The Council is going into their sixth budget meeting with what appears to be no end in sight for completion. In past years, the 40+ million dollar budget was pushed through in 4 meetings with virtually no cuts or changes. So far the current Council carefully scrutinized and found close to $ 1,000,000 worth of savings for the taxpayers. That's no small change!!
My Budget MVP awards go to Councilman Feit and Councilman Gussen that did not waiver towards their commitment that everything is on the table. At last weeks budget meeting, municipal employees packed the room out of fear that their jobs may be on the line. I was forced to stay in the hall with several other residents. Those residents with whom I had the chance to speak with don't really want to see services cut or have township employees lose their jobs but are VERYconcerned about our sky high taxes.
Deputy Mayor Parker was so quick to side with the unions that she tried to force the Council to vote to take layoffs off the table before the meeting even started.
Councilman Feit who has had a reputation for being impressionable showed that when push comes to shove, Councilman Feit's true strengths shine though. He stands tall!
We have to keep encouraging the Council to keep saving taxpayers dollars and bring in more revenue.
The TCCP has been scaring the Teaneck residents with inaccurate flyer's and literature. They claim to be in favor of responsible development, but I haven't heard one positive suggestion from the group or during their meetings. What I have heard is mostly NIMBY's and political agendas. I'm not impressed and as Teaneck Progress pointed out, we see through their "inflammatory language".
My fellow Teaneck residents lets not forget that the bulk of our taxes are from the Board of Education and that the same emphasis should be placed on the Board of Education budget meetings as well. It's very important that as many residents as possible attend these open meetings.
11 comments:
Generally, this is a fair report of what happened. The difficulty of cutting from a budget that has been allowed to grow in an out of control fashion by past councils is clear. Workers have a right to pursue their interests. But something will have to give now that both houses of the legislature have sent the 4% tax cap to the Governor. Will anything happen in 2007? Probably not. But 2008 is going to be different. And of course the fantasy that no new development will be allowed needs to crack open and politicians have to stop spouting the mantra that "New development does not mean new revenue."
"Property tax reforms aimed only at reducing individual homeowners' tax bills will fail to correct one of the most insidious damages inflicted by today’s property tax system: competition between municipalities for new nonresidential developments or tax “ratables” that improve the fiscal bottom line but that worsen traffic, suppress much-needed housing opportunities, drain older communities of resources and erase open lands."
From New Jersey Future, Property Tax Reform and Land Use, July 2006
So do nothing? Just wait for the end? Wait for the State to rescue us?
The Lord helps those who help themselves.
www.njfuture.org/Media/Docs/land use & property taxes.pdf
Can anyone specify what the cuts were or is the $1,000,000 just an invention?
Come to the budget meeting Thursday night at 6 and get up at the good and welfare that opens the meeting and ask for a rundown.
Not everyone can make it to 6PM meetings. Can anyone provide any information as to what major or even minor cuts have been made?
Apparently, no official information is out about the new laws regarding caps and taxes. The Board of Ed had a budget presented to it last night by the outgoing Mr. Donow in which he cut the coming year's tax levy expenditures to within 4% of the past year's budget. He did this without any information from the state but only newspaper information.
He did not know whether the budget would have to be presented to the voters in April since one version of the new law, which might have passed but about which information cannot be ascertained, allows for budgets within the cap not to be voted upon.
If the Township budget remains with an 8% increase and the county budget remains in the same range, how will the state view the total tax budget which would be a composite of the within cap school budget plus the township and county beyond cap budgets?
On the New Jersey Legislature web site, copies of bills are posted. It is the first bill listed (A1 or S20) on the Bills 2006-2007 by number.
As I read it, in this version the caps would apply to the 2007 to 2008 fiscal year.
Unfortunately the best information that the School Administration had was that this was not the final bill as passed by the Senate and Assembly.
Henry:
The State does not look at the "total tax". The School District, Municipalities and County caps are viewed and applied independently.
To the original post:
The Board of Ed has had constant open budget workshops since the beginning of January every Wednesday, sometimes attended by 20 people, sometimes by 4. Mr.Frisch is correct, currently the school budget is within the 4% cap. The Board and administration are not finished looking at line items, and will be meeting again in two weeks in workshop.
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