This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Decoding Your City Budget. This series is a plain-language walk through New Jersey’s Municipal User Friendly Budget (UFB). The third page in the UFB is where we see how government money is spent and it’s a busy, somewhat...Continue reading
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Decoding Your City Budget. This series is a plain-language walk through New Jersey’s Municipal User Friendly Budget (UFB). Page 2 of the User Friendly Budget shows the revenue side of the budget — where the city’s money...Continue reading
I am sharing this as part of a new Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Demystifying Your Municipal Budget. . This post is not an endorsement of any political candidate(s). This past week I co-moderated a mayoral forum with the West Side Community Alliance (WSCA). I co-moderated with...Continue reading
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Demystifying Your Municipal Budget. This series is a plain-language walk through New Jersey’s Municipal User Friendly Budget (UFB). Page 1 of the User Friendly Budget aims to put the Municipality in context of your entire tax bill....Continue reading
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Decoding Your City Budget. This series is a plain-language walk through New Jersey’s Municipal User Friendly Budget (UFB). I started sketching this series in late August, somewhere between the Route 440 Staples and the Dollar Store on...Continue reading
Welcome to Civic Parent’s newest series: Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Demystifying Your Municipal Budget. This is a plain-language walk through New Jersey’s Municipal User Friendly Budget (UFB) , a document every town must publish, in Fall 2025 as a mayoral race unfolds in Jersey City (where I live). I’ve...Continue reading
I’m sharing this story through Civic Parent on behalf of a nonprofit I helped get off the ground: Team Wilderness. On October 9th, I’ll be recognized at the Blazing the Trail Gala at The View at Lincoln Park—alongside fellow honorees Emory Edwards and Wendy Paul. It’s a huge honor, but more importantly: being an honoree...Continue reading
This is a follow-up to a previous post about the 2025/26 schools budget about Jersey City’s 2025/26 schools budget which was introduced on March 19th. Key Insights Include 21% School Levy Increase Here are key insights which I expand upon below: I’ve shared a few insights about each of these items below. I also have...Continue reading
The Board of Education's budget was confusing to the public despite several notable updates to the funding paradigm. My friend Amy Wilson writes at “Neighborhood Character” and she recently asked me for my insights about the 2025 schools budget in Jersey City. Intrigued, I dug into the documents for the first time in early April....Continue reading
Don Malone was a Professor of Sociology at Saint Peter’s University for over two decades and an active, informed expert about affordable housing in Jersey City during a period of rapid change. He was a professor who chose his school’s city as a point of research, inviting his students to engage with the community and also taking an active...Continue reading
I presented a brief overview of the BOE’s major roles and responsibilities at a local community event in the Heights on October 8th. The video is on YouTube if you want to view it but I wanted to share my presentation, a handout I created, and some additional context for those interested in learning more. Additionally,...Continue reading
Consumers in 2024 are accustomed to modern technology automation (e.g., Netflix streaming, Chat GPT4, etc) but locals governments are slow to catch up. I share that contrast to frame the idea of property reassessments, which is the process of keeping assessed values (the value on your tax bill) updated, or in synch with, market values...Continue reading
I wanted to share a brief explainer on "high schools with the majors." At the bottom of this post is a bit of context as to why and how I'm aware of this paradigm and I'm also including a self-interested plug related to that work. "Why do some high schools have majors?" I have heard...Continue reading
This work paper is a visual of Jersey City’s 2023 long-term tax abatements available from the 2023 “User Friendly Budget” which is available from the city’s “Municipal Financial Reports” page here. A few pertinent details about this visual and the underlying document: The “User Friendly Budget” is a secondary budget form in addition to the...Continue reading
This workpaper is a visual of the “Property Tax Tables” available from the NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) website. A picture of that site, as of this writing is below: A few facts about this public site, why it’s important, and why I visualized it: 1–This is where the state publishes standardized property tax...Continue reading
I recently met with high school student leaders in Jersey City Public Schools who are sharing stories of the conditions inside their schools. They go by the name “Revolutionizers of Jersey City High Schools” (r.o.j.c.h.s.) and have an Instagram channel here. Their pictures and videos give a glimpse of what they are experiencing on a...Continue reading
I was curious about Jersey City’s budgetary trends and so created a few high level visuals that I am sharing on CivicParent in case others were interested in understanding these documents in real-time, i.e. relevant to the current budget process in 2023. I wrote a series about the “user friendly” budget in 2020 if you...Continue reading
I’m playing catch-up (due to a busy spring), but I wanted to share important news from the JC Board of Education meetingon Monday, May 22nd (available here on Facebook) which is about the district’s annual audit. I read this report in the Jersey Journal and thought it was a good article about the meeting. I...Continue reading
I dug into Jersey City’s municipal budget (as introduced on May 10th) and wanted to share a visual that I am using to better understand the budget. The one big constraint I find with Jersey City’s budget is that it is “locked” in PDF; I’m a visual thinker so I prefer to view data through...Continue reading
This is part of a 2023 series about property tax in NJ. View the series landing page here. An upfront caveat: the levy is a topic with vast scope beyond what I can and want to cover here. There is a lot more you can reference; for instance, a good read if you have the...Continue reading
New Jersey has 21 county tax boards and I’ve got links to their websites below (links are current as of the writing of this post). Click on a county to see the related information including the county board of taxation websites. These links are current as of March 2023 and are of course subject to...Continue reading
I'm excited to share my first workshop which will happen tomorrow, Sunday March 26th at 2pm in SPU's McIntyre Hall located on JFK Boulevard between Montgomery and Glenwood, which I've mapped below. The deadline for property tax appeals is rapidly approaching in Hudson County (and many other counties, too). To help community members engage the nuance,...Continue reading
This post is from 2023 and so some details are dated / relevant to last year. I will be writing more about tax appeals in 2024. In my previous post I touched upon “implied” market value. In this post I want to touch upon NJ’s “Chapter 123” law which I last wrote about in 2021,...
This post is from 2023 and so some details are dated / relevant to last year. I will be writing more about tax appeals in 2024. In advance of my upcoming property tax appeals workshop on March 26th, I’ve been thinking about how to distill property tax appeals math in the most intuitive way possible....
The tax bill offers a highly personalized context to connect our property (the basis of our property tax) with the larger system of property taxation in the community (which involves the levy, the tax base, and the resulting tax rates). But the tax bill is not entirely transparent as to: determining if the assessed value...Continue reading
To follow the public money and better understand what’s driving your property tax bills, you have to know when to engage the process. Understanding the “when” can take a taxpayer into a series of bureaucratic rabbit holes (I’ve heard this feedback from others and I’ve also experienced it myself), so I want to disclaim upfront:...Continue reading
NJ's Department of Education released its state education aid summaries for the 2023/24 academic year and Jersey City is set to lose another $51 million next year. This will amount to $276 million in state aid reductions since the "S2" law was passed in 2018. Jersey City will likely lose $134 million by the time...
This data was published by the NJ Department of Community Affairs (that site is here). Each year, the state collects prior year property tax data and published them in standalone Excel files. I’ve been compiling the data year on year and now have all of them in Tableau. In 2019 I published a property tax...Continue reading
I am launching a 2023 series on CivicParent about the local government budget process and property tax. My hope is for this series to be: A practical roadmap for taxpayers who may want to engage the 2023 local budget cycle in their community. Primarily targeted at taxpayers who are relatively new to the realm of...
This post made my head spin a bit … the math and timing is wonky and confusing. I’ve done my best to break it down and welcome dialog and feedback about anything that is unclear. This past week, Jersey City’s municipal council passed its annual 2022 budget with a $112 million increase to the city...Continue reading
I recently spoke after mass at my church, St. Aedan’s, about the fact that most of Jersey City’s public schools lack working water fountains in all the schools. The result, I shared, was that kids often go through the school day thirsty; they are distracted from academics due to thirst, they suffer headaches due to thirst,...Continue reading
In my years within Jersey City Public Schools as both an advocate and a parent, I have heard stories of children who experience poor school climate. School climate is a casual term that some of us may use in a colloquial sense, but it is also framed professionally by school and mental health experts in...Continue reading
I’ve often received the question: how does our town’s property tax compare to the state average? Using the most recently available 2021 statewide data (from the Division of Local Government Services here), I put that visual together below. When viewing the visual, it’s important to note: This visual shows property tax for 3 local governments...Continue reading
It’s worth sharing some good news as we head into the new school year: Jersey City Together’s education team has helped push for water remediation in over a dozen schools. Specifically, more than a dozen schools now have new, 21st century working water fountains. The list of schools that have had new working water fountains...Continue reading
I wanted to share some thoughts around the $89 million "maintenance of equity" funds that Jersey City Public Schools received this week. The quick highlight, if I could make one, is: yes, this $89 million is indeed a windfall...but we are still facing a fiscal cliff and we all have to be aware of that...Continue reading
This is part of a series about the 2022 Jersey City budget. To see the full series, click here. For a listing of public data used in this post, please see the bottom of the post. Many thanks to those in community who gave feedback about this topic/post and helped improve it from concept to...Continue reading
In this post I’m using 2 public datasets: A: Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget (Introduced) with proposed 2022 revenue and expense, located on the city website here. B: Jersey City’s 2015-2021 Municipal Budget summaries compiled in NJ’s User Friendly Budget Database (Excel file downloadable here). On June 15th, Jersey City released introduced its 2022 budget....Continue reading
On June 15th, Jersey City released introduced its 2022 budget. This is a part of a series about that budget. In this post I’m using three public datasets: A: Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget (Introduced) with proposed 2022 revenue and expense, located on the city website here. B: Jersey City’s 2015-2021 Municipal Budget summaries compiled...Continue reading
On June 15th, Jersey City released introduced its 2022 budget. This is a part of a series about that budget. In this post I’m using two public datasets: A: Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget (Introduced) with proposed 2022 revenue and expense, located on the city website here. B: Jersey City’s 2015-2021 Municipal Budget summaries compiled...Continue reading
The Jersey City municipal budget was introduced last week (June 15th) via resolution 22-4009. For the past three years, I've dug into the municipal budget to better understand it. I write about it and share insights and analysis as I proceed; this year will be the fourth cycle and this year I'm adding some live...Continue reading
Tonight the Jersey City Board of Education passed its 2022-23 school budget along a 5-4 vote, approving funds that staved off staff layoffs in the face of historic state aid cuts. The passing of this budget will create ripple effects on the city and county budgeting processes (the city and county have yet to reveal their...Continue reading
The Jersey City Board of Education increased the school tax levy...now what? I'm getting that question from more than a few people so I figured I'd share two tools: A school tax calculator - view an estimate of how your school tax expense will increase in 2022 A 2021 property tax split -- personalized for...Continue reading
This is my final post re: the Jersey City Public Schools budget which will be voted on this Monday. The 2022-23 budget is far from certain to pass; anti-school-tax rhetoric may reduce funding so let's be honest about what that means: possible staff reductions or vacancies that won't be filled. And possibly more. A few...Continue reading
This is an update on the unfolding budget process for Jersey City Public Schools; the budget was introduced Tuesday March 15th and will be finalized on or before next Monday, March 21st. I watched Tuesday’s board of education meeting and then reviewed the budget document on my own, trying to make sense of the numbers...Continue reading
I wanted to share a picture of the state aid reductions to Jersey City Public Schools. State Aid can be confusing because there are various forms of state aid, including: Adjustment aid – this was a one-time bucket of aid that was tied to the initial enactment of SFRA in 2008 Equalization aid — this...
This letter was created by the Jersey City Together Education Team. I am hosting the letter on CivicParent to support the advocacy. To learn more about Jersey City Together's advocacy and ongoing work (and how you can plug in), click here. [emailpetition id="12"]
Jersey City lost another $68 million in state aid on March 10th, 2022. This cut was expected, part of the phased “S2” cuts that have been reducing Jersey City’s state aid by $100+ million just in the last three years alone. A question I continue to get is: why is state aid being cut, anyway?...
The Jersey City Public Schools have received over $160 million in federal COVID-19 aid since 2020 and I was curious how the funds have been used, the status of what remains, and what insights we can glean from this public data particularly as we approach the annual budget process. I have published a few visualizations...
Let’s take a look at how a tax bill comes together. It’s an interesting and empowering exercise to tie your local government budgets – and the property taxes needed to fund them – to your personal property tax. Every year, the state publishes town-by-town property tax data here that includes a wealth of information including...Continue reading