There are three local, public budgets approved each year: (1) the municipal (aka city, or town) budget proposed by the administration (e.g. the mayor) and approved by the municipal government (e.g. city council), (2) the county budget proposed by the county executive and approved by the county board of freeholders, and (3) the public schools budget proposed by the superintendent of schools and approved by the board of education. This is the typical scenario but given NJ's fragmentation, it is important to pay attention to your local landscape and look for nuance (e.g. if a school board refuses to approve a budget, then the budget is sent to the county superintendent for approval...). Further, each of these budgets contain a line item called "tax levy" and that is the property tax revenue needed to fund that year's budget. The tax levy revenue is what drives your property tax bill. So understanding the budgets will help you understand what you are funding with your property tax bill.
The articles below detail this process, but I wanted to share an upfront video that explains the timeline and the intersectionality of these budgets with resident property tax bills.
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 ...
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 Public Schools – 2025/26 Budget Insights (Focus on Revenues)
This is a follow-up to a previous post about the 2025/26 schools budget about Jersey City’s 2025/26 schools budget which ...
Jersey City Public Schools – Insights re: the 2025/26 Board of Ed Budget
The Board of Education's budget was confusing to the public despite several notable updates to the funding paradigm. My friend ...
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 ...
Jersey City Municipal Budget, 2023: A visual walkthrough of the proposed budget
I dug into Jersey City’s municipal budget (as introduced on May 10th) and wanted to share a visual that I ...
The local levy as connection between taxpayer and the local budget
This is part of a 2023 series about property tax in NJ. View the series landing page here. An upfront ...
NJ’s 565 Municipalities & 21 County Tax Boards, Mapped
New Jersey has 21 county tax boards and I’ve got links to their websites below (links are current as of ...
Your property tax bill & what it’s pointing to
The tax bill offers a highly personalized context to connect our property (the basis of our property tax) with the ...
The local budget timeline
To follow the public money and better understand what’s driving your property tax bills, you have to know when to ...
Jersey City’s 2022 tax hikes & Q3 and Q4 tax bill flux, explained
This post made my head spin a bit … the math and timing is wonky and confusing. I’ve done my ...
How does your town’s property tax allocation compare to the state average?
I’ve often received the question: how does our town’s property tax compare to the state average? Using the most recently ...
Jersey City Budgets & the Connection to Property Tax Expense (an interactive teaching visual)
This is part of a series about the 2022 Jersey City budget. To see the full series, click here. For ...
Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget: Focus on Revenues & Increasing City Tax Levy
In this post I’m using 2 public datasets: A: Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget (Introduced) with proposed 2022 revenue and ...
Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget: a Focus on Structural Expense
On June 15th, Jersey City released introduced its 2022 budget. This is a part of a series about that budget ...
Jersey City’s 2022 Municipal Budget: the Big Picture
On June 15th, Jersey City released introduced its 2022 budget. This is a part of a series about that budget ...
Series Kickoff: the 2022 Municipal Budget
The Jersey City municipal budget was introduced last week (June 15th) via resolution 22-4009. For the past three years, I've ...
Interactive tools to learn about school tax increase in Jersey City
The Jersey City Board of Education increased the school tax levy...now what? I'm getting that question from more than a ...
See how your property tax bill is computed
Let’s take a look at how a tax bill comes together. It’s an interesting and empowering exercise to tie your ...
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 ...
Jersey City’s 2021 Municipal Budget — A postscript…and some closing notes around transparency & process improvement
This is a quick update to my 2021 municipal budget series which I wrote this summer based on the budget ...
Jersey City 2021 Budget: A focus on expense (including: structural expense is up $13 million this year)
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. The spirit of this series is: I’m interested in unpacking ...
Jersey City 2021 Budget: A focus on revenues (including how the city is achieving a property tax cut)
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. The spirit of this series is: I’m interested in unpacking ...
Jersey City 2021 Budget: 160 abatements on city’s books; visualizations on abatement type, value, PILOTs, and taxes if billed in full
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. The spirit of this series is: I’m interested in ...
Jersey City 2021 Budget: Dig into budget using keyword search
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. See the full series here. The 2021 budget documents ...
In one chart: Jersey City’s seismic change in tax levies fully funds the schools and reallocates property tax
A "levy" is the amount raised in property tax to fund a government budget. Typically, a levy is one of ...
Initial thoughts on Jersey City’s Municipal 2021 Budget Press Release
Yesterday, Jersey City taxpayers received initial news that the 2021 municipal budget would “cut taxes for Jersey City residents by ...
Garden State Property Tax Viewer – Rates, Levies, Bases – for 2020
How does my town's tax rate compare to the state average? Where does most of my property tax go - ...
CivicParent NJ Property Tax Viewer: 2020 Levies
The 2020 property tax tables for calendar year 2020 are now available. This data provides insight into the way municipal, ...
Tax Abatements 801: We need better abatement disclosures in NJ to show impact on public schools
This is post included in both my abatement series and a series about the User Friendly Budget in NJ. We ...
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 ...
CivicParent NJ Property Tax Viewer – 2019 Levies
Last month (October 2020) the state published the 2019 property tax tables. This is a “look back” at the local ...
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 ...
Jersey City School Tax Expense Calculator for 2020/21 School Funding Year
I am part of the education team with Jersey City Together and in May 2020 we created a school tax ...
Jersey City’s Proposed 2020 Budget (Tableau #DataViz)
In February 2020 the City Council introduced its 2020 budget (the city has typically approved the annual budget only in ...
Demystifying the City Budget (A Retro-Look at the 2019 Budget)
LET'S DEMYSTIFY THE CITY BUDGET Learn about our $595M+ city (ie municipal) budget, in community To help taxpayers access the ...
Jersey City’s 2019/20 Proposed Budget: Visualized APPROPRIATIONS (Expenses)
Every municipality must pay for services that are then consumed by its residents. These services include: Police force (eg the ...
Jersey City’s 2019/20 Proposed Budget: Visualized Revenues
Every municipality is funded by a mix of income streams, including: Property taxes (everyone pays property tax...you either pay it ...
How does Jersey City Spend Its Money? A Data Visualization of Budgets from 2015-2018
As we look towards the coming weeks and months, two local governing bodies are undergoing a public budgeting process: The ...
NJ Property Tax Dashboard: Updated for 2018 w/ Jersey City Highlights
NJ Property Tax Dashboard Follow the money ... and better understand your community's priorities. Every year, the state of NJ ...
NJ Property Tax Dashboard | #OpenData #DataViz
This is a property tax dashboard for NJ residents who may be interested in learning about the property tax profile ...