Brigid D'Souza

June 26th: Tell the Jersey City City Council to #FundOurSchools

June 7, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

Jersey City Public Schools are $100 million underfunded and the stories we’ve heard about how this underfunding is impacting students are real. Join us as we press the City Council to put $16 million towards the schools budget. This will help prevent unnecessary layoffs, stop the sale of Central Office, and help the JC...

City Council Can Allocate Surplus Funds to the Public Schools.

June 3, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

The education team of Jersey City Together has been researching to understand, in concrete terms, the process by which City Council can allocate funds to JCPS. I’m a member of that team so wanted to share: 1) NJ law NJSA 40:48-17-1 allows the municipality to allocate surplus funds to the public schools. Sharing that...

Civic Questions for the Board of Education Upon Passing of their 2019/20 Budget

May 31, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

I wanted to share some civic questions that can be asked on the record or included in an email to the BOE. Why did five of Board of Education trustees approve a budget that included an incorrect tax base number? I wrote about this error in detail here, but to quickly recap: the Jersey...

Jersey Journal Op-Ed: No Way to Run a World Class School District

May 31, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

I am a team member with Jersey City Together and a leader on the JC Together education advocacy team. I co-wrote with this op-ed with Dr. Jyl Josephson and Rev. Dr. Alonzo Perry, Sr. about Jersey City’s school funding crisis. No Way to Run a World Class School District ...

PS #5 Advocacy Campaign: Not Good Enough – Better Leadership Needed.

May 30, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

Tell Jersey City's elected: we need you to provide better leadership. Fund Our Schools. How you can help. Keep the pressure on the City and Board of Education. We elect members of our community to govern on our behalf. It is our civic responsibility to communicate our concerns & express our priorities. Please help...

PS #5 PTA School Funding Advocacy Action: Keep the pressure on the BOE & City Leadership: No Pink Slips!

May 16, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

Jersey City is not properly funding its public schools. Hundreds of JCPS employees have received layoff notices aka "pink slips" due to systemic underfunding. The time to act is NOW. How you can help. Contact your Board of Education & City representatives. We elect members of our community to govern on our behalf. It...

JC BOE Used Incorrect Tax Base Value in Its 2019/20 Budget: Explaining the Tax Math

May 15, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

The Jersey City Board of Education used an incorrect tax base value in its budget presentation. It then based its estimated per-homeowner school tax increase estimates on that error. This NJ.com report gives the initial report of the error: “The 2019-20 budget will increase the school tax levy by 10 percent to $136.5 million. The...

Accountability Checkpoint: Parent FAQs for May 13th BOE Meeting to Finalize the Budget

May 13, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

I’ve been getting some questions in advance of the Board of Education meeting tonight, and thought I’d share via a post, so everyone has access. This is all public data, and we can endeavor to understand it in community. If you have a question, please email me at Brigid@CivicParent.org. When was the BOE given...

The Jersey City BOE’s “10% Tax Levy Hike” Isn’t Enough & Doesn’t Value Our Kids or JCPS

May 8, 2019August 16, 2019Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes

Jersey City’s Board of Education is emphasizing a “10%” school tax levy increase as if that’s a big jump. Except 10% isn’t a big dollar-for-dollar jump, when you look at the entire picture. In actuality, 10% is way too small, given the fiscal hole we’re in as a district. A simple example can illustrate...

Jersey City: Approximately $40 Million of School Tax is Locked Up in Abatement Contracts

May 7, 2019June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City City Budget, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Tax Abatements

This is part of a series about the 2019/20 proposed municipal and schools budgets in Jersey City. Jersey City’s proposed 2019/20 municipal budget shows that over $120 million in PILOT fees are expected to be collected in in the coming year. What is notable about PILOT fees is that they don’t contribute to the...

Tips for Public Comment at City Council Meetings

May 6, 2019June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City City Budget

I’ve been asked more than a few times: “Do you have any tips for going in front of the City Council for public comment?” So I figured I’d write up a post about it. There are actually two opportunities to speak at any City Council meeting: During 2nd reading ordinances. At the end of...

Jersey City’s 2019/20 Proposed Budget: Visualized APPROPRIATIONS (Expenses)

May 5, 2019June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget

Every municipality must pay for services that are then consumed by its residents. These services include: Police force (eg the JCPD) Fire department Road maintenance for city roads (a note on roads...in Jersey City, Ocean Avenue, Eerie Street, and Manhattan Avenue are city roads, thus they are maintained with city funds...however JFK Boulevard is...

Jersey City’s 2019/20 Proposed Budget: Visualized Revenues

May 5, 2019June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City City Budget, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes

Every municipality is funded by a mix of income streams, including: Property taxes (everyone pays property tax...you either pay it directly if you're a property owner, or you pay it to your landlord. Your rent includes the cost of property tax) State Aid Local Revenues - these are user-fee income streams like marriage licenses,...

2019/20 Proposed Advertised Appropriations (JCPS Spending for 2019/20 School Year)

April 28, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

Check out prior visualizations here that I'm sharing as part of the 2019/20 budget cycle. This visualization shows multiple lenses into the proposed 2019/20 "advertised appropriations" within Jersey City's public schools, as reported by the Jersey City Board of Education here. This budget has been prepared by the district administration and a finalized version,...

How does Jersey City Spend Its Money? A Data Visualization of Budgets from 2015-2018

April 25, 2019June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB-In Context

As we look towards the coming weeks and months, two local governing bodies are undergoing a public budgeting process: The Board of Education will be determining the 2019/20 schools budget. The city of Jersey City will be determining the 2019 municipal budget. A key question is: how can taxpayers engage? How can we peel...

PS #5 PTA School Funding Advocacy Action!

April 22, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

Jersey City is not properly funding its public schools. Our public schools are $100+ million underfunded and it's about to grow much worse. The time to act is NOW. How you can help. Contact your city representatives. We elect members of our community to govern on our behalf. It is our civic responsibility to...

2018/19 Advertised Appropriations (What JCPS Spends Money On)

April 15, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

This "tree map" shows the 2018/19 appropriations (i.e. expenses) for Jersey City Public Schools. I downloaded the data from the NJ Department of Education website, created a subset of "Appropriations" showing total spending, and then removed subtotals and totals so that only detailed lined items are visualized. Jersey City will lose $27 million in...

Jersey City’s 2017 School Based Budgets: Learn what’s being funded in your school

April 15, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Public Schools

This bubble chart shows 2017 actual spending within Jersey City's public schools, as reported by the 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ("CAFR"); 2017 is the most recent year available for this report. The CAFR is an annual report detailing both qualitative and quantitative information about the district. It is prepared by the district, approved...

“Do Not Stand Idly By” Campaign Inspired Me to Add Gun Control Activist Investing to My Equities Lecture

March 12, 2019July 15, 2019Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy

Today I attended a press conference with New Jersey Together where Governor Murphy signed on with the Metro IAF Do Not Stand Idly By campaign (note: NJ Together is an affiliate of Metro IAF). I was there with others from St. Aedan’s: the Saint Peter’s University Church to support NJ Together’s involvement in the...

Jersey City Facing $27 Million State Aid Cut for 2019/20 School Year

March 7, 2019August 24, 2019Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

Governor Murphy released his proposed fiscal year (FY) 2019/20 budget for NJ and this week, and it included a re-allocation of state education aid. The impact to Jersey City was both expected and gut-wrenchingly sobering: a $27 million cut in “Adjustment Aid”, a type of excess state aid that Jersey City has been receiving...

NJ School Funding Basics: “Adequacy” Budget, School Tax Levy, & the Impact of Inflation (A Case Study of Jersey City)

March 7, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public Schools

This article is about Jersey City’s public schools funding crisis. If you’re unfamiliar with this issue, you can read more about it here. I’ve been attempting to de-puzzle some of the tax math that is vexing Jersey City with respect to its public school funding crisis, and have found three factors that deserve public...

NJ Property Tax Dashboard: Updated for 2018 w/ Jersey City Highlights

March 6, 2019June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, Property Taxes, Public Schools

Every year, the state of NJ publishes property tax data on the Department of Community Affairs website. I have combined all the available data, for tax years 1998 through the most recently published data for 2018, into one tabulation and visualized it in Tableau. This dashboard is intended to provide taxpayers with a bird's...

Taxpayer Guide to Education Spending – Total Spending Per Pupil (#OpenData Visualization)

February 5, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

An explanation of “Total Spending per Pupil”, from the NJ Department of Education: “The Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending (Taxpayers’ Guide) provides the public the opportunity to view and compare all dollars spent on students enrolled in the public school system. In 2010-11, the Department updated this publication (previously the “Comparative Spending Guide”) to...

NJ Public Schools – Diversity Dashboard Using Income, Race, & ESL Data

January 21, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Public Schools

I was prompted by this tweet by Alpha Sigma Nu to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Jan 21, 2019). When I saw the tweet, the first thought that popped into my head was “better understand and share about school diversity.” There is a dataset I’ve been dabbling with for quite some time now; it’s...

Demand Fair Property Taxation: Using the Equalization Ratio as a Civic Tool

January 20, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

How can taxpayers ensure that local municipal and county governments are keeping property taxes fair and balanced? One suggestion: make sure that assessed values, i.e. the value of properties on the tax rolls, fairly reflect market values. One way we can do that is to refer to the annual equalization ratio, also known as...

NJ School Funding Basics: The Tax Levy

January 13, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

This is part of series about school funding, property tax, and community in Jersey City. To read other posts in this series, click here. In my previous post, I wrote about the tax base: what it is, how we can find its value in public records, and how Jersey City's value compares with other...

NJ School Funding Basics: The Tax Base

January 13, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Tax Rates, Public Schools

This is part of series about school funding, property tax, and community in Jersey City. I'm learning about Jersey City's tax base, tax levies, and property tax profile so that I can better understand our school funding paradigm. I'm sharing with the community, through this platform, as I learn. To read see the full...

NJ School Funding Basics: NJ Department of Education Data & Reports

January 4, 2019May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

This is a quick initial post to point taxpayers to an excellent resource for rich, official public data about our public schools here in NJ. The NJ Department of Education (NJ DOE) has, for at least the past 10 years, published a host of different datasets on its “DOE Data & Reports” page. The...

JCPS Funding Crisis: An Overview

January 4, 2019July 15, 2019Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public Schools

Jersey City Public Schools Funding Crisis Based on the state funding formula, Jersey City Public Schools are currently $100 million under-funded. Jersey City students, parents, teachers, and staff experience this under-funding everyday. This is a structural deficit and a threat to our school system, our city, and our community. Get the facts, connect in...

“Jersey City Public Schools are Structurally Underfunded”…What does this mean?

December 1, 2018July 15, 2019Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

This started out as a Facebook post on my CivicParent Facebook page. I’ve turned it into a quick post, for posterity & to help explain some of the financial mechanics of Jersey City’s under-funding crisis. “Jersey City’s public schools under-funding is a structural problem” – what does this mean, exactly? Here’s one way to...

#PayrollTax Ordinance: Public Testimonials About Our Public Schools

November 27, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis

Since launching CivicParent five years ago, I've attended countless public meetings about issues related to property taxes, abatements, and public schools. And one thing that I've learned and that increasingly informs me at each meeting: the wisdom and pluralism of community comes alive during public comment. Public comment is the time when individuals engage...

Jersey City & NJ: Student Group Data from NJ School Performance Reports (A Focus on ELL, At-Risk, and Special Education Students)

October 6, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

The NJ Department of Education publishes annual data relating to certain “student groups”, per school. The table below focuses on three groups that, per state funding law, are entitled to more funding based on the level of need. These groups are: At-risk students, defined as lower income students who qualify for free or reduced...

NJ Property Tax Dashboard | #OpenData #DataViz

September 27, 2018June 12, 2021Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, Property Taxes, Public Schools

This is a property tax dashboard for NJ residents who may be interested in learning about the property tax profile of their municipality, including: 1) Latest available (Tax Year 2017) property tax metrics available from NJ’s Property Tax portal. 2) Tax base growth chart from 1988 to 2017 – how has your town’s tax...

NJ Special Education Statistics | #DataViz #OpenData

September 22, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

In this post I’m sharing statewide special education data, with ability to drill into Jersey City special education data specifically, for both Jersey City Public Schools (the public school system) and charter schools attended by Jersey City students. I am sharing the statewide data because it’s informing to see the varying degrees of special...

Jersey City’s Taxpayer Funded Schools: Enrollment Overview with Focus on Income Diversity

September 15, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

The charts below show enrollment data for Jersey City Public Schools. The Jersey City Public Schools system is the 39-school district under the purview of the Jersey City Board of Education (BOE) and is funded through taxpayer dollars. Public charter schools also receive taxpayer dollars, but they are operated and overseen independently of the...

Jersey City Public Schools – A Public Good Requiring Public Funding

August 30, 2018July 14, 2019Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

Jersey City Public Schools is the city’s largest public good, funded through a combination of state, local, and to a lesser degree, federal tax dollars. In 2018/19 the public schools budget was over $600 million; this is larger than the city’s entire budget. The schools are a public good because they educate the vast...

Jersey City: Who in City Council & the NJ State Legislature Represents Your School?

June 25, 2018June 7, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

To help parents and taxpayers understand (a) what schools are in their neighborhood and/or (b) which elected representatives are tied to which schools, I’ve mapped all 40 Jersey City Public Schools (along with accompanying basic profile information, as listed on the JCPS Website) against 2 map layers: Jersey City Ward (each ward is represented by...

Jersey City Property Tax Appeals: A Civic Step-by-Step Overview

June 7, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

For the past 4 years I’ve been researching and writing about property taxes and revaluation (among other topics) on CivicParent. In the past year I’ve also written about tax appeals and I also served on a team of Jersey City Together volunteers in 2017 that helped over 30 residents save over $40,000 in tax...

Making Sense of Your New Tax Post Card

May 10, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

I received my new tax postcard in the mail yesterday so I figured I’d share a breakdown of how to read it. This is very similar to the former tax post card, with some notable exceptions: You can now see your NEW tax assessed value. This is the value assigned to your property by...

Jersey City Funding Crisis: Banked Cap, Explained

April 27, 2018May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

Jersey City Public Schools: CivicParent Funding FAQs I have been trying to understand how Jersey City Public Schools are funded and am sharing questions I’ve endeavored to answer. As I learn, I’m sharing with the community in the hopes others will also learn and advocate. Where applicable I’ve provided citations and resources so that...

Property Revaluation Update: 202 out of 206 Homes on Neptune Ave in Greenville #JerseyCity were Over-Taxed.

March 29, 2018August 24, 2019Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

I've got another Revaluation update, this one focused on Neptune Avenue which is an East/West street that stretches pretty much across Jersey City's south Greenville neighborhood. Similar to other Greenville Revaluation-related updates, this is a story of systemic overtaxation that is being fixed with Revaluation. First, some high level details about the data. Appraisal...

Country Village Revaluation Update: $3+ Million Estimated Tax Expense Reduction (and counting…)

March 18, 2018August 24, 2019Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

March 18 2018. Appraisal Systems released a new batch of assessments on March 16th - the same day Jersey City's public school teachers went on strike. So...this latest update wasn't covered in the news. It should be though; finally, Country Village homes are listed. Per estimates released by Jersey City in December 2017, Country...

Updated: Jersey City Abatements from 2016 User Friendly Budget. Mapped by Project Type & Ward.

March 16, 2018May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaNJ UFB-In Context, Public Schools, Tax Abatements

If you are new to the topic of abatements, I recommend my tax abatement series here including my 2015 article,”Jersey City PILOTs Rob Funding from the School System.“ This post is a refinement of my previous “Mapping Jersey City Abatements By Project Type and Ward” post. I wanted to update the data, and the map, to...

Quick Analysis: Tax Expense Change on the West Side, south of Lincoln Park

February 27, 2018July 14, 2019Brigid D'SouzaProperty Revaluation, Property Taxes

February 27, 2018. Appraisal Systems released a new batch of assessments this morning and I was most curious about tax change in systemically over-taxed areas. I was hoping streets in Country Village would be listed because, per estimates released by Jersey City in December 2017, Country Village is expected to see the largest dollar-for-dollar...

Property Tax Rate Math: A Quick Breakdown

February 25, 2018May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaProperty Revaluation, Property Tax Rates

February 25, 2018. I got a question recently about the tax rate as it relates to property taxes. It prompted me to write about the tax rate in a bit more detail to explain how the tax rate is changing, why it's changing, and what to expect in the coming months as the Revaluation...

JerseyCity Revaluation Update: Society Hill Highlighted

February 18, 2018May 19, 2021Brigid D'SouzaData Visualizations, Property Revaluation

Updated: Feb 19, 2018. Appraisal Systems today published on its website an updated assessments file with about 1,950 new properties added (note: I won’t be updating this page with every single new release from Appraisal Systems…but I have a property tax workshop tonight at Our Lady of Mercy Church and I wanted to be...

Property Tax Revaluation: Will my property tax expense go up or down? (YouTube Video)

January 25, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Property Revaluation

Learn how to compute if your property tax expense will go up or down in a citywide revaluation. It’s helpful to have a calculator, pen, and paper on hand while watching this video....

Property Tax & Revaluation Workshop: WHAT is Revaluation? (YouTube Video)

December 15, 2017July 16, 2019Brigid D'SouzaProperty Revaluation

Learn the basics about property revaluation in this 8-minute CivicParent tutorial:...

Street Safety – PS #3 Parent Concerns Survey (Responses)

December 6, 2017July 14, 2019Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Public Schools

In October 2017 I created a bi-lingual survey with my friend and fellow PS #3 parent, Catalina Aranguren. We shared it with the school community and asked for feedback. This post summarizes the responses. Our goals with this survey are to: Understand initial feedback about street safety concerns. Synthesize the concerns into actionable feedback...

Jersey City 2017 Sales for Class “2” (1-4 Family) Properties, Mapped

December 2, 2017October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

This post is part of my effort to share information about Jersey City’s Property Revaluation. I wrote a Revaluation series last year which you can read here. In a citywide revaluation, your new assessment should equal your market value. When establishing market value of your home, one set of data that can be useful...