Can't make it there for a pre 6pm protest but will be there in spirit and more importantly will make my disgust known by filing a tax appeal. Encourage all to at minimum try to find out if you are likely to benefit from an appeal.

Anyone with property assessed after 2004 (maybe even earlier) should be especially motivated. Recently converted condos (within the past 5-6 years) would more than likely benefit.

The protest on Wednesday is a great idea. Hopefully the mayor and his "team" will realize people are watching, and not happy with his out-of-touch and unresponsive city government. Anyone tried to write the mayor (without a check in hand) and gotten a response?

See you outside city hall.

from yesterday's jersey journal

http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index ... y_must_cut_just_as_w.html

Hudson County News, Letters to the Editor ?
Letter: City must cut, just as we do
By The Jersey Journal
January 22, 2010, 12:01AM

The City Council approves Jersey City municipal budgets and any tax increases.


I was very dismayed, angered and frustrated to read that Mayor Healy and Jersey City's council are considering raising property taxes twice during the same fiscal year. It is very disturbing and frustrating to watch the apparent ease with which our elected officials increase our property tax levels. It is insulting to the hardworking Jersey City residents, many who will have to make significant sacrifices to be able to live in this beautiful city. The electorate trusted and elected you after their careful deliberation. But it seems that you vote for tax increases with ease, without any deliberation, and without any effort push a heavier financial burden to already suffering Jersey City residents.


Currently, our nation is in a deep recession, an economic calamity comparable to the Great Depression. In New Jersey, nearly 10 percent are unemployed. In Hudson County, the numbers are similar. Ten percent of your residents do not have jobs, yet this city's elected leaders cannot seem to take this into consideration when creating a budget. Raising taxes will make their daily struggle even more difficult.


My family is very lucky in that both my husband and I have been able to keep our jobs during the recession. But we have not seen any pay raises, bonuses, or other increases in our income. Moreover, we own a multifamily rental building. Last year, we were forced to reduce our rents to keep it occupied, we also have had tenants facing severe economic hardship. As a result of these factors, our income has decreased in real terms; expenses beyond our control have increased, unfortunately.


Last year, we have had a significant 11.25 percent property tax increase, which amounts to more than $2,500 a year of additional expenses. This year, our water/sewage rates increased by 25 percent, which will increase our expenses approximately another $300-400 this year -- we even work with our tenants on water conservation. Learning that you are considering another substantial tax increase, which for us will be more than $1,600 a year, is very difficult to hear. Compared to one year ago, these increased taxes have cut into our daily living expenses by more than $4,500. As a result of these increases, we had to dramatically decrease our contribution to our child's college fund, our retirement accounts, and any improvements we would like to make to maintain our building, our tenants, and improve our city.


We are lucky enough to be able to make these cuts without cutting necessities. But what about those who are unemployed? Who live on fixed income? Who support families and friends? Who have lost their footing during this period of extreme economic hardship? What about their children? What about my friends, who own their homes but have been laid off for more than a year? One of our unemployed friends has started their own business, but remains chronically underemployed. This newest tax increase will mean that they have to decide: paying for health care insurance or taxes or eliminate some other critical item in their lives.


If property taxes increase, real estate values will decline as a result. As the monthly expenses increase substantially as a result of these series of unprecedented tax increases, residents will have less money available to pay for their homes and many will have to resort to selling. This will further depress the already reduced real estate values in our city, particularly in those areas that are already marginalized.


Has the City Council considered what effect this almost 25 percent tax increase will have on real estate values? Has the city considered how potential investors, who are not benefiting from PILOTs and other tax advantaged agreements, would consider investing in the city?


It is exceptionally painful to see that the city does not explore alternatives to raising taxes that -- I believe -- are not on the table at the current time. Furloughs are all nice and good, but what about real cost reductions by eliminating departments, programs, expenses, investments, etc. Your electorate is forced to make hard choices every day. Why hasn't the city, its leadership, and elected officials considered reducing the budget of every department by 4 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent or even 25 percent?
Look across the river, look across the country, and look into the kitchens of your voters. They all had to cut their expenses radically. In New York City, in the state of Pennsylvania, and in numerous other cities, counties, state governments had to face politically demanding and fiscally hard decisions about their budgets. Many were able to avoid shifting increasing economic hardship to their residents -- who ultimately vote for them and entrust them with the charge of leading the city.

But no where on that list is Jersey City. Why?

What is even more insulting is that the budget for the current year hasn't technically been passed. I would like to see the city run that way and still be in business. That would be good politics.

The broad dissatisfaction with this city's government should alarm you. You need to act soon to address the frustration of your electorate. I urge you to look long and hard at the city's budget. Take out the red pencil as my unemployed friends and countless others were forced to, and find areas to cut before you raise your taxes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
for the sake of full disclosure, the above link and the letter were also posted by me to a different thread dealing with the righteous outrage of the electorate caused by a group of semi-corrupt but completely incompetent group of "people."

We need to be at the meeting, in the CC Chamber.





http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... rally_to_protest_jer.html
Quote:

I have been attending budget hearings since the 1980's. Sometimes I am the only member of the public to speak. You must attend and you must ask questions. It is more than mismanagement it is games the state allows the municipalities to play. The state has allow Jersey City to bond above its cap under the Schundler administration. If the state said no, then those debts would not be haunting us today. Also, let's look at the Board of Ed. When he state took over, the new person Scambio brought new job titles that didn't exist under local control. The budget increased. Now the state is leaving and expects local tax dollars to pick up more of the tab. But the state created a bloated budget.

Ask for a tax appeal. Most of your houses were assessed when the property values were still high. I know many people who have had their taxes reduced in the past year. You can do it yourself or use an atty. Most attys don't charged unless they are successful.

Why don't we stick to the real problem at hand: the city is horribly mismanaged, there is little accountability for the people in charge and the level of spending is unsustainable. Kicking the can down the road has worked for many years, but it seems now that we may be nearing the end of the road. We need solutions. Fighting over the nomenclature of our respective quarterly remittances is counterproductive and detracts from the search for solutions.

I'm done debating the "abatement" issue. I use quotation marks because they aren't abatements at all. The word "abatement" implies payments have ceased. I can assure you they have not. People in my building (myself included) pay what is called a PILOT, which stands for PAYMENT in lieu of taxes. My PILOT is well in excess of $20,000 per year. Yes, I'm capped at that rate for many years to come - wanna trade? Feel free to PM me, if so.

It seems like abatements are not needed anymore on the waterfront. But then i wonder why there are A LOT of huge open plots and parking lots on the waterfront that have not been developed. They would all be built up, right?

mine was about 500 as well. and i've increased about the same rate. yet i know for damn sure my property value has gone down. of course this is just an estimate until they get their sh*t together and finally pass a damn budget where i'm sure we'll just get screwed again, while the luxury condos will continue to enjoy their 20 years of abatements.

i don't mind paying taxes and i understand things go up, but i will not sit by and watch people live here, use all the same services as us, and NOT have to chip in.

and for you politicians who say the abatements are necessary to bring growth to the waterfront, this isn't 1998 for crying out loud, its PRIME real estate. Perhaps its time to get another soundbite b/c that one has run its course

Quote:

Maybe it is not completely black and white as PILOTS pay money to the city, yes it is not earmarked for the schools tho... Some people with PILOTS are paying more than they would if their properties were valued correctly today.

Also if you consider properties like the Beacon there was zero $$$ contribution to the city as it was abandoned for a long time. Now that it is being developed there is a significant amount of money coming to the city (I think well over $1M from just the first 2 buildings) in the form of PILOT payments, before there was no $$ there. I can only think of one other person i know who lived in JC before the Beacon, so it may really represent a new population that is contributing to JC but that is hard to really sort out.

I got an almost $500 increase for 1st Q.

My yearly was just over 8K when Healy took office.

Current yearly is just over $13K.

Add in private HS at $8K/year and I'm shelling out almost 21K a year for the privilege of living in this hellhole of a city.

just got 1st qtr bill, i had to go out front and make sure i didn't magically transport to maplewood where i can understand paying this much for a quarter. enough is enough, the amount we pay, if i had a kid in highschool i would be afraid to send him to the public school. things need to change jersey city b/c this is absurd.

I agree with you, Yvonne. Healy lied when he campaigned on ending abatements. I wonder if abatements have been tested with the Courts!

It's a shame that there's no real choice with JC politicans. It seems the Republicans will tell you point blank that they work for the developers, while the Democrats try to keep it on the down lo.

People do not like me to state the obvious. Your taxes increased because Jersey City give out abatements. The waterfront is not paying any board of ed taxes and those school taxes increased over $20 million during the last several years and abatements are not ratables, they are contracts so the county do not include them as ratables when the county strikes the budget. Over $2 billion of abated properties are excluded from the tax roll.

I was just looking at my taxes - up like 40% over the past 5 years....well ahead of inflation. as i've said so many times, i don't mind paying higher taxes, but the city should be doing a lot more to restrict costs

A little schadenfreude for some of yous.

They got me for $440 over 1st Qtr 09.

Booyah.

Just got my 1st Qtr tax bill from our wonderful city government.

Compared to 1st Qtr actual from last year, my tax bill went up ....$145.

Multiply that for 4 quarters, that's $580 freaking dollars.

Mind you this doesn't account for this new round of tax increases. This is just the 11.25% they inacted last July.

This blows. Where is that card that I can use to appeal my taxes. January is over, and we now have only two months to file the appeal.


How much did they raise your taxes? Check online at www.cityofjerseycity.com under taxes, and online tax filing.


Protest this Wednesday.

I agree. School board elections will be upon us in April and these elections have seen dismal voter turnout. Yet, school tax increases are at our backs.

Last year as the state reduced funding, our portion of the school budget increased by $7m (8%). However, we still only pay through local taxes 15% of the total $630m budget and the the state will continue to pull back funding.

If anyone is interested in getting involved in the school board election, please reach out to me - by PM or daniel.levin.jc@gmail.com.

It has to start somewhere. why not here.

Dan


Quote:

make sure that you check your taxes not only in the jersey city records - that show the quarterly taxes you owe - but also the valuation which determines the tax base ...

http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin ... &out_type=0&district=0906

one of the reasons i am suggesting this is that as friends who have successfully (and at a great expense to them) fought the substantial reassessment of their property and subsequently prevailed, found to their great dismay that the property values were not changed in the county and the city system. in fact, for the first quarters after they won against the city/county, they still paid the highly inflated tax rate that they were originally assessed. the city was only able to adjust the assessed values and the related the tax liability to the final level after paying the higher taxes for two or three quarters after they won.

Thanks Chief. I just checked mine and the incraese is preposterous. I haven't received anything in the mail either!

Quote:

Does anyone know when the City Council meets again?

280 Grove Street, 2nd floor. The regular City Council meetings are the 2nd & 4th Wednesdays of each month starting at approx 6 / 6:30PM....

I always believe we should eliminate municipal government and just have county government. Some town are very small Secaucus 15,000 and East Newark is even smaller.

Quote:

Great historical perspective and insight. The state could definitely do with some shrinkage. One problem I see with your comparison is that the state itself has changed so much since the time you harken back to. NJ had a much more robust economic engine (manufacturing) and wasn't nearly as dependent on neighboring states for jobs.

I've never looked at it, but I'd bet that corporate income and property taxes made up a much bigger share of consolidated revenue back then - not to mention the intangible benefits those manufacturing firms sometimes provided within their communities.

I think for many NJ towns, your proposal would be a home run. For Jersey City (and Newark, Trenton, Camden, Paterson and Elizabeth) it would be a disaster, plain and simple. The state currently provides more than $500 million to Jersey City's schools and gets ~$100 million in a variety of grants and aid from the state. People are already screaming about a potential $40 million tax increase; what would a $600 million increase look like?

Sure, you'd cut expenses as much as possible to bring that $600 million down, but you can only cut so much and you wouldn't be able to do it over night. And what would you be left with? A place with unbearable taxes (much worse than the current burden of combined state income and local property taxes), fourth-world public schools and no services. Put another way: A place no one in their right mind would ever consider living in.

I suggest you check your taxes ASAP. It looks as though they jacked mine about 1k per year. I didn't receive any notification from Jersey City. They actually stopped sending me bills which is completely DAFT. Taxes are due Feb 1st and I just found out without any notification. The tax office couldn't tell me what the taxes would for the next 3 quarters as well. They are totally inept.

http://www.cityofjerseycity.com/WebTaxInquiry/AccountSearch.aspx

Realistically it is not possible to get municipalities to merge or give up or share functions, control and responsibility. Again and again, voters have unfortunately rejected local merger proposals even of the tiniest towns.

The idea of municipal mergers is not respectful of the history of the State of New Jersey or the reality of how people vote.

YES, New Jersey is totally overtaxed and the ratio of government workers to private sector workers is totally out of whack. With New Jersey's net emigration problem, this gets worse and worse each day since only the government workers with the great salaries, pensions, perks, etc are staying and the battered and taxed private employers are leaving.

THE PROBLEM is that New Jersey has too many layers of sovereign taxation: State, County and City. All three take their toll from the private sector and deliver typically inefficient and often duplicate services.

THE SOLUTION is to eliminate or reduce the State's role in taxation, service provision and regulation. New Jersey, when it was successful, had a totally ineffectual and small State government and dominant municipalities. Remember, historically the mayors of the big machine cities used to de facto select the governor. The income tax and the era of big State government in New Jersey only arrived under Brendan Byrne in the 1970s. It's time to return to the real New Jersey, where taxation and service provision are primarily done locally, with reduced state taxes and services. This can be done by strangling the State of its tax resources by continuing to vote in governors who are willing to shrink the State budget with a veto threat and a willing to risk a State shutdown. Let's face it - how many of us would even notice if the State of New Jersey took six months of the year off? Working people do not rely on the State of NJ for anything useful unless they are employed by the State itself. The State is the biggest, unnecessary tax & patronage operation of them all in New Jersey, dominated by a voracious union with the most incredible wages and benefits and a staggering number of employees compared to the rest of the population of the state. It's time to starve this beast. If the State income taxes were reduced or eliminated, no working person would complain about the current property taxes. People and companies would flock here in droves. That WAS New Jersey before Brendan Byrne.

Quote:

I will be there and am encouraging others to attend as well. A word of caution though: I'm not sure how much bud-nipping is possible. This is the budget. It needs to be approved and instituted. A tax increase is going to be a function of whatever the gap is between existing revenue and expenses is, so it seems to me the goal should be to reduce expenses and thereby shrink the amount of tax increase necessary.

Quote:

I think we should all attend the next meeting so we can try to nip it in the bud. Why wait? Why not fight it?

We need a presence at the meeting next week and can continue to grow in numbers for the meeting in the following month. It will also give us time to look further in to the mass tax appeal that Shakatah suggested earlier in the thread.

Apathy will get us no where, that we can be sure of.

Also, please give Melissa a call.

One of the reasons taxes are out of control is budget gimmicks of the past. Example 1, in 1991 the state of NJ told large cities to change from a calendar year to a fiscal year. The governor, then Florio did not give aid to cities and told municipalites to bond for operationing expense. Jersey City should have bonded for $30 million. Instead it bonded for $128.9 million. We are still paying that bond debt for 1991. Example 2, Former Bret Schundler constantly refinance old debt over and over again. He structured the terms to pay only interest during his tenure. The principal kicked in when he was out of office. The state should only allow debt to be refinanced once. These are only two examples of why taxes went up.

you all are right. and again, right that the general public has to speak up.

a spontaneous rally is asking alot. otherwise a great deal of planning, organizing and outreach (and resources) is required. perhaps to start, use the tools at hand, sign up with the City Clerk's office to speak at council meeting, write letters both to your elected municipal officials and the local papers. bring up at your next neighbor association meeting. consider running for your party committee seat in June 2013,

correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall ANY council member putting forth either a cost cutting or revenue generating proposal both this council session and the prior one other then Healy's hotel tax. why?

maybe it is up to us to find some of the solutions then bring it to the council (those elected to represent us) in a constructive non-confrontational manner ie. Citizen's Campaign No Blame Approach.


******************************************

I have my ideas as do many others. Here are some ideas from Citizen's Campaign, not all are relevant to Jersey City, but it is a place to start:

http://jointhecampaign.com/platform-f ... tform-for-the-people.html

http://jointhecampaign.com/model-ordinances/model-ordinances.html

MODEL COST-CUTTING PROPOSALS

The Citizens' Campaign currently offers the following cost-cutting proposals:

1) Becoming part of or forming a regional dispatching service thereby saving funds in the area of dispatcher services. Or if your municipality still uses police officers as dispatchers and there is strong resistance to using regional dispatching move to using civilians as dispatchers. Montgomery Township is saving between $600,000 and $750,000 annually from the full regionalization of their 4 dispatcher services: 1) police 2) fire 3) EMS 4) 911.

2) Eliminating benefits for part-time elected officials and professionals. In health insurance costs, this would be a savings of between $12,000 and $20,000 per person depending mainly on whether the benefits were individual or family. (If co-pays are required those numbers would be somewhat reduced.)

3) Sharing of computer administration (network administrator) between the municipality and the school board-- share the cost of the contract. Savings in the $60,000 to $70,000 range depending on the size of the municipality. Formation of an on-going committee to explore potential cost-savings by implementing other shared service arrangements between the municipality and the school board.

4) Perform Energy Audits of municipal, school board or county government buildings.

5) Sunshine On-Line to include budget summary, top 10% of salaries or top 5 salaries for each department whichever is greater, overtime per department and all labor contracts.

6) Merge Zoning Board and Planning Board for towns with less than 15,000 residents as permitted by the Municipal Land Use Law and condense redevelopment authority functions in the governing body and planning board.

7) Contract with County Road Department for municipal road repairs, saving significant costs associated with bidding and private contractor oversight.

8) Contract out Vehicle Maintenance. Montgomery estimates they are saving about $200,000 annually by contracting out to First Vehicle Maintenance-a company that specializes in servicing government fleets as opposed to having an arrangement with a local garage or doing it in-house.

9) Reducing the number of weekly trash pickup days after the summer months (Memorial Day-Labor Day). This initiative can save towns thousands of dollars, since it reduces the money spent in fees for waste removal and frees up workers for park maintenance with less overtime costs.

10) Form Mayor's Task Forces on: (1) Municipal Service Efficiencies and (2) Community Service Supports.

everyone always says spending is the problem. if spending was so easy to trim, why is it that Republican governors have never really done that much about it. Plus we are in a recession and everyone should know that during recessions tax revenue falls, and it rises with an economic expansion.

The problem is the government tries to cut taxes to the bone during economic expansions,a nd then when recessions hit....