I am part of the education team with Jersey City Together and in May 2020 we created a school tax expense calculator to help Jersey City residents understand the personal investment for a $50 million increase to the school levy. Our aim was to the put the power of understand property taxes into taxpayers’ hands. This tool allows you to input the assessed value of your home and then view the computed, personalized estimate for your change in monthly and annual school tax.
In short: how much are YOU contributing towards a $52.7 million investment? Check it out below! The phone/mobile version is here.
Also, a note. Our team originally shared a $50 million school tax calculator. The final budget – approved on May 11th by the Board of Education – invested $52.7 million in total, so slightly higher than the original estimate. The calculator for the final approved amount of $52.7 million is shared below and a phone/mobile version is available via link from within the tool.
This a Tableau-driven data visualization originally published on my Tableau profile page here.
Jersey City’s public school system has been engulfed in a funding crisis the past 10 years; you can read more about the funding crisis here. The chart below shows the aggregate impact of the 2020/21 $52.7 million investment — as well as how far we still have to go.