#openData – Civic Parent

Jersey City: Approximately $40 Million of School Tax is Locked Up in Abatement Contracts

May 7, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Tax Abatements

This is part of a series about the 2019/20 proposed municipal and schools budgets in Jersey City. Jersey City’s proposed 2019/20 municipal budget shows that over $120 million in PILOT fees are expected to be collected in in the coming year. What is notable about PILOT fees is that they don’t contribute to the...

Jersey City’s 2019/20 Proposed Budget: Visualized APPROPRIATIONS (Expenses)

May 5, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations

Every municipality must pay for services that are then consumed by its residents. These services include: Police force (eg the JCPD) Fire department Road maintenance for city roads (a note on roads...in Jersey City, Ocean Avenue, Eerie Street, and Manhattan Avenue are city roads, thus they are maintained with city funds...however JFK Boulevard is...

Jersey City’s 2019/20 Proposed Budget: Visualized Revenues

May 5, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public budgets

Every municipality is funded by a mix of income streams, including: Property taxes (everyone pays property tax...you either pay it directly if you're a property owner, or you pay it to your landlord. Your rent includes the cost of property tax) State Aid Local Revenues - these are user-fee income streams like marriage licenses,...

2019/20 Proposed Advertised Appropriations (JCPS Spending for 2019/20 School Year)

April 28, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public Schools

Check out prior visualizations here that I'm sharing as part of the 2019/20 budget cycle. This visualization shows multiple lenses into the proposed 2019/20 "advertised appropriations" within Jersey City's public schools, as reported by the Jersey City Board of Education here. This budget has been prepared by the district administration and a finalized version,...

How does Jersey City Spend Its Money? A Data Visualization of Budgets from 2015-2018

April 25, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Property Taxes, Public budgets

As we look towards the coming weeks and months, two local governing bodies are undergoing a public budgeting process: The Board of Education will be determining the 2019/20 schools budget. The city of Jersey City will be determining the 2019 municipal budget. A key question is: how can taxpayers engage? How can we peel...

2018/19 Advertised Appropriations (What JCPS Spends Money On)

April 15, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

This "tree map" shows the 2018/19 appropriations (i.e. expenses) for Jersey City Public Schools. I downloaded the data from the NJ Department of Education website, created a subset of "Appropriations" showing total spending, and then removed subtotals and totals so that only detailed lined items are visualized. Jersey City will lose $27 million in...

Jersey City’s 2017 School Based Budgets: Learn what’s being funded in your school

April 15, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

This bubble chart shows 2017 actual spending within Jersey City's public schools, as reported by the 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ("CAFR"); 2017 is the most recent year available for this report. The CAFR is an annual report detailing both qualitative and quantitative information about the district. It is prepared by the district, approved...

NJ School Funding Basics: “Adequacy” Budget, School Tax Levy, & the Impact of Inflation (A Case Study of Jersey City)

March 7, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public Schools

This article is about Jersey City’s public schools funding crisis. If you’re unfamiliar with this issue, you can read more about it here. I’ve been attempting to de-puzzle some of the tax math that is vexing Jersey City with respect to its public school funding crisis, and have found three factors that deserve public...

NJ Property Tax Dashboard: Updated for 2018 w/ Jersey City Highlights

March 6, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Property Taxes, Public Schools

Every year, the state of NJ publishes property tax data on the Department of Community Affairs website. I have combined all the available data, for tax years 1998 through the most recently published data for 2018, into one tabulation and visualized it in Tableau. This dashboard is intended to provide taxpayers with a bird's...

Taxpayer Guide to Education Spending – Total Spending Per Pupil (#OpenData Visualization)

February 5, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

An explanation of “Total Spending per Pupil”, from the NJ Department of Education: “The Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending (Taxpayers’ Guide) provides the public the opportunity to view and compare all dollars spent on students enrolled in the public school system. In 2010-11, the Department updated this publication (previously the “Comparative Spending Guide”) to...

NJ Public Schools – Diversity Dashboard Using Income, Race, & ESL Data

January 21, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Public Schools

I was prompted by this tweet by Alpha Sigma Nu to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Jan 21, 2019). When I saw the tweet, the first thought that popped into my head was “better understand and share about school diversity.” There is a dataset I’ve been dabbling with for quite some time now; it’s...

Demand Fair Property Taxation: Using the Equalization Ratio as a Civic Tool

January 20, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Property Revaluation, Property Taxes

How can taxpayers ensure that local municipal and county governments are keeping property taxes fair and balanced? One suggestion: make sure that assessed values, i.e. the value of properties on the tax rolls, fairly reflect market values. One way we can do that is to refer to the annual equalization ratio, also known as...

NJ School Funding Basics: The Tax Levy

January 13, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public Schools

This is part of series about school funding, property tax, and community in Jersey City. To read other posts in this series, click here. In my previous post, I wrote about the tax base: what it is, how we can find its value in public records, and how Jersey City's value compares with other...

NJ School Funding Basics: NJ Department of Education Data & Reports

January 4, 2019October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

This is a quick initial post to point taxpayers to an excellent resource for rich, official public data about our public schools here in NJ. The NJ Department of Education (NJ DOE) has, for at least the past 10 years, published a host of different datasets on its “DOE Data & Reports” page. The...

JCPS Funding Crisis: An Overview

January 4, 2019July 15, 2019Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Property Taxes, Public Schools

Jersey City Public Schools Funding Crisis Based on the state funding formula, Jersey City Public Schools are currently $100 million under-funded. Jersey City students, parents, teachers, and staff experience this under-funding everyday. This is a structural deficit and a threat to our school system, our city, and our community. Get the facts, connect in...

Jersey City & NJ: Student Group Data from NJ School Performance Reports (A Focus on ELL, At-Risk, and Special Education Students)

October 6, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

The NJ Department of Education publishes annual data relating to certain “student groups”, per school. The table below focuses on three groups that, per state funding law, are entitled to more funding based on the level of need. These groups are: At-risk students, defined as lower income students who qualify for free or reduced...

NJ Property Tax Dashboard | #OpenData #DataViz

September 27, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Property Taxes, Public Schools

This is a property tax dashboard for NJ residents who may be interested in learning about the property tax profile of their municipality, including: 1) Latest available (Tax Year 2017) property tax metrics available from NJ’s Property Tax portal. 2) Tax base growth chart from 1988 to 2017 – how has your town’s tax...

NJ Special Education Statistics | #DataViz #OpenData

September 22, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

In this post I’m sharing statewide special education data, with ability to drill into Jersey City special education data specifically, for both Jersey City Public Schools (the public school system) and charter schools attended by Jersey City students. I am sharing the statewide data because it’s informing to see the varying degrees of special...

Jersey City’s Taxpayer Funded Schools: Enrollment Overview with Focus on Income Diversity

September 15, 2018October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Data Visualizations, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

The charts below show enrollment data for Jersey City Public Schools. The Jersey City Public Schools system is the 39-school district under the purview of the Jersey City Board of Education (BOE) and is funded through taxpayer dollars. Public charter schools also receive taxpayer dollars, but they are operated and overseen independently of the...

Jersey City: Who in City Council & the NJ State Legislature Represents Your School?

June 25, 2018June 7, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools

To help parents and taxpayers understand (a) what schools are in their neighborhood and/or (b) which elected representatives are tied to which schools, I’ve mapped all 40 Jersey City Public Schools (along with accompanying basic profile information, as listed on the JCPS Website) against 2 map layers: Jersey City Ward (each ward is represented by...

Updated: Jersey City Abatements from 2016 User Friendly Budget. Mapped by Project Type & Ward.

March 16, 2018June 17, 2020Brigid D'SouzaJersey City School Funding Crisis, Public Schools, Tax Abatements

If you are new to the topic of abatements, I recommend my tax abatement series here including my 2015 article,”Jersey City PILOTs Rob Funding from the School System.“ This post is a refinement of my previous “Mapping Jersey City Abatements By Project Type and Ward” post. I wanted to update the data, and the map, to...

Fulop Era Abatements Approved from 2013 to 2016

July 6, 2017October 23, 2020Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Tax Abatements

I’m sharing a new map I created that pin-drops all abatements approved since Mayor Fulop and the current City Council took office*, i.e. since the summer of 2013. I created the map after reading Terrence McDonald‘s recent article from the Jersey Journal titled “Has Steve Fulop Evolved on Tax Abatements?” It’s a valid question...

Mapping Jersey City’s Abatements by Project Type and Ward

April 23, 2017July 14, 2019Brigid D'SouzaTax Abatements

If you are new to the topic of abatements, I recommend my tax abatement series here. I’ve updated my 2015 long-term abatement map to include 2016 data. The map is provided below, along with reports showing underlying data grouped by project type (affordable housing vs. market) and by ward. Source data was derived from the city’s user...

Mapping Abatements in Jersey City

September 16, 2015September 28, 2019Brigid D'SouzaAdvocacy, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, Tax Abatements

As I explained in my last post, transparency around abatements is finally, slowly, increasing. As data is unlocked, taxpayers can glean greater insight into how their tax dollars are spent. To help with this effort, I’ve mapped the 146 abatements from Jersey City’s 2015 “user friendly budget” into an easy-to-use Google map. Let’s Get Civic...