collecting more taxes from Brownstone owners should be a distant concern. Most owners pay enough, and yes some other pay too little, on balance they pay their own way and support local establishments.

More important, Clean up the the mess first, then look at what everyone pays, inclusive of Greenville folks getting too many breaks. Limiting egregious payrates, pensions and redundant staffing of city staffers should be a high priority.
Limiting dual salaries...cars, expense accounts, gas cards...etc...Firing corrupt/lazy stupid politicians 1-4.

Afterwards...Lower all property taxes, Make it easier to fix properties, establish businesses...

cant wait till I sell & move...

huh? what about this toilet paper thing, im confused!

The Van Vorst Park Association had a one on one with Jack Kelly our new Business Administrator this past Tuesday. It was open to all to come...he was very interesting and had some great ideas about what his plans are to fix some of the budget issues. Wish you all had been there....we ran a Post right here on JC list inviting all to join us!

Complaints about property taxes from people living in million dollar brownstones assessed at 1/3 of that value are ridiculous.

You know what is better than cutting property taxes?

-- Police patrolling the downtown so that apartments aren't broken into and people aren't attacked on the street at midnight.

-- Paving the streets so that cars aren't torn apart by giant potholes

-- Maintaining public trash cans so the streets we live on aren't covered in litter

-- Upgrading infrastructure so that water mains don't break every other week and so that sewers don't overflow every time it rains

-- Providing after school and summer activities so that school age teens have something to do other than form roving gangs and break into cars


Complain that the city is failing to provide these services to its residences. But don't complain about paying taxes, especially when so many downtown residences are only paying a small portion of what they should be.

Yeah, people are getting a wake up call re: the profligacy in local government. My parents live in Monmouth County and they said someone just retired with a full pension at some town there (this his salary was $135K) and has now assumed a new job in another town making $120k or some other nonsense. No wonder their taxes are so high.

http://gawker.com/5594538/best-jobs-i ... -manager-and-police-chief

Where does Fulop stand on toilet paper and cops?
I say get rid of them and we can all use McDonald's napkins and kindly uncles until the recession ends.

Privatizing around here doesn't work. Schundler did it to the MUA, sold the water system to United Water, and contracted out the JCIA collections, and we still lose. The efficiency of all of the above is carefully tuned to just below our snapping point while still making our money vanish.

Of course, expenses need to be cut but I think furloughs is a better solution than en masse firings which would stunt any economic recovery if companies/governments/non profits just keep cutting.

Maybe the federal gov't should allow Bush' tax cuts to expire and redistribute a hefty portion back to cities. I don't think anyone wants the US to go through the 15 year deflationary experience that Japan went through

Gosh... Newark, NJ cutting toilet paper just tonight on the news. Also heard Hoboken is cutting cops.

WHAT IS JERSEY CITY DOING?

Fake Furloughs while our taxes go through the roof.

WHERE ARE THE CUTS!!!!! WHERE ARE THE CUTS???

AND WHY ISN'T VEGA IN JAIL?

This is getting really ridiculous.

Other towns across the country are privatizing everything to get out of the pension trap. One town in California FIRED ALL city workers.

How come these guys can't fix this. If you can't lead, get the F out of the way.

This is gonna get BAD.

FG