I wanted to share a picture of the state aid reductions to Jersey City Public Schools. State Aid can be confusing because there are various forms of state aid, including: Adjustment aid – this was a one-time bucket of aid that was tied to the initial enactment of SFRA in 2008 Equalization aid — this is aid that is pegged to the tax base Other types of “categorical” aid including Security aid, Transportation aid, and Special Education aid When we talk about the “state aid reductions to Jersey City based on the S2 law,” we are referring to the first ...
Jersey City lost another $68 million in state aid on March 10th, 2022. This cut was expected, part of the phased “S2” cuts that have been reducing Jersey City’s state aid by $100+ million just in the last three years alone. A question I continue to get is: why is state aid being cut, anyway? And the answer is: Jersey City has the largest tax base in the entire state, but the 49th lowest school tax rate. Each year, the NJ Department of Community Affairs publishes the prior year tax rates and I’ve provided the ‘equalized’ school tax rates below ...
The Jersey City Public Schools have received over $160 million in federal COVID-19 aid since 2020 and I was curious how the funds have been used, the status of what remains, and what insights we can glean from this public data particularly as we approach the annual budget process. I have published a few visualizations below unpack the data and invite others to explore too. 1-The school district received $161 million over three successive tranches of federal aid: $10.7 million from CARES Act – expired in June 2021 $48.3 million from ESSER II – expires in September 2023 $101.6 million ...
It has been nearly four years since NJ passed the “S2” law, leading to state aid cuts to Jersey City. In this post I want to assess the fiscal landscape of the public schools using nine years of user friendly budget data, with particular focus on: where the district is with state aid reductions (and what still lies ahead with respect to aid cuts), where the district is with local income increases, with a focus on school tax and the payroll tax, and a dive into expense, i.e. what are we collectively investing in? I have several interactive visualizations woven ...
Jersey City is experiencing a staffing shortage in its public schools. While this is part of a nationwide trend, local attention and solutions are needed particularly as we experience our first fully funded budget in over a decade. In this post, I am sharing data I compiled in later October from JCPS “Public Board Docs.” I compiled this data in response to a call to action from the Infinity Institute PTA, where one of my kids attends school. That PTA mobilized parents to speak at the October caucus meeting to bring awareness to this issue and also to press for more communication ...
A "levy" is the amount raised in property tax to fund a government budget. Typically, a levy is one of multiple sources of revenue that fund total expense. In 2021, Jersey City is poised to both fully fund its schools and also enter a new paradigm with respect to property tax. Let's review what's happening based on four key insights; we'll use the graph below as a pictorial guide through the fiscal nuance. The chart below shows year-on-year change to Jersey City's state education aid (the gray line), the school levy (the dark red line) and the city levy (the ...
Update, Feb 5, 2021: I’m re-upping this post from 2020 to share with anyone who’s interested in the upcoming schools budgeting process in 2021. The annual public schools budgeting process is fairly regimented due in part to milestone dates that live in state law. A timeline of key dates from last year’s budgeting process is provided for context but the big picture looks something like this: February: The BOE hosts public meeting on budget to solicit public input. You can call in and weigh in on: what needs to be funded in your school? There are typically multiple such meetings ...
This is post included in both my abatement series and a series about the User Friendly Budget in NJ. We need better disclosures in NJ to understand the impact of tax abatements on the local fiscal landscape, particularly as it relates to public schools. The user friendly budget – mandated by the state starting in 2015 – was a welcome and needed first step to increase transparency, but more is needed and local governments can shore up the gap if they choose to. We can explore this using Jersey City’s abatement data. User Friendly Budget Abatement Data Currently, the detailed ...
I am part of the education team with Jersey City Together and in May 2020 we created a school tax expense calculator to help Jersey City residents understand the personal investment for a $50 million increase to the school levy. Our aim was to the put the power of understand property taxes into taxpayers’ hands. This tool allows you to input the assessed value of your home and then view the computed, personalized estimate for your change in monthly and annual school tax. In short: how much are YOU contributing towards a $52.7 million investment? Check it out below! The ...
It's Saturday May 9th and we are within a week of the 2020/21 schools budget being passed for next year. Parents are on the 98th yard line of a fight to push Superintendent Walker's full budget across the goal line. This post is aimed to bring parents and school advocates up to speed, give a quick accounting of advocacy to date, and share some final tools for the next few critical days. What's at Stake - $10+ million As explained below, the next days will determine if we keep - or lose - $10 million or more for our schools ...
For the last 10 years, Jersey City has been DIVESTING in its public schools. All the while, our city has grown. Here is what got cut JUST LAST YEAR (2019/20 schools budget): 160 teachers - CUT 25 teachers’ aides & assistants - CUT 20 janitorial, security, and food service staff - CUT 15 administrators & supervisors - CUT All reading recovery teachers - CUT 22 out of 25 literacy coaches - CUT 19 out of 21 math coaches - CUT Crisis intervention ratios increased from 1:200 to 1:400 students Counseling ratios increased from 1:250 to 1:350 students Class size ratios, ...
I normally use this blog to share data and analysis about taxes and public funding, but this is a more personal post. We are nearly a month into isolating at home and I wanted to share some reflections on education in this current moment. I have 2 kids in Jersey City Public Schools and I teach undergraduate courses full-time at Saint Peter’s University, so I’m seeing this play out from two perspectives. Two themes of concern are jumping out at me at in this current moment: Technology and Mental Health. Technology. There is a lot of focus on how we are ...
On Wednesday March 18th, Superintendent Walker proposed a budget that significantly increases local investment in our public schools. The budget includes a $64 million school levy increase, which represents a 47% increase over last year’s levy. Mayor Fulop “blasted” the increase, citing the harm to taxpayers, stating that “They’re going to destroy the taxpayers. They’re going to destroy residents, both renters and homeowners.” I’ve received the same question from several people: does the mayor’s rhetoric have merit? What does this 47% increase really mean? Also: what role can the city levy play in helping mitigate a school levy increase? Let’s ...
As we enter the budget season for Jersey City Public Schools, I wanted to share some upcoming process info – key dates & timeframes in case it’s helpful for parents and advocates. It’s never too late to get involved. BOE Budget Process – Working Timeline This timeline was updated after the budget process concluded. See links to news articles and other resources for more details. 2020/21 Budget 2020 February 19, 2020 Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 (Budget Listening Session) The BOE hosted a listening session for the public to provide input on the budget before the process commences. Read about the ...
I've heard "can't we go after the abatement money to fund our schools? Rather than increase the school tax levy?" The answer is: no, at least not directly. I wrote about the intersection of abatements & school funding back in 2015; this current moment has been foreseeable for years, unfortunately our elected are only now feeling the pressure of the moment. In this pressure-filled moment, it's critical to anchor around facts. Here's a quick breakdown of the logic: The city's 2 biggest mechanisms of funding are (a) the city tax levy and (b) PILOT revenue from abatements. 1) City tax ...
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 of the “average” tax bill in your town. The “average” tax bill is based on whatever the “average” assessed value of the home in your town is. And, “assessed” value is not necessarily “market” value; ...
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 Montclair’s local finance, with a teaching about how to navigate the NJ User Friendly Budget. The hope is that, coming out of this webinar, taxpayers feel more confident and empowered to explore local finance using ...
This is a quick update to my 2021 municipal budget series which I wrote this summer based on the budget introduced in June 2021. On August 31st 2021, the city council approved the budget in its final form with some changes. I wanted to briefly summarize those changes and also close the series with some constructive thoughts around how the city could improve things going forward, at least from the perspective of an outside/taxpayer experience ...
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. The spirit of this series is: I’m interested in unpacking the budget and sharing as I go. In that same spirit, I’m sharing interactive Tableau data visualizations that help others dig into the budget. See the full series here. The 2021 budget documents are online here. Some pointed questions I’ve gotten around the city budget are: “what is the biggest expense?” and “how much does the city spend ...
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. The spirit of this series is: I’m interested in unpacking the budget and sharing as I go. In that same spirit, I’m sharing interactive Tableau data visualizations that help others dig into the budget. See the full series here. The 2021 budget documents are online here. Several questions I’ve gotten around the city budget are: “how is the city funded?” and “what percentage of the budget ...
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. The spirit of this series is: I’m interested in unpacking the budget and sharing as I go. In that same spirit, I’m sharing interactive Tableau data visualizations that help others dig into the budget. See the full serieshere. The 2021 budget documents are onlinehere. One question I’ve gotten around the city budget is: “how much tax money goes to abatements each year?” We can ...
This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. See the full series here. The 2021 budget documents are online here. In this post I want to look at the proposed 2021 Jersey City budget using three questions as a launch point: How is the budget broken down? Has the budget ever been balanced? How much of the budget is dependent upon traffic/parking violations? The third question is a good pivot to interactive ...
A "levy" is the amount raised in property tax to fund a government budget. Typically, a levy is one of multiple sources of revenue that fund total expense. In 2021, Jersey City is poised to both fully fund its schools and also enter a new paradigm with respect to property tax. Let's review what's happening based on four key insights; we'll use the graph below as a pictorial guide through the fiscal nuance. The chart ...
Yesterday, Jersey City taxpayers received initial news that the 2021 municipal budget would “cut taxes for Jersey City residents by an average reduction of $967 a year for every household.” The city’s press release is here, currently the only primary information we have (the actual budget file – typically 50+ pages and loaded onto the city’s finance page, is not yet available). I generally don’t pay much attention to press releases, but this one was ...
How does my town's tax rate compare to the state average? Where does most of my property tax go - the city, the county, or the schools? How much is my town's taxable real estate ("ratables") worth? These are all reasonable questions and each year, the state publishes data that can answer them. I'm layering simple visualizations on top of the datasets published by the NJ Department of Community Affairs (the raw data is available ...
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 data Property appeals data Property parcel data and more. What I’m sharing below is a basic view of the local levies ...
This is post included in both my abatement series and a series about the User Friendly Budget in NJ. We need better disclosures in NJ to understand the impact of tax abatements on the local fiscal landscape, particularly as it relates to public schools. The user friendly budget – mandated by the state starting in 2015 – was a welcome and needed first step to increase transparency, but more is needed and local governments can ...
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 and present employee records, city officials announced.” This is a good reminder that abatements are contracts, and there are terms within each that require compliance. In light of this update, I thought it would be ...
Last month (October 2020) the state published the 2019 property tax tables. This is a “look back” at the local property tax landscape in New Jersey. It’s a wonderful treasure trove of public data from municipal, county, and local public school governments including: Tax base data Tax levy data Tax rate data Property appeals data Property parcel data and more. What I’m sharing below is a basic view of the local levies for each municipality ...
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 UFB's table of contents. This is a follow-up post to my previous post about how to dive into your city ...
This is article #3 in my series about abatements. Article #1 is “Tax Abatements 101: The Basics” and Article #2 is “Tax Abatements 201: Abatement Impact on Conventional Taxpayers.” In my previous post, “Tax Abatements 201: Abatement Impact on Conventional Taxpayers”, I focused on the orange slice of the pie pieces below. In this post I focus on the blue slices – the PILOT payments. To shed light on PILOTs, I am using two reports from 2009 that offer opposing points of view: New Jersey Policy Perspective’s (NJPP) “All That Glitters Isn’t Gold: Property Tax Abatements in Jersey City,” a highly ...
This is Article #2 in my series about abatements, which focuses on the impact abatements have on conventional taxpayers. My first post, “Abatement Basics,” is located here. How important are abatements to Jersey City residents? The answer: extremely important. Abatement revenues – also known as PILOTs, or “payments in lieu of taxes” – have increased from 3% of the city budget in 19921 to 21% of the city budget in 20132, as shown below: In this post I’ll be looking at conventional taxes, which factor into the orange “Non-PILOT Revenue” piece of the pies above. In my follow-up to this post (due out ...
A basic introduction to the topic of tax abatements in NJ ...
Jersey City is undergoing a multi-month Revaluation process and appraisal firm ASI, Inc. is currently assessing all properties throughout the city. I wrote about the April 3rd Ward “A” revaluation presentation, hosted by ASI, Inc, and one promise from that meeting: that an interactive assessment map would be made available. Good news – that map is now available! The interactive nature of the new map allows you to search for your property (similar to Google maps) and then click on your property to view further details. The map’s information is limited, but still useful. If your property has a color-coded box on it, ...
I attended the Ward “A” revaluation meeting on April 3rd and had a chance to listen to a representative from Appraisal Systems, Inc., the third-party appraisal firm hired by Jersey City to conduct the revaluation. Mark Duda presented; he is an ASI executive and the designated ASI “project manager” for Jersey City’s revaluation. Mark Duda, ASI, Inc’s Vice President and Project Manager for Jersey City’s Revaluation ASI, Inc. is one of just a few firms in NJ that conducts mass re-appraisals. A listing of all the revaluations that ASI is conducting in NJ can be found here. Additionally, there is a Jersey City-specific ...
Steven Fulop’s press person, Jennifer Morrill, made an egregious error on the record this month when she characterized tax appeals as not being based on sales prices. Tax appeals are, in fact, based explicitly on recent comparable sales prices. Ms. Morrill’s statement was in response to a story about a local resident, April Kuzas, who recently filed a tax appeal to force Mayor Fulop’s property assessment value to be increased. Ms. Kuzas’ argument is based on a widely reported fact: Mayor Fulop is severely under-taxed. His under-taxation is due primarily to Jersey City’s severely outdated assessment values (the last citywide revaluation was 1988). In ...
This is a guest post from Jersey City resident and mortgage industry professional Susan Kulakowski. Susan reached out to me after reading my last post, “Property Revaluation 501: Mapping & Color Coding Jersey City Home Sales by Assessment-Sales Ratio.” She analyzed the map’s underlying data and provided a ward-specific lens into the upcoming property revaluation. She offered to share her analysis with CivicParent readers and I gladly accepted. Her analysis can aid taxpayers in understanding fundamental questions like: What’s the likelihood of my taxes going up or down, depending on which Ward I live in? Which ward will see the most tax increase? ...
This post is part of an ongoing series about property revaluation in Jersey City. I partnered with CivicJC to create an interactive map to help residents visualize 2015 property sales in Jersey City and their corresponding taxes. Recent property sales are informing because they are used as a proxy for market value when establishing the city’s annual equalization ratio. Click here to enlarge the map in a new browser window. How it works Pin drops are color coded: Green = under assessed (ratio below 23.49) Red = Over assessed (ratio over 31.77) Black = Fairly assessed (ratio between 23.49-31.77) Ratio ranges and qualification of “under”, “over”, or “fairly” ...
This is part of an ongoing series about property revaluation in Jersey City. Note: this post presumes an understanding of the equalization ratio, which I previously wrote about in “Property Revaluation 101: the Equalization Ratio.” With Jersey City officials recently announcing that they would finally move forward with a property revaluation, a common question has emerged: “is my home currently under-assessed, over-assessed, or fairly assessed?” It’s an important question for many reasons, including: If you are currently over-assessed, you may be eligible to win a tax appeal, thus shaving tax expense off your annual home ownership bill (tax appeals are generally due on or before April 1st ...
This is part of an ongoing series about property revaluation in Jersey City. Please note, an update given new state tax data reported in 2017: the 2016 equalized tax rate is reported to be 1.86%. This is the best predictor of what the new tax rate will be, post-Revaluation. I’ve been asked by a few people: “How do I estimate what my taxes will be after the city revalues?” For non-abated homeowners, this is fairly straightforward and based on publicly available tax data. Here’s the formula: Post-Revaluation Tax Bill = Your Property’s Current Market Value * 2.07% This formula is based on the following: Current ...
This is part of an ongoing series about property revaluation in Jersey City. In my last post, I explained how Jersey City’s low equalization ratio was a cause for revaluation. The reason: when a city’s equalization ratio is low, its market values have grown out of sync with its assessed values, and that opens the door to potential tax inequity. In this post, I’ll dive a little deeper, and show how the door swings fully open. Tax inequity harms all taxpayers, albeit at different times and to different degrees depending on where they live. Let’s get civic and start out with a simple example to illustrate ...
This the first post in a series about property revaluation in Jersey City. Jersey City has been growing at a breakneck speed for the past fifteen years. As a city grows, it is required to stop along the way and revalue its real estate. This process is termed “revaluation.” Revaluation is about ensuring that tax assessed values – the number you see on your tax bill – are equal to current market values. As Jersey City has grown, it has failed to revalue itself. As a result, current market values have been allowed to grow grossly out of synch with outdated tax assessed values. But in November ...