New Jersey's "User Friendly Budget" is a standard budget form that every town and city must fill out and submit to the state. This budget is a second form of the typical (and older) budget form. The "user friendly" budget was introduced in NJ in 2015 and provides 14 lenses into your tax bill and municipal budget (I explain these 14 areas in my post, “The "User Friendly Budget”, Part 2: What’s in the User Friendly Budget?"):
- Cover Page – basic profile of the municipality including municipal ID and name, website, and elected officials’ names.
- UFB-1 Tax Impact – a breakout of the tax levies, tax rates, and related information. Two years of data are provided.
- UFB-2 Revenue Summary – a summary of how the local government obtains its money. This is a good view into the *structural* nature of how your town funds itself.
- UFB-3 Appropriations Summary – a summary of how the local government spends its money ie what buckets of resources get the most dollars?
- UFB-4 Structural Imbalances – non-recurring revenues or expenses (another way to put it: one-time items that may be included in the current year budget but may not appear in future years).
- UFB-5 Tax Assessments – tax base details, including equalization ratios and a summary of abatement data.
- UFB-6 Tax Abatements – detailed listing of tax abatement data. [A note: I’ve used this tab from prior years’ UFB from Jersey City as part of the dataset for mapping abatements in Jersey City. You can view one of those maps here.]
- UFB-7 Personnel Costs – a breakdown of personnel costs by department. Base pay, overtime, pension & health, and employment tax details are provided.
- UFB-8 Health Benefits – current and prior year health benefit costs for active employees, elected officials and retirees, along with the extent of employee cost sharing contributions.
- UFB-9 Accum. Absence Liability – accumulated absences and related dollar cost of those absences, by department.
- UFB-10 Debt – debt obligations for current and future budget years.
- UFB-11 Shared Services – shared service agreements the city has with other entities (eg Jersey City has a shared services agreement for waste management with the Jersey City Board of Education).
- UFB-12 Auth. & Fire Dist. – which authorities and/or fire districts, if any, serve the municipality
- Notes – a space for explanatory notes.
The posts below are drawn from insights and analysis using this document in Jersey City and Montclair, as a way to illustrate how these budgets can be used to better understand your local fiscal landscape.
Where the Money Goes: Local Government is Mostly People Cost
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Decoding Your ...
Following the Money: Where the City Gets Its Income (with Google Worksheet Tool)
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Decoding ...
You Belong Here: Let’s Review How Your Tax Bill Connects to the Municipal Budget
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Demystifying ...
Welcome, Settle In. Let’s Go Over How to Find and Open Your City’s Budget
This post is part of a Civic Parent’s series, Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Decoding ...
Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Demystifying Your Municipal Budget
Welcome to Civic Parent’s newest series: Take Your Seat at the Table: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Demystifying Your Municipal Budget ...
Jersey City Tax Abatements, Visualized from the 2023 User Friendly Budget (CivicParent work paper)
✂️ Tax Abatements🧵💰 NJ's User Friendly Budget: A Series🌱📚 Spring into Civics - Exploring Affordability in Jersey City
This work paper is a visual of Jersey City’s 2023 long-term tax abatements available from the 2023 “User Friendly Budget” ...
Jersey City Municipal Budgets: a high level visual review of 2015 through 2023
I was curious about Jersey City’s budgetary trends and so created a few high level visuals that I am sharing ...
Understanding Montclair’s Municipal Budget: A Webinar & Teaching to Empower Taxpayers to “Follow the Public Money”
On January 26th, 2022 I joined Montclair Councilor-at-large Peter Yacobellis for a zoom webinar about the Montclair municipal (aka town) ...
Montclair City Budgets: high-level, 6-year review
For the past few months I’ve been working with a fantastic group of advocates in Montclair to learn more about ...
The “User Friendly Budget,” part 7: What is the mix of residential vs. business property in my town? (UFB-5)
Update, Fall 2025: I’ve got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
The “User Friendly Budget,” part 6: What drives my property tax bill? (UFB, Page 1)
Update, Fall 2025: I’ve got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
Let’s get civic, Montclair!
I’m excited to share that I’m currently working with a team of civic advocates in Montclair to help grow awareness ...
The “User Friendly Budget”, part 5 & Tax Abatements 701 – Abatement disclosures in the UFB
Update, Fall 2025: I’ve got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 4b: Public Health & Public Safety (with Focus on Police) Spending in the Garden State
Update, Fall 2025: I've got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 4a: View Your Town’s Structural Spending with the “UFB-3 Appropriations Summary” Data
Update, Fall 2025: I've got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 3: the “Cover Page”, an Inventory of NJ’s 565 Municipalities, & An Overview of How UFB Data was Compiled
Update, Fall 2025: I’ve got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 2: What’s in the User Friendly Budget?
Update, Fall 2025: I’ve got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 1: Intro to the Series & How to Access the UFB
Update, Fall 2025: I’ve got a new series revisiting the User Friendly Budget. Take your seat at the table and ...
Tax Abatements 601: Brighter Sunshine Mandated for NJ Abatements
Tax abatement reporting in Jersey City is finally getting more transparent. Two distinct authoritative bodies have mandated changes that require Jersey City (and other cities) ...