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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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Hundreds protest budget cuts, planned teacher layoffs at Jersey City schoolsJERSEY CITY — More than 300 parents, teachers and students crowded inside School 26 on Monday night to demand Jersey City school board members find a way to avoid massive cuts to school staffing and educational programs. The board was meeting to adopt its $638 million budget for 2019-20 at a time when the 30,000-student district faced a budget gap that exceeds $100 million and a cut in state school aid that totals roughly $30 million. The district in recent weeks sent out hundreds of layoff warnings to teachers and staff — during Teacher Appreciation Week — panicking district employees and parents. https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/05/hund ... -jersey-city-schools.html
Posted on: 5/14 5:01
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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My brother addressed the above issue by moving to a town that had a school dedicated to advanced kids. The oldest of his two sons has a genius level IQ. He basically "graduated" high school at age 15 and has been taking college level math and chemistry. Regular school was pretty much a prison of boredom for him. I like the Montessori method which seems a good fit for my kid (at least for the first few years). We are already using the method at home with success. Both of us despised our early school years and want something better for our own. Me in particular.. Forced to sit in a chair and recite stuff written on a blackboard all day was torture. if I had been born 10 years later, I would have been poisoned with ADD meds.
Posted on: 4/4 20:02
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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Perhaps a discussion for another thread but I never understood why children were placed in a grade based on their age, rather than ability. It probably is all about money as prodigies would quickly skip grades and the school system wont be able to leech off their per capita funding every year. A high school graduate degree has literally become a participation trophy.
Posted on: 4/4 18:47
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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That is about what it will cost me to send my kid to one of the Montessori schools here in Jersey City. School costs is one of the reasons I lose tenants who have kids. As so as the kids grow out of pre-K, it's off to the suburbs or private school (most can't afford it). My one tenant headed out to somewhere near Dover for the exact same issue. His kid didn't hit the lottery for the charter so he ended up in the local public school. The kid was bored out of his mind because he is already doing fractions, divisions, etc. whilst the rest of the class is still learning adding & subtraction.
Posted on: 4/4 15:34
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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Spending $23,337 per student is outrageous, especially when you consider what they are getting.
Posted on: 4/2 23:12
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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Yeah, why should they make following the bread crumbs easy??? Go here: https://www.state.nj.us/education/guide/2018/district.shtml and type Jersey City into the "Search for a District by Name:" field.
Posted on: 4/2 16:12
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That's a dead-end link.
Posted on: 4/2 15:28
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I am on board with this idea. Though the current governor is anti-charter. His administration put a block on new charters. We may actually see charters disappear. I would add that parents should be allowed to 'roll over' unused funds (allocated annually) to be used on future education expenses (including college and trade schools). This would bring some financial accountability to the school via the parents, instead of a politicized school board.
Posted on: 4/2 13:31
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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Much of what they want is here;https://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/education/csg/18/csg.pl Basically we spend more on everything than almost anyone else, except extracurriculars, in which we are 11th Percentile. I have a modest proposal. Why don't we simply stop sending kids to the school system. It's clearly what they would like, the district is being run by and for it's employees, any education is merely incidental. Alternatively, the District should declare bankruptcy like GM as a way to shed absurd union contracts and retirement obligations. Or maybe get rid of the district and go all charter like New Orleans. What we're doing is simply not working for anyone but the staff and contractors. PS: Among the things being cut for next year at McNair is many non-STEM AP classes. Anything that could not create at least a 30:1 teacher/student ration is gone.
Posted on: 4/1 21:13
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You can find that information here: https://rc.doe.state.nj.us/ However, the NJS Dept of Ed stopped reporting school financials, post 2011. You can still get school district financial stats, albeit from year 2011 and earlier at this link: https://www.nj.gov/education/reportcard/index.html
Posted on: 4/1 15:26
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Meanwhile, nearby Maplewood is getting almost an overall 7%
tax increase. https://villagegreennj.com/towns/gover ... QLbQCoKU3U4En2YAlaVNfvpo8
Posted on: 4/1 14:47
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One of the biggest challenges is the resistance by entrenched teacher unions resisting (and, outright rejecting) any oversight or outside probing of the system. We are continually told "trust us, we are the experts" or "we don't need you sticking your nose into our business". But, it IS our business. It is certainly our money. It would be interesting to see some more stats about amount of admin, non-teaching staff numbers as a ratio to students, and as a ration to teachers, and average salaries. Surely this data could be cobbled together from some source. It would be interesting to compare across districts in NJ, and against districts in other states. I am pretty sure the results will be predictable, but having cold, hard numbers would be nice.
Posted on: 4/1 14:31
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This was the case back when I was a student in a suburban public school back in the '70s and '80s. The high school had a superintendent, deputy superintendent, principal, vice principal, dean, and a plethora of admin support staff. This was during the Gen X baby bust, where the number of students dropped about half from the previous generation. My parents used to wonder what all those people did all day. They pulled me out and put me in private school (that was perpetually underfunded) the last two years of my education. The improvement in education quality was astounding, primarily because the teachers were people who just wanted to teach. Public school the teachers were constantly doing work slowdowns, sick-outs, threatening strikes, or just overall hated their jobs.
Posted on: 4/1 12:48
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I used to have the numbers, but I can't seem to find them. The number of support and admin staff today compared to 30+ years ago is MUCH HIGHER, even though the student population was the same or smaller. The same goes for teaching staff. Certainly, it seems like there is enough fat to trim in staff numbers. Of course, that is never a move that is liked or easy to accept.
Also, we rank in the top 10 or 20 percent of salaries, for teachers and other admin staff. Something has to give, and now that residents are being told they will be shouldering the spending ways of the BOE, people are paying attention and demanding accountability. The problem with our setup of others shouldering our budget is that it encouraged the populace at large to be apathetic about the BOE spending.
Posted on: 4/1 12:01
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They don't have a revenue problem. They have a spending problem. They should be more creative to solve this problem than just firing people although that's certainly key. Especially when it comes to firing those that cost the most.
Posted on: 4/1 1:10
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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Reject it and vote the bums out.
Posted on: 3/31 20:39
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To increase the budget by more than 2% requires an affirmative public referendum.
Posted on: 3/31 10:58
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I do not have the budget from the school system but I know what the board members said, they have access to the budget now. Years ago, Hoboken municipal government actually went up more than 50% when Dave Roberts was mayor. So, large increases can happen.
Posted on: 3/30 22:41
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I get it for the incremental levy for schools with the caveat that if property values drop, e.g. in a recession, we may end up in the 2-3% NJ range sooner than later with a lot of people appealing their assessment/taxes and the city/school/county counteracting accordingly every year.
As for this year, the city is proposing a 2% property tax hike to balance its budget while the BOE is proposing a 10% tax for the school portion. If the county proceeds in between, am I misguided in projecting that the average homeowner should expect a 3-4% hike?
Posted on: 3/30 21:09
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Got it... so perhaps 2 percent imminently, but potentially 20% or more down the road.
Posted on: 3/30 21:08
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Read the article: the current budget proposal is only for a 10% increase to make up the shortfall for this year. That ~10% increase represents only a little over a 2% increase for residents in their total tax bill. The dire predictions of 100% or 200% are about what will happen in the future. This year's increase is largely mitigated by the payroll tax approved by the legislature. As pressure increases in Trenton to cut back even more in the JC BOE subsidies, and as other cuts already announced get phased in, more money will be needed to make up the shortfall.
Posted on: 3/30 17:48
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While I am not claiming to know any of the numbers here, if the BOE is talking a 50% to 100% tax increase and school taxes represent about 25% of our full tax bill, how can we only expect a 2% tax increase. It seems to me it's more in the ballpark of 12.5%-25% or perhaps even more. This is simple math.
Posted on: 3/30 17:35
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Yvonne, the result is a 2% increase in JC taxes. Considering how low JC taxes are compared to the NJ average your takeaway should be ‘how lucky JC taxpayers have been for decades’.
Posted on: 3/30 16:58
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But here is the problem, other districts do not have massive tax abatements as we do. Over one quarter do not pay school taxes and they use the school system. Then you have rent control properties. While they do get increases, the law was change in 1985 that prevented tax pass alongs. Other Hudson County municipalities do allow tax pass alongs to rent control buildings. This tax burden is squarely on the shoulders of the small homeowner.
Posted on: 3/30 15:57
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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The numbers and details are public information. The BOE claim is actually quite true: over time (and, perhaps in the near future) JC residents SHOULD expect an increase of 100% to 200% percent of their current school taxes, which currently account for about 26% of the total property tax bill, and only covers about ~17% of the BOE budget.
A 100% increase would have JC residents shouldering 33% of their local school budget, while a 200% increase would have us shouldering half of our budget. When you look at it that way, two things become clear: 1) this future tax increase is inevitable, and 2) this is not at all an outrageous expectation on the part of the state and other NJ municipalities. For far too long, JC residents have been complacent about the BOE budgets and wasteful ways because we have only had to pay 1/6 of our school taxes. When the reval came out with an outrageously low number, it became clear to other municipalities that JC was getting away with far too much, and so now everyone is asking / expecting JC to shoulder a bigger percentage of their local BOE budget. Why should JC get away with levying a 1.5% property tax, and get over 80% of their school budget subsidized, while other municipalities have to impose 2 - 3 percent property tax rates to pay for their school budgets AND ours?
Posted on: 3/30 15:52
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Is there any way we can see the actual budget details?
Posted on: 3/30 13:42
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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I understand that but I have friends downtown who are hit with $20,000 to $40,000 in taxes. We pay approximately 25% to the school system so my friends could pay an extra $5,000 to $10,000 at the low end or $10,000 to $20,000 at the high end.
Posted on: 3/30 13:36
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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To be clear, the 100-200% tax increase refers to the portion of taxes that support schools, not your overall real estate tax, no? It’s so large, since JC homeowners currently pay such a tiny amount to fund JC schoolchildren.
Posted on: 3/30 11:35
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Yvonne, are you against or in support of this tax increase?
Posted on: 3/30 2:41
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Re: ‘Massive’ $120M budget shortfall is subject of special Jersey City BOE meeting
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This video is from the Board of ed meeting on March 20, 2019. Board members are talking about a 100 to 200 percent tax increase.
http://www.jcboe.org/boe2015/index.ph ... lrqBoh1GcV1BK2CfRQQue_pCU
Posted on: 3/30 1:11
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