Issue 76: The JC budget disaster
Plus, a walking tour and RIP Horrors on Clarke :(
Good morning, Jersey City! Hope you’re doing great, and get ready for some extended Halloween coverage next week. Have a wonderful Sunday! — Amy
Walking Tour re: Proposed zoning changes
Love the Affordable Housing Overlay or hate the Affordable Housing Overlay, it’s here — and now the city is moving onto their next step. That next step, as best as I can put it together, is for the city to do a series of meetings in R1 zoned neighborhoods (R1 = neighborhoods that are primarily single family homes), and the first of those meetings — in the form of a walking tour — will be on November 5th:
If you have concerns about the changes that are coming to our neighborhoods, please go to these meetings if you’re at all able. There are supposedly going to be a few more in the month of November before any more changes are made, but this is happening fast. This isn’t something that you’re going to be able to catch up with after the holidays — if this is an issue you’re concerned about, now is the time to show up.
The JC Budget: Won’t somebody somewhere do something?
Jersey City’s budget for 2022 was just passed this week — and surprisingly no, that’s not a typo on my part. They only passed the budget for 2022, aka the year that began ten months ago, this week. Also instead of doing it during a regular City Council meeting, they decided at the last minute to pass it on a different day in the middle of the workday, so that’s completely normal as well. Also, our property taxes are all gonna go way up, and most likely they will also go up again next year, so it’s not like this was just your standard budget where everything is completely fine.
Hudson County View reported the story under the headline Frustrated Jersey City Council approves $724.8M budget, Solomon & Gilmore vote no and reporter Dan Ulloa captured a number of quotes from seemingly annoyed council members expressing their frustration at the way the budget had been handled:
Saleh reiterated that there was no good option at this point, since their only options were to sign off on a tax increase or support furloughs and/or layoffs for municipal employees.
“We need to rein in the Leviathan, the overspending. We need this budget process to start earlier. We need to set up the finance committee. We need to start checking to make sure every department is within their spending limits,” Saleh exclaimed.
“We really need to rein this in. If not, I’m going to have to vote no next year. We can’t continue to squeeze blood from this stone.”
Aw yeah, Saleh — give ‘em hell! Except who exactly are you giving hell — isn’t that the exact same administration you ran with, who endorsed you, and you always vote with? And so once again, he votes with the administration that botched the budget, and the house — as always — wins. Because they, the City Council, allow it to win.
Boggiano asserted that there are $600 million ratables the city hasn’t collected, calling on the tax assessor’s office to get out there to collect the money.
He also argued condo owners are paying a tenth of one and two-family homeowners are paying in property taxes.
“The $26 million we’re going to lose from the state, that’s the only reason I’m voting for it. Things have to change here. I’m tired of paying taxes … We’re in a crisis here in the city and next year this better get straightened out. I’m gonna be around around for three more years and I’m not keeping my mouth shut no more,” Boggiano declared.
Yeah, sounds great, Boggiano!!! Except when push comes to shove, you voted for what was put in front of you and didn’t do anything publicly to push back. I’m sure your constituents appreciate that you’ve apparently kept silent til now and will be speaking up sometime soon.
Council President Joyce Watterman said that while the process certainly left something to be desired, it made little sense to vote it down with only two months left in the year.
“This budget appeared to us very late. We kept asking for the budget. I don’t know what happened … This budget is not like a happy budget that we are going to vote on. We asked for a finance committee. I think the process in the budget needs to be changed,” she noted.
“Whoever’s fault it is, I think there needs to be some discipline there because we kept asking for this budget … Our hands are tied, to be perfectly honest. Next year we have to start all over again. I prefer if the budget is sent to the council first.”
Gosh, I wonder who’s fault it is? I mean on one hand, there’s the Mayor and all his staff members and his appointees, who you happily ran alongside with, and on the other there is literally YOU, THE CITY COUNCIL. YOU COULD HAVE DEMANDED BETTER THAN THIS.
Look, I know I’m ranting. But there’s more that our elected officials can do besides waiting til the last minute and grandstanding. These are literally the people in power, people who have the ability to force the administration to do better, and they’re throwing up their hands and just shrugging and wishing that somebody would do something.
Meanwhile, Ward E Councilman James Solomon sent an open letter to both the Jersey Journal and Hudson County View. It begins:
The first issue is that we voted on the 2022 calendar year budget in mid-October, meaning we’ve already failed at the most basic responsibility as a city: making sure we’re getting things done on time.
The delay was completely unnecessary, and it raised your taxes by an additional $10M. The City failed to submit its Annual Financial Statement by the statutory March deadline, instead turning it in in August.
That document revealed a $36 million cash deficit that was previously unaccounted for —further delaying the budget vote so the city could address that deficit.
Ultimately, this delay is the reason that the city was unable to collect $10 million from its annual tax sale, and as a result, Jersey City residents are being forced to shoulder that $10 million burden. This tax increase will fall entirely on your 4th quarter taxes.
Ok I am putting this out into the ether and if anyone reads it and does something with it, that would be great but otherwise I’ve said what I need to say and I’m good: If I were a political foe of Steve Fulop, I would be blasting what I quoted above in a Facebook ad every five seconds right now. The city is wasting money during a time when we desperately need money. Literally no one is going to be a fan of this. I don’t care if you like to walk around with your MAGA red baseball cap or if you’re Hilary Clinton’s biggest fan, you don’t want to see your tax dollars just go out the window. You don’t want to see the city miss deadlines that cost us money and for money to be unaccounted for.
Second, to make the city’s new numbers add up, this budget slashes millions of dollars in services that Jersey City residents depend on for public safety and affordability.
This includes a 75% cut to the “Community Crisis Response” program pairing mental health professionals with police officers, delaying its implementation until at least 2023; cuts to 12 Parking Enforcement officer positions, preventing effective implementation of residential zone parking in downtown and across the city; and cuts to positions in Affordable Housing, Engineering, City Planning, Architecture, and Construction Code, the core divisions attempting to address the city’s rampant development.
So the city was patting itself on its back last week about passing the Affordable Housing Overlay, but they’re also slashing the very departments that will see buildings being kept up to code, developers following the rules they’re supposed to, and people living in safe places. Got it.
But even with these devastating cuts, the city still found money for “merit” salary increases, overtime funding increases for Public Works, and a $3M+ outlay to pay for police overtime over-expenditures from 2021.
Most troublingly, this budget sets us up for bigger problems next year. City Hall spent over $70 million from American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to plug holes in the current budget.
There is no more ARP money, which creates a $70 million budget gap for next year. Unless our budgeting processes improve substantially, working families will be forced to make up that shortfall through tax increases or service cuts.
This is all terrifying. And while I applaud Solomon for writing this op ed and getting this information out to the public, I really wish he had put out a similar statement a month earlier (or more). Reading about all of this right now is heartbreaking, but it’s going to get forgotten because it’s coming out after the budget has passed. So sure, people are going to be furious about it but there’s literally nothing they can do, so that fury will burn out and this time next year we’re going to be back in the exact same situation.
One thing to keep in mind is that the budget is always late in Jersey City. That is something that has become an established norm, and it’s unacceptable as well. I’m sure many of the council members will say that they felt as though they had to vote for this budget despite their misgivings, because otherwise furloughs and layoffs would have started — and that’s a very real thing. But this is the inevitable conclusion when you keep allowing budgets to be introduced later.
The entire council, regardless of their political affiliation, should get together and resolve that the 2023 budget needs to come out months earlier than what happened this time. Start pushing now. Don’t wait til mid summer 2023 and then start politely asking where the budget is. We know next year is going to be an expensive year, because we have the Pompidou and other projects that are going to have to be accounted for. So make getting the budget early a top priority so you don’t wind up in a situation where you’re held hostage and the only choice you have is voting yes or seeing people get laid off.
Short-term, this is what’s going to happen: if you’re a homeowner, you’re going to get your fourth quarter tax bill, and it’s going to be really expensive. The Mayor will likely include a letter along with your tax bill — which, by the way, printing and mailing this letter will cost us money — blaming the JC public schools entirely and saying that there’s absolutely nothing he or his 7-2 majority on the city council can possibly do to stop taxes from going up. The letter won’t mention the money wasted by turning in the budget late, or how we’ve known that we were going to have to come up with more money for the schools for years and have done nothing to adjust our revenue and spending even with that knowledge. And then the city council members will shrug and say it’s not their fault and nothing will change.
I’m hesitating sending out this rant because honestly, no one wants to start off their Sunday morning reading this stuff. But also, I am so tired and frustrated at watching a group of adults completely shirk their responsibility and then performatively complain about it. Solomon lays out some (somewhat vague) steps that he says he’ll pursue to improve this situation in his op ed; I’d like to hear what the other council members who are so outraged at how this unfolded plan to address it. Will they be willing to team up with Solomon, who is so often a contrary voice on the council? Or do they have a plan of their own? Or were all those passionate statements at the meeting where the budget approved nothing more than just noise and excuses, and we’re going to do the same thing over again next year?
RIP Horrors on Clarke
It is my very sad duty to inform you that the absolutely wild haunted house display that has charmed Jersey City’s West Side for many years is now gone. The family behind Horrors on Clarke — which featured an elaborate display multiple moving figures, spooky sounds, people dressed up in scary costumes, and all sorts of things to delight children and adults during the Halloween season — seems to have moved to Pennsylvania. I am heartbroken.
Of course, Jersey City’s loss is Pennsylvania’s gain, and the family has renamed their Facebook page Horrors on Becca, presumably their new street. And they were kind enough to post this, for those of us feeling their absence:
Oh I will be there! And while it’s a huge bummer Horrors on Clarke is gone, I’m happy to see another spooky house thriving. Pics and more coming soon.