"Municipalities in New Jersey, regardless of their form of government, can be classified as belonging to one of five types of municipal government: 1) Borough 2) Township 3) City 4) Town 5) Village." - NJ State League of Municipalities

Jersey City (a city) is home to 283,000 residents...Montclair (a township) is home to 41,000. These two municipalities, and hundreds more, use the same budget forms to share details about revenue and expense each year. This budget data can give us insight into both a specific town's financial profile, but also how we can compare and contrast municipalities in terms of spending priorities, fiscal constraints, and more.

The municipal government released its calendar year 2022 proposed budget on June 15, 2022. The budget is propoed each year by the administration (e.g. mayor's office) and the introduced to the public via the legislative body (e.g. city council ordinance). The process then unfolds with a series of public committee hearings where the proposed budget is reviewed by the legislative body with some expected back-and-forth with the administration until a final budget is agreed upon.

I've written series on the city budget for the past three years and will be writing new content this year to accompany my live teach-ins.

In Fall 2021 I worked with a team of civic advocates in Montclair to help grow awareness around NJ’s User Friendly Municipal Budget.  On January 26th at 7pm, we hosted a quick but intense dive into Montclair’s local finance, with a teaching about how to navigate this budget and better understand key questions like "how can I better understand what drives my tax bill?" Feedback was positive and important: attendees expressed feeling more confident and empowered to explore their local finance using this public document. Read more here.