2020 Jersey City Budget

CivicParent NJ Property Tax Viewer: 2020 Levies

March 16, 2021June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

The 2020 property tax tables for calendar year 2020 are now available. This data provides insight into the way municipal, county, and local public school governments share the total tax dollars each year. The dataset at the link contains: Tax base data Tax levy data – this is what I’ve visualized below Tax rate...

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 4b: Public Health & Public Safety (with Focus on Police) Spending in the Garden State

July 1, 2020June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

This is a post in a series about NJ's User Friendly Budget. My intent is to share basic analysis and insights with community as a way to encourage taxpayers to engage with this document and learn more about local public finance. Read the other posts in this series here including how to access your town's UFB and...

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 4a: View Your Town’s Structural Spending with the “UFB-3 Appropriations Summary” Data

June 23, 2020June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 3: the “Cover Page”, an Inventory of NJ’s 565 Municipalities, & An Overview of How UFB Data was Compiled

June 22, 2020June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

This is a post in a series about NJ’s User Friendly Budget. My intent is to share basic analysis and insights with community as a way to encourage taxpayers to engage with this document and learn more about local public finance. Read the other posts in this series here including how to access your town’s...

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 2: What’s in the User Friendly Budget?

June 15, 2020June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

This is part of a series about the User Friendly Budget. This is a relatively short post to lay out what’s in the User Friendly Budget. I also want to share some of how I think this file can be used by taxpayers and advocates. As I explained in the first post in this...

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 1: Intro to the Series & How to Access the UFB

June 15, 2020June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

Five years ago, New Jersey began mandating that every municipality* in New Jersey file a “User Friendly Budget (UFB)” as part of the annual budgeting process. This file is “user friendly” for a few reasons: The data is aggregated in unique ways that help us see the structural nature of how the city both...

Jersey City’s Proposed 2020 Budget (Tableau #DataViz)

February 13, 2020June 16, 2022Brigid D'Souza

In February 2020 the City Council introduced its 2020 budget (the city has typically approved the annual budget only in the summer / Quarter 3 timeframe — I don’t know the reason for the lag, only that the lag exists). Upon release of the budget, I converted the PDF into Excel and then uploaded...