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) to get onboard the transparency train. This news should come as a relief to taxpayers since abatements now constitute over 20% of ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Note: the visualizations below are best viewed on a computer or tablet (vs a phone). Jersey City recently announced it was terminating an abatement on four buildings within the Beacon complex. The reason: “ownership defaulted on an obligation to retain ...
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I’m excited to share that I’m currently working with a team of civic advocates in Montclair to help grow awareness around NJ’s User Friendly Municipal Budget. On January 26th at 7pm, we’ll be doing a quick but intense dive into ...
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This is an update to my “User Friendly Budget” series with a focus on Montclair. Your town’s user friendly budget must be posted on your town’s website (per state law here). The first page of the user friendly budget (“UFB-1”) provides a view ...
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This is an update to my “User Friendly Budget” series with a focus on Montclair. Your town’s user friendly budget must be posted on your town’s website (per state law here). The 5th page of the user friendly budget (“UFB-5”) ...
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For the past few months I’ve been working with a fantastic group of advocates in Montclair to learn more about their city budget. The visual below is an outgrowth of our work. Through dialog, teaming, and learning together, these views ...
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On January 26th, 2022 I joined Montclair Councilor-at-large Peter Yacobellis for a zoom webinar about the Montclair municipal (aka town) budget. My portion of the webinar was a teaching about how to engage the public budget file, which is large, ...
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