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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
 
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Referring to terminal leave. As you are aware, public employees can collect days they do not use. If you google Jersey Journal you will find stories about people leaving with $250,000 or more additional in pay. I am not saying the average employee have those types of payouts. But collectively around $7 to $9 million is paid out each year to retired employees, especially cops and fireman. The city has been for years bonding for these payouts. I have been against this and so have Councilman Fulop but Mayor Fulop is bonding for terminal leave. There is no need to bond for terminal leave. The surplus can cover this. But if Fulop did this then he could not hire an additioanl 316 people since he was elected.
Posted on: 2016/3/30 20:41
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Just can't stay away
 
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Yvonne,
It's awful whenever anyone loses a home because they can't pay their property taxes, but why should the state have aid policies that advantage Jersey City over any place that is equally poor or poorer but just happened to not participate in the Abbott lawsuit back in the 1980s? Why are Jersey Cityans more deserving of state-funded tax relief than people in Fairview? or Clifton? or North Bergen? or Woodlynne? or Egg Harbor City? Do you think that those towns never get tax liens? Do you think that this problem is unique to Jersey City? Are Jersey Cityans more virtuous than people elsewhere? What I know is that you would have to have a $930,000 property in Jersey City to pay $5,000 a year in school taxes and that would include two years of "free" Pre-K and a school district that spends $17,500 per student. You would only need to have a $219,000 house in Prospect Park to pay $5,000 a year in school taxes and that comes with jack s**t for Pre-K and about $12,000 per student in school spending. That's wrong. Seriously wrong. And the tax abatements are Jersey City's own fault. Quote:
Posted on: 2016/3/30 20:24
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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Quote:
What does "bond for terminal leave" mean? In any event, I sure don't remember any debate suggesting that Healy and the council agreed to a larger than necessary tax increase before the election in 2013 so that whoever won would be able to not have tax increases the following years. That just doesn't make any sense.
Posted on: 2016/3/30 18:39
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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the "surplus" is a line item in the budget. and there is always a surplus of 3-4% in the budget. I do not believe it can be "wiped out" and used for the city hall annex, rather the city could have borrowed (debt) and built the annex, instead of having a developer build it and the city lease it (in this case it was a fishy lease with all risk on the city.) but also, you are really mixing a up a lot of things, changing the subject and gotten off track from the state of the city speech. Quote:
Posted on: 2016/3/30 13:52
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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Quote:
The only people who are hurt are the small homeowners who lose their homes in tax liens. After developers buy their liens, they foreclose on the property and approach City Hall about developing affordable housing with tax abatements. There are $2.8 billion in ratables, nearly one third of the city that is not contributing to the school system. Fix that problem first before you ask someone to contribute more money to the public schools.
Posted on: 2016/3/30 1:15
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Home away from home
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And yet JC taxpayers are still not paying their 'fair share', whether they're living in abated or non-abated properties. The taxpayers getting screwed are the ones supporting JC schools who don't live here, and see the abysmal graduation rate for their wasted money. And how much has the state contribution increased since 2005? I'll bet a lot more than 40 million.
Posted on: 2016/3/30 0:49
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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Look, I guess you are new to JC. The problem with numbers is how they decide everyone. Before 2005, JC contributed $72 million now they are contributing $112 million. That is an increase of $40 million. Tell that to the 2,500 residents that go into lien that they only pay 16%. We know thousand pay nothing with their tax abatements and their children use the schools.
Posted on: 2016/3/30 0:00
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Home away from home
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Yvonne, read it again. Year over year JC will be up from last year. The 20 million dollar decrease goes back several years. Besides, since JC taxpayers only pay 16% of the cost of JC schools, it's not like it has much impact on JC taxes.
Jersey City Hudson $418,779,890 $308,600 0.10% -$20,390,076 -4.90% The first number is the aid, the second is the increase over last year, the next the percentage increase, the 'twenty million' you keep incorrectly talking about is the overall decrease since 2011 (reflecting money now going to charter schools, which do educate JC students) and the last number is the decrease over that time.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 23:01
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Yes, there was surplus I always said at bond hearing under Healy he would use the surplus. Healy instead bonded for terminal leave and Councilman Fulop also said the city should use the surplus. When Fulop became mayor he started to bond for terminal leave. As far as the Board of Ed, that information comes form Star-Ledger, within the story is a link which show a $20 million decrease. Now you have the League of Municipalities pushing for local governments to pay for teachers' pension.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 20:51
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Home away from home
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No, Yvonne. And if that were true, Healy would have passed his own budget prior to the election and touted a "surplus."
Posted on: 2016/3/29 20:04
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Home away from home
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Yvonne, this is the second time you've said JC will face losing $20 million in state aid. I put up a link showing that JC state funding will increase next year by a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Yes, funding had dropped from several years ago, but much of that I think is due to money being shifted to charter schools-state money will follow the students.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 20:03
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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That is not true, there was a budget surplus. Fulop set the budget with an increased and then blamed Healy. I do blame Healy for not setting his own budget. This allowed Fulop to play these games.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 19:50
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Boggiano has proved himself to be far from analytical. More to the point - yes, some increase tax increase was necessary in the 2013 budget to balance it. But that was in the order of 2% or 3%. By jumping to 7% (actually, wasn't it 8%?), it built in cushion for higher spending over a period of years rather than just enough to cover the increase for the year at hand. This wasn't an accident or oversight. It was discussed. Quote: On the ?increase? in murders?. I don't blame Fulop for murders either. He's never in the city at night to actually shoot someone.... But you can't have it both ways - you can't pound the table and say the city is safer when by the simplest measure (people dying) it patently is not. And councilman Fulop (god rest his soul) wasted no opportunity to blame Healy when homicides would spike.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 19:47
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Home away from home
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It?s probably not fair holding the Mayor too accountable for those statistics, but an increase from 20 to 25 would almost certainly have been sold as a major, twenty-five percent change if it marked some kind of improvement in another area.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 19:41
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Actually, Fulop used the budget surplus in Healy's budget. If you remember Councilman Yun talked about building our own city hall annex. He wanted Fulop to use Healy's surplus which was around $45 million, $20 million for the building and $25 million left over. I don't know why Healy did not use that money for terminal leave purpose. That surplus plus the $7.8 per cent increase and the money from the MUA caused our spending to increase. I do not know why Healy left a massive surplus, but he did. People should speak to Michael Yun about this.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 19:30
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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I don't blame Fulop for the increase in crime nor the tax hike (that was Healy's fault).
However, I think Fulop has been a major disappointment and hypocrite in that he ran as a "reformer," yet proceeded to be anything but. Seems like he's just as bad as his predecessors, if not worse, in engaging in all the pay to play politics he used to foam at the mouth against.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 19:23
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Home away from home
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(as the nj.com poster points out)
On the 7% tax increase?. JJ 7/10/2013: ?Ward C Councilman Rich Boggiano, one of only two council members who didn?t run on Fulop?s ticket in May?s municipal election, said the tax hike is "not his fault,? referring to Fulop.? On the ?increase? in murders?. "And as far as the homicide rate increasing every year under Mayor Fulop.It?s unfortunate but Mayor Fulop is a Mayor and not a Relationship Counselor if he was then maybe the homicide rate would be lower." 2013 - 20 (Fulop starts term in July) 2014 - 23 (includes 5 domestic) 2015 - 25 (includes 6 domestic)
Posted on: 2016/3/29 18:30
Edited by neverleft on 2016/3/29 18:50:15
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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well not that anyone (here) cares, but I also published my two cents on the state of the city address - http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2 ... id_in_state_of_the_c.html Work needed beyond what Fulop said in State of the City talk | Opinion BY DANIEL LEVIN Mayor Steven Fulop presented his 2016 State of the City Address on March 16. In it, he rather boldly announced that "we are winning the fight against crime here in Jersey City." Unfortunately, the number of murders in Jersey City has increased in each year of his administration to 25 in 2015 and culminated in the killing of a shopkeeper on a Saturday afternoon the week before Christmas. Read more.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 18:06
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Re: State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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What people fail to understand is the amount of debt JC has. City Hall was packed in the early 1990s when we started paying $20 million in debt payment each year. It is now $72 million. That is money that is not under our cap so taxes can be raised to pay that debt. If the stock market goes south as it did in the past and development slows down, that $72 million in annual debt payment could easily grow into $100 million. Just 16 years ago, the budget was $314 million, it is now $553 million. The real problem - the ratable base is artificially low due to tax abatements which causes a high tax rate. Regular taxes are making up the difference to the county - $30 million is loss by tax abatement. That figure is pushed on to the small homeowner. And we are facing $20 million loss in the board of ed for state funding. The picture is not good.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 18:05
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Agenda of the source aside, you have to acknowledge the legitimacy of some of the other points he raises as well. The tax increase was higher than necessary in order to provide enough cushion to allow for flat taxes for several years. Who is paying for that? Same as the nonsense that goes on at the MUA with higher than necessary sewer and water rates in order to build up a piggy bank that can fund other, non-MUA city operations (or throw extra work to politically engaged and supportive firms - DeCotiis, CME and Christy Davis Jackson being good examples. The "sea wall" being another.) We can debate the causes and blame, but homicides are up substantially. That is a fact. To say otherwise is akin to denying climate change or evolution. As the popular saying goes - you don't get to choose your facts. And bringing up Fulop's past support of pay to play (bjay, not pebble) is strange - he has done more to weaken and/or skirt pay to play in his time as mayor than he did to fight for it as a councilman.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 16:00
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Home away from home
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It's only interesting if you ignore the fact that it was written by one of Healy's good friends and massive political ally. The only legitimate point that was made in the whole piece was that of the reval.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 15:50
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Dos A Cero
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Home away from home
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It seems pretty silly to blame Fulop for a tax increase that the prior mayor, Healy, put in the budget the last year that Healy was in office. Yes, Fulop was one of 9 council members at that time, but it was Healy's budget.
And if I recall correctly it was Councilmember Fulop who was pushing reform of pay to play laws and that it was Healy who resisted. Healy assisted by his henchman Matsikoudis.
Posted on: 2016/3/29 15:49
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State of the city rebuttal
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Home away from home
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Not sure if this ever posted here - couldn't find it. Interesting counterpoint to the mayor's version of the past three years.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2 ... _you_see_the_real_fu.html
Posted on: 2016/3/29 14:23
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