In Property Tax Debate, Another Option

by: IndependentNJ

Tue Jun 15, 2010 at 09:31:46 AM EDT

In a state where the average municipality has 14,867 people, the cries of consolidation are everpresent. Corzine wanted to ham-handedly force towns to merge, and Christie wants to implement bad policy that would put us further into debt. But we should look west, and I mean west of Pennsylvania for yet another solution, DISINCORPORATION

IndependentNJ :: In Property Tax Debate, Another Option

Basically, what disincorporation means is that all townships essentially become only historic boundaries, the governments are dissolved and the areas receive all services from the county government. This is what is done in many other states; in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, etc., their concept of township is an unincorporated entity which only pays county property taxes.

One difference between Ohio and New Jersey though is that most of the unincorporated townships of Ohio are rural, while many townships in NJ could have a suburban or even urban character. However, one should look to another state where massive amounts of territory are unincorporated, Maryland. You know those big name towns in Maryland: Bethesda, Silver Spring, Towson, Woodlawn, Chevy Chase. Guess what, they are all UNINCORPORATED NON-EXISTANT ENTITIES.

So, what I would propose is:

1. All entities incorporated as townships should be disincorporated and their assets absorbed by the county government
2. All townships with more than 50,000 people will be given one year to incorporate into cities or merge with another municipality so that the amount of the merged municipalities is over 50,000, and then incorporate into cities. otherwise, they will be permanently dissolved.
3. As a bonus, all remaining incorporated areas (boroughs, towns, and cities, shall have the right to implement income or sales surtaxes, so long as food, clothing, and other essentials are never taxed.

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In Property Tax Debate, Another Option | 2 comments

makes sense, but... (0.00 / 0)

...there is nobody on either side of the aisle with the courage to take on home rule in this manner.

This is the reason that I have proposed giving people the opportunity to vote every November to "disincorporate" (to use your term) their local school districts (same premise could apply to other aspects of municipal government), enabling them to become part of a larger county school district, which would be funded solely with state income tax dollars, while those local school districts whose voters did not support "disincorporation" would be funded solely with local property tax dollars.

I believe that having the right to vote to "disincorporate" and even to "reincorporate" annually is an important part of ending home rule as it will give people the opportunity to realize the true costs of home rule and making educated decisions about what works best for their communities without being permanently locked in to a particular approach to organization and funding, which would disincentivize change.

by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Thu Jun 17, 2010 at 05:42:57 AM UTC

Funding of school districts (0.00 / 0)

Now, I think that property taxes could still be used as a mechanism to fund certain portions of the county school district (property taxes would still decrease), but allowing counties to put their own income, sales (with exemptions protected), and corporate taxes would be a good idea as well. Also, the state millionaire's tax could be used to fund the special education/specialized services part of schools, since these tend to be very unpredictable in terms of costs.

-Jordan O

http://pinelandsprogressive.blogspot.com

by: IndependentNJ @ Thu Jun 17, 2010 at 15:57:48 PM UTC