NJ User Friendly Budget

NJ User Friendly Budget

The User Friendly Budget ("UFB" for short) is a mandatory budget format that each municipality (all 565 of them!) is required to submit to NJ each year. This is a powerful document, standardized in form and rich with public data, that allows for both time-series and comparative analysis among towns and cities throughout the Garden State, from 2015 onward.

Tax Abatements 601: Brighter Sunshine Mandated for NJ Abatements

September 3, 2015

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) ...
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#FundOurSchools, City Council, GASB Statement No. 77, Jersey City City Budget, Jersey City Public Schools, Jersey City Public Schools Funding Crisis, NJ UFB - Series, Public Budget, Tax Abatement Series, tax abatements

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 1: Intro to the Series & How to Access the UFB

June 15, 2020

Five years ago, New Jersey began mandating that every municipality* in New Jersey file a “User Friendly Budget (UFB)” as ...
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#JCCityBudget, Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 2: What’s in the User Friendly Budget?

June 15, 2020

This is part of a series about the User Friendly Budget. This is a relatively short post to lay out ...
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#JCCityBudget, Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 3: the “Cover Page”, an Inventory of NJ’s 565 Municipalities, & An Overview of How UFB Data was Compiled

June 22, 2020

This is a post in a series about NJ’s User Friendly Budget. My intent is to share basic analysis and ...
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#JCCityBudget, Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 4a: View Your Town’s Structural Spending with the “UFB-3 Appropriations Summary” Data

June 23, 2020

This is a post in a series about NJ's User Friendly Budget. My intent is to share basic analysis and ...
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Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series

The “User Friendly Budget”, Part 4b: Public Health & Public Safety (with Focus on Police) Spending in the Garden State

July 1, 2020

This is a post in a series about NJ's User Friendly Budget. My intent is to share basic analysis and ...
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Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series

Abatements 701 & The “User Friendly Budget”, part 5 – Abatements (with a Jersey City Focus)

December 3, 2020

Note: the visualizations below are best viewed on a computer or tablet (vs a phone). Jersey City recently announced it ...
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Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series, Tax Abatement Series

Jersey City 2021 Budget: Dig into budget using keyword search

July 8, 2021

This is part of a series on the 2021 city budget. See the full series here. The 2021 budget documents ...
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Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series, NJ UFB-In Context

Jersey City’s 2021 Municipal Budget — A postscript…and some closing notes around transparency & process improvement

September 27, 2021

This is a quick update to my 2021 municipal budget series which I wrote this summer based on the budget ...
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Jersey City City Budget, NJ UFB - Series, NJ UFB-In Context

The User Friendly Budget ... in use!

The articles below rely on the User Friendly Budget for public data; sharing here to help give context on how this powerful public document can inform the fiscal landscape in community.

Jersey City PILOTs Rob Funding from the School System

A strong public school system is essential bedrock to a healthy community. Yet in Jersey City, our bedrock is threatened by a fiscal ...
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November 17, 2015 / #FundOurSchools, City Council, Jersey City City Budget, Jersey City Public Schools, Jersey City Public Schools Funding Crisis, Jersey City School Funding Crisis, NJ UFB-In Context, Public Budget, Public Schools, Steven Fulop, tax abatements, Tax Abatements

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

If you are new to the topic of abatements, I recommend my tax abatement series here including my 2015 article,”Jersey City PILOTs ...
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March 16, 2018 / #DataViz, #openData, NJ UFB-In Context, Property Tax, Public Schools, tax abatements, Tax Abatements, User Friendly Budget

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 ...
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April 25, 2019 / #DataViz, #FundOurSchools, #GetCivic, #JCCityBudget, #openData, Board of Education, Data Visualizations, Jersey City City Budget, Jersey City Public Schools, Jersey City Public Schools Funding Crisis, NJ UFB-In Context, Public Budget, School Funding Advocacy, School Tax Levy

The User Friendly Budget ... in use!