Christie's property tax "cap" is just another gimmick

But... (0.00 / 0)

aren't you just approaching the same goal from different perspectives...

Christie is saying, if I force you to 2.5 percent, you (the municipalities) will have to find ways (consolidation, shared services) to live under that cap.

And you seem to advocate if you consolidate and share services, you can achieve a 2.5 rate of increase...

It's seems its the same goal approached from two different directions.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 15:11:38 PM UTC

BTW.. (0.00 / 0)

Andrew Cuomo apparently has put forth a similar idea in NY. (hat tip, inthelobby)

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 15:13:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is another point (4.00 / 1)

People in NJ, mostly Republicans I speak to, are acting like NJ is the only state in the union with budget issues. As if the disasterous economic atomic bomb Bush/Cheney dropped on the world had nothing to do with what's going on now.

Chris Christie is the wet dream of those "drown the government in a bathtub" guys, who prayed for the US to go through exactly what it's going through.

Love of country, and all, don'cha know.

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

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by: Jersey Shore John @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 15:38:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

not really (0.00 / 0)

because I think that Christie's MO is to starve the local governments and force them to make more cuts, which is really the only thing they can do.  Contrast that with things that aren't easily done without major coordination, etc. like consolidation, etc. - which, if that was what Christie wanted, he can leverage his power as Governor and coordinate localities to work together in this respect.

By just imposing a cap, there are a lot of things missing that can be done to address this and force the issue other than "here it is, good luck and figure it out on your own".

Leadership on something this big is needed, and towns/municipalities aren't willing/able to do it on their own.  It's too massive.

I'd go further than your conclusion about what I advocate - I think there can be huge savings - even cuts to the taxes as opposed to a mere smaller year to year increase.

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 15:42:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

California's Education System (4.00 / 1)

Yes, you can impose a 2.5% cap and yes, schools and colleges will manage to operate under the cap.  But the quality will decrease.  There's no better example than California, which over 35 years has gone from having the best public school system (K-12 and higher ed.) to one that is getting very close to breaking down completely.  The Higher Education system there is really being dismantled, with the possible exceptions of Berkeley and UCLA.

Any rational person would say that is not what we want to do to NJ.  

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by: princetonblue @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 16:54:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

CA dosen't have a the cap (0.00 / 1)

It has prop 13 a whole differant beast ,Mass. has a cap and it's schools are one of the best in the country . As for other states having budget problems ,NJ has one of the biggest deficits ,and we are already the most heavily taxed state . There is no place left to go .  

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by: speedkillsu @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 17:16:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

wrong and wrong (4.00 / 1)

NJ does not have one of the biggest deficits and it is not the most heavily taxed state.

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 17:26:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Unfortunately, people like troll Speed have repeated .... (4.00 / 1)

that NJ is the most heavily taxed state meme so much that it has become the dominant thought among the NJ electorate and seems to defy any rational attempt to refute it at this point.  They have repeated it so much that most people believe it.  

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by: FormerBureaucrat @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 20:09:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here: (0.00 / 0)

http://njtaxwatch.com/newsdeta...

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

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by: Jersey Shore John @ Sun May 30, 2010 at 12:08:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Pennsylvania (4.00 / 1)

imposes its tax on every dollar earned, and allows local governments to add their own income tax, typically another 1 percent.

New Jersey exempts the first $20,000 you earn, and then imposes progressive rates that grow with income.

The bottom line is that the typical family in Pennsylvania pays much higher income taxes than the typical family in New Jersey.

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

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by: Jersey Shore John @ Sun May 30, 2010 at 12:10:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

ah... (0.00 / 0)

but isn't that more than made up by our property tax? Point is, you can argue about how right wing 'The Tax Foundation' is and their figures, but they have no vested interest in making NJ 1st on the list, yet we are. I would tend to believe we ARE the most heavily taxed in the aggregate.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Wed Jun 02, 2010 at 22:53:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Property taxes are regressive (4.00 / 1)

All this ignores the fact that property taxes are highly regressive.  The millionaires tax was supposed to provide some balance by taxing the very rich and using the proceeds to provide some relief to the middle class, which has to bear the largest burden of high property taxes.

A property tax cap is reasonable provided there is a progressive funding alternative (ie. income tax) to make up the difference.

As to consolidation Corzine tried the carrot approach and it didn't work.  You need both a carrot and a stick.  If Christie is willing to use both methods he might be more successful where others have failed.

http://christiegonewild.blogsp...

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by: ken bank @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 19:57:11 PM UTC

Well... (4.00 / 2)

The only real way to get property taxes under control is simple

Countywide school districts, countywide police forces, and countywide DPWs would work wonders. I was thinking about countywide fire departments, but the issue with that would be volunteer vs. paid would create a host of issues.

Perhaps when those services most expensive and unpredictable are placed at the county level, maybe then municipalities (never counties) could have a 2.5% cap placed on increasing property taxes

-Jordan O

http://pinelandsprogressive.blogspot.com

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by: IndependentNJ @ Fri May 28, 2010 at 22:59:43 PM UTC

agree....to a degree (0.00 / 0)

my earlier post on this actually talked about the fact that I have village, county and state police, which is dumb.

I don't know that we have to go so far as countywide, but certainly have SD's cover a certain population to cover the right amount of students per teacher and not lose quality.

I'm also thinking of contracts being negotiated on a countywide basis or something larger than per-municipality and have a blind bidding process that excludes pay-to-play or cronyism as well.

There is a lot to do here - and I'd love for the Blue Jersey community to come up with enough ideas to make this more prevalent and visible too.

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L @ Sat May 29, 2010 at 01:35:12 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I wrote a diary about this a while back (0.00 / 0)

What I would do is...

1.  Have a referendum every November, allowing the registered voters in every school district* to vote for or against the inclusion of their school district in a countywide school district that is funded exclusively with state income tax dollars.  Districts whose voters voted against inclusion would be funded solely with property tax dollars.

If this vote were to take place in November 2010, the outcome would impact the 2011-2012 fiscal year, providing more than enough time to construct a budget and increase/decrease state income taxes accordingly.

2.  Negotiate personnel and purchasing contracts at the state level by the Department of Education and allow personnel and purchasing decisions to be made at the county level.

600+ district-level superintendents, business managers, and support staff would be replaced by 21 county-level superintendents, business managers, and support staff.

3.  Allow most students to attend schools in their local school districts with a percentage of high performing students in lower performing schools having the opportunity to transfer to higher performing schools and a percentage of lower performing students in higher performing schools being transferred to lower performing schools.

This should satisfy the school choice crowd without resorting to vouchers, while also giving students in all schools an incentive to work as hard as possible.

A similar system could be utilized to consolidate most, if not all municipal government functions (or at least those where consolidation could reap the largest benefits).

I also think giving voters this kind of choice, which would require them to realize the true costs of home rule, is far better than allowing them to vote for or against school budgets, which is something that most are simply not qualified to do.

How about a Blue Jersey/Courage to Connect NJ/NJ Policy Perspective/Rutgers University Graduate School of Education-hosted constitutional convention, where conservative, liberal, and moderate New Jerseyans could come together to debate these issues and try to see if there is a consensus for an approach to ending home rule once and for all?

Obviously, the outcome of such a convention would be non-binding, but if it were large and visible enough of an event, and it produced a document that was compelling enough, it could have an impact on the 2011 legislative elections.

*due to the way that Abbot districts are funded, they would be required to be part of a county district system.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Sat May 29, 2010 at 21:04:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

that was an awesome diary (0.00 / 0)

and I think we have enough people looking at this JUST IN THIS COMMUNITY to try and put something forth that is credible and logical too.


Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L @ Sun May 30, 2010 at 02:06:11 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Diversity matters (0.00 / 0)

Although I agree with the thrust of your arguments, the concern I would have with your proposal is that property taxes would rise in those districts whose residents vote against inclusion in the more cost-conscious county-wide system. While a majority of residents in a town might support higher property tax in order to provide a larger education budget, the burden would fall disproportionately on those residents in the lower socio-economic ladder. Such a plan would strike at our goal of diversity within each community as some could not afford to live there.  

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Sen. Ted Kennedy

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by: Bill Orr @ Sun May 30, 2010 at 13:45:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

you're right, but... (0.00 / 0)

...I cannot think of another way to end the subsidization of home rule.

Also, just because the county district system would be more cost-efficient doesn't mean that less would be spent on education in these districts.  Cost efficiency can and should enable more education to be paid for with less dollars.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Sun May 30, 2010 at 21:20:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This will taks a constitutional amendment (0.00 / 0)

We keep talking about this as if this is something that Christie can just do.  It will take a constitutional amendment to do this!

Personally, I doubt the townships will agree to such measures.

In all likelihood, Christie will end up in the same situation as Corzine and will "recommend" that towns live within a 2.5 cap.  

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by: rjsnj @ Sat May 29, 2010 at 12:03:28 PM UTC

then in actuality, he is doing nothing (0.00 / 0)

which is even worse.

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L @ Sat May 29, 2010 at 12:05:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]