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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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Yvonne, And why do you think that they had to make a choice? Do you think that if the city was doing frequent revaluations or updating valuations every couple years, people would see their taxes double without changing their property? You think from one year to the next they would be forced to make such harsh decisions? No entity that taxes property can do without revaluations. none. Its obvious that every 10 or twenty years does not work and the interval cant be never, so what should it be, 30, 40, 50 years? Two one acre plots of land in the same city that have comparable uses should not be treated differently taxwise. You rail about abatement but from a taxpayer taxpoint, if I am paying 10K in taxes to the city in annual property taxes for a 700 sf. condo on the waterfront and you are paying $5K for a nice 4 family worth over a million a couple blocks away. Who is really subsidizing whom?
Posted on: 2009/4/6 21:47
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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"We ALL live here, so the burden of city administration costs should be fairly shared among us."
Most owners of newer or renovated properties, including myself, would NEVER send our kids to a public school here. Let the parents of children who do attend schools here take on that burden.
Posted on: 2009/4/6 20:12
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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+1 Yvonne.
I had friends who had to move out of Jersey City after the 1987 reval. They couldn't pay the taxes and they couldn't sell their homes with the increased tax burden.
Posted on: 2009/4/6 19:37
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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I saw many neighbors lose their homes after the 1988 reval, I refuse to keep quiet and allow tax policies to continue that hurt people. In the eary 1990's I met an couple who had to choose between health care and property taxes. One spouse was battling cancer and the other had heart disease. They made a pact not to be homeless, pay their taxes and put their health last. In Jersey City, the policy is put the developer first. Any tax policy that favors one group always have a negative impact on another. Jersey City tax policy is similar people going to a restaurant. Instead of paying only for your meal the non-abated property owners are paying for everyone food.
Yvonne
Posted on: 2009/4/6 19:13
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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On point about the school budget. The city got used to basically being able to send the State a bill each year under Abbott. So they irresponsibly went nuts with spending. THOSE DAYS ARE DONE.
Talking to Yvonne does not help since she knows everything, most of which is just blatantly wrong. Abated vs. non-abated properties is really of little consequence to the taxpayer, who did not come here, purchase property, then go to city hall demanding abatements. A person who pays 10K to city hall for property taxes each year is simply a person paying 10K in property taxes to support the city, whether the property is abated or not. Whether the city should still be giving out abatements downtown when one could argue it is not necessary is a policy issue that should be addressed. And if in the event a reval was done today that would exclude much of new development downtown where much of the high priced properties are located then that also would need to be addressed because that would be unfair. But the city has gone, what..over a decade without a reval? How much has JC changed since then? The longer the city puts off the equalization of property assessments (revaluation) the more divided and polarized the city becomes. The State will eventually FORCE the city to do a reval if it does not do it on its own...a la Newark.
Posted on: 2009/4/6 13:17
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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Just can't stay away
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+2 to T-Bired and Stani.
Jersey City has two problems -- the city budget and the school budget itself. The school budget dwarfs the city's budget -- that's where a major problem lies. We should expect and plan for further reductions in state aid contributions in the coming years. There are many areas of financial waste, which need to be comprehensively addressed -- line-by-line. Is our elected Board up to the task? I'm not so sure. At the end of the day, the responsibility lies right there with them. It's all about the budget and the efficiency with which that budget is spent. Today, I think it would be a fair characterization to say that the school budget is bloated and inefficient in its spending. I'd like to hear from BOE candidates, what they propose to get the budget under control, while still maintaining the quality our children deserve. All the best. G
Posted on: 2009/4/5 17:42
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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The budget became bloated under the State takeover. Jersey City paid 50% of the cost before the takeover. After the takeover, JC paid 13%. The state poured tons of money into the system. The $21 million increase since 2005 to $93 million is an extra 2% increase bringing up our costs to 15%. It boils down to money, who is paying for it and who is getting a free ride.
Yvonne
Posted on: 2009/4/5 16:15
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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A big +1. The terrible state of public schools in JC is one of the biggest issues for JC and it's future. Basically, most middle income families with young children (me included) eventually have to figure out what to do about our children's education. The options are: private school, JC public schools or move out to a suburb. The vast majority of us wind up moving out to the burbs. What this means is that middle income families don't take root here. This is huge and in my opinion, most of JC's problems stem from this: the cohort that generally lends stability to a community, that demands competence from their elected officials views this city as a temporary stop on their journey. They don't get involved in bringing about political change because they know they will soon be gone. And unfortunately, this will not change in the near future because all of the powers that be here, the local government, board of ed, etc. have a vested interest in this sad state of affairs to continue. In our local government, failure equals more money (bigger budgets). It goes something like this: "we can't do a good job educating our children, we need more money", or "we can't fix our streets, we need more money", etc. Competence means lower budgets and therefore doesn't usually happen. The bigger budgets then get used for patronage to all sorts of interest groups to make sure the politicians get re-elected again and again. The only way this corrupt cycle can end is with a broad-based political challenge to the entrenched interests. And this is less likely to happen if the middle income families with school age children, who would otherwise stay in the city for the 12 years of their children's education, keep leaving the city.
Posted on: 2009/4/5 13:23
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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I want to reply to two things: If a student leaves a public school and attends a charter school, the public still pays the lighting, heating and salary of the public school teacher. It doesn't matter if a a class is reduced from 25 to 20. The fixed costs remain. The secondly Hoboken pays 65% of its school cost and Bayonne pays 45%. Secaucus pays 90% of its school cost. We the non-abated public pays 15%. If the state decides to equalized school districts to 50% then non-abated properties will see their taxes rise to unaffordable rates. By the way, in the early 1990's when Charter schools were being discussed. I wrote a "letter to the editor" to the Jersey Journal. I said Charter Schools will not hurt the public schools but they will hurt Catholic and private schools. Half of their enrollment were non-Catholic students. What happened, Catholic schools closed down and I believe the public is paying tuition of students who would have placed their students in private schools. I also attended meetings held by then Mayor Doria of Bayonne who pushed the legislation of Charter Schools. He told me school districts who did not received state aid probably would not have Charter Schools. Those districts did not want to pay additional funding. So what has happened? Charter Schools started in communities that received a lot of state funding. He was not in favor of charter schools for Bayonne because Bayonne didn't receive JC funding. He also told me as long as he was Mayor of Bayonne, he would not have abatements because he worried about school funding. Bayonne had its first abatement last year after Doria left office.
Posted on: 2009/4/5 2:06
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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Yvonne: You've been cluttering two threads with the rant against abatements. You are taking a very narrow view - people with abatements pay as much, or more, in PILOT as others pay in property taxes. The city gets a larger share of the PILOT money than they do property taxes. The fact that the city is completely irresponsible and can't be trusted to make good decisions with the city's money is the issue.
Secondarily: How many people in the downtown highrises you are so fixated on do you think have school age children and, if so, are sending them to the public schools??? I live in one and would safely bet the number in my building is less than 5 and more probably zero. Not to say that funding the schools isn't everyone's responsibility - it absolutely is. But focus your anger on the people who really are to blame - the piss-poor city government and their equally sad brethren on the school board.
Posted on: 2009/4/5 0:54
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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They've had nearly 2 decades of bloating up the system on the state's unsupervised ticket. All parts of JC gov't are a magic cash vanishing machine. They will make all the money disappear until a complacent population finally squeals. Then they back off for a little while for the heat to settle down, and do it again. This is a city where the Parking Violations Bureau can manage to lose money at the business of writing tickets, and 1 of 5 firemen is a chief (think about the pension implications of that!). LCCS on the other hand, excels with roughly $12,600 per student, $9000 less than the regular public schools fail with. And Boardmember ex Mayor Cucci had the nerve to stand up and criticize charters for trying to minimize their expenses for clinical testing special ed kids, while the system shorts them by 42%! I guess if he had shame he'd never have made it to Mayor of JC to begin with.
Posted on: 2009/4/5 0:21
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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That is the issue- Abated property do not pay a penny to the Board of Ed while many families uses the services. Families on the waterfront (I have the budget breakdown) uses Preschool Program, some families enroll their children in Public School #16, and other families enroll their children in Charter School that has a budget of $37,355,802.00 for the 2009/2010 School Year. Non-abated property owners are RESPONSIBLE! And I believe it will go up next year.
Yvonne
Posted on: 2009/4/4 22:36
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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And that isn't counting future pension payouts... 
Posted on: 2009/4/4 22:28
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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Yvonne wrote: "Jersey City Board of Ed funding has been frozen since 1990. Non-abated properties paid $72 million a year until 2005. We received that figure based on a number of issues: 1- Jersey City could not reduced its share of the budget and 2- the number of poor people who live in the city. The tax abated waterfront has changed the picture. More people with higher incomes live in buildings that do not pay Board of Ed taxes. Since 2005 non-abated properties have paid an additional $21 million to the school system, bringing the total to $93 million That is a $5.00 tax increase. This is the reason I do not believe in tax abatements."
PILOT revenue comprises $88 million of this year's $460 million city budget - an increase of more than 10% over last year's PILOT revenue. Money is fungible - if more PILOT money is coming in, that's more money the city has to fund anything it chooses, including it's commitment to schools. PILOT vs. non-abated properties is not the issue. The issue is the incredibly bloated budget and what we get in return for the money. $629.8 million??? The city's website says there are 28,910 students in the JC public schools. That's $21,785 per student. You could send each kid to prep school for that. Seriously. Do you think the average student in Jersey City public schools is getting the equivalent of a prep school education?
Posted on: 2009/4/4 21:42
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 ye
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I'm a property owner and I'm pretty sure a reval would lower my property taxes. In addition a reval would be very salutory from a political perspective: once their taxes go up, maybe more residents would start to focus on how their government is spending their money.
Posted on: 2009/4/4 18:12
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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Check out the text in red below: Board of Education Fails to Adopt a Budget By Jon Whiten ? Apr 3rd, 2009 Facing a state-imposed deadline of April 3, the Jersey City Board of Education (BOE) met last night to adopt its $629.8 million 2009-2010 budget. With five votes needed, the board ultimately fell short and did not pass the budget. In the end, there were four votes in favor, one against (Anthony Cucci) and two board members (Gerald McCann and Frances Thompson) abstained. An additional two board members were absent, with McCann noting that Terry Dehere had been ?sent away? to a conference by the BOE, regrettably, on the same day as the budget meeting. Board member Ed Cheatam was also absent. The meeting got off to an auspicious start, almost on time. Deputy superintendent Frances X. Dooley, standing in for superintendent Charles Epps, presented the proposed budget, noting that the Jersey City tax levy would be increased to $93 million, up from $86 million last year. Kathleen Curran, who spoke on behalf of Mayor Healy, said that the city would fight for more state funding, and that the mayor contacted Gov. Corzine immediately after the numbers detailing the amount of state aid to the district were released. Thompson questioned the state?s calculation of the tax levy, calling it arbitrary. Mack asked if the budget could be passed under protest, and the board?s lawyer replied that the budget can be approved with objections, but the board must pass a budget. McCann then wondered just how much independence the school board has if it is forced to pass a budget and has no control over the tax levy. After the meeting, McCann explained that the responsibility to approve a budget would now be passed along to the Corzine administration. Noting that it is an election year, he predicted that the state will be forced to adopt the budget as requested. http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... -fails-to-adopt-a-budget/
Posted on: 2009/4/4 3:32
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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Jersey City Board of Ed funding has been frozen since 1990. Non-abated properties paid $72 million a year until 2005. We received that figure based on a number of issues: 1- Jersey City could not reduced its share of the budget and 2- the number of poor people who live in the city. The tax abated waterfront has changed the picture. More people with higher incomes live in buildings that do not pay Board of Ed taxes. Since 2005 non-abated properties have paid an additional $21 million to the school system, bringing the total to $93 million That is a $5.00 tax increase. This is the reason I do not believe in tax abatements.
Yvonne
Posted on: 2009/4/4 2:43
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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Exactly. Add not being able to f*#%ing make up your mind and abstaining, and 4 of 9 of that board didn't vote on the budget. Why are they there? If you can't make up your mind, quit. A corporation with that kind of budget that had such losers on it's board of directors would be laughed at. Only in JC do we routinely put people in charge of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars who couldn't run a candy store (or a flower shop like the appointed MUA chair). No more housewives, basketball stars, or doddering old pols, lets elect serious people who can take on the entrenched nonsense. I wish I knew what it takes to shake people here awake to fact that the schools mess could end up costing them big.
Posted on: 2009/4/4 2:33
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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How can you be on the board and not show up for that vote? I don't know the circumstances, so if there was a tragedy or something, I apologize in advance. But barring that, WTF?? Sometimes things aren't easy - if you can't handle it, don't take the job.
Posted on: 2009/4/4 2:04
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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You are guessing wrong, very wrong. But that is really not relevant because everyone who lives here will feel the effects of what is happening whether they own property of not. Also, if something sensible is not done, property taxes will "soar out of sight" for only some property owners. There are people paying $15K in taxes while other pay less than half that for larger, nicer, more expensive properties. We ALL live here, so the burden of city administration costs should be fairly shared among us.
Posted on: 2009/4/3 20:11
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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shakatah, are you a property owner ? I'm guessing not or you would never endorse a reval. Property taxes will soar out of sight.
Posted on: 2009/4/3 15:27
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Re: Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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Bottom line is the city and board members do not want to have the fact that they voted to increase the local property tax levy in an election year, so dont pass the budget and the State DOE becomes the entity that "forced" us to increase your taxes......So transparent.
School budget is the first shoe to fall. Soon, a-la-Hoboken, the city budget will follow. The basic issue is that the State has determined that the city MUST provide more of its own dollars to support its services and so MUST increase property tax revenue. A reval and a subsequent increase based on the new valuations on a less abatement heavy portfolio is the responsible thing to do, instead of tacking charges on our tax bills based on assessments that are all out of whack. Let's see how long the city can continue to put off the responsible option.
Posted on: 2009/4/3 14:23
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Vote drops ed budget in state's hands - JC Board of Ed fails to pass a budget for the 2009-10 year
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Vote drops ed budget in state's hands
Friday, April 03, 2009 By KEN THORBOURNE JOURNAL STAFF WRITER In a heated meeting last night that hinged on the amount of money the state wants Jersey City taxpayers to kick in for their public schools, the Jersey City Board of Education failed to pass a budget for the 2009-2010 school year. The move throws the final decision about the budget, which was due in Trenton today, into the hands of the state education commissioner. After the 4-2-1 vote, Board Chair William DeRosa somberly announced, "We have just set ourselves back 20 years." The $629.8 million budget needed five affirmative votes to pass. With the budget now defeated, state Commissioner Lucille Davy - mostly likely through local county Schools Superintendent Timothy Brennan - will now impose a budget on the school district, the attorneys said. A budget must be set in time for the April 21 school board election. Several board members objected to the state raising the local school tax levy from $86 million to $93 million. That hike prompted former mayor and board member Anthony Cucci to vote against the budget; and another former mayor and board member, Gerald McCann, and board member Frances Thompson to abstain. Board members DeRosa, Suzanne Mack, Angel Valentin and Peter Donnelly voted for the budget. Terry Dehere and Ed Cheatam were absent.
Posted on: 2009/4/3 12:55
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