Dear Editor:
The Jersey City budget is eight (8) months late. The proposed budget includes a tax increase of 13 percent, bringing the total increase in municipal taxes since 2009 to 40 percent. However, there are a number of one-shot revenue items related to the sale of city property that may not be realized, requiring an even larger property tax increase.
In his March 16, 2011 State of the City Address, the mayor described directing each city department to develop a three-year strategy for restructuring of services and revenue creation. Six (6) months later, we still have not seen a plan.
The City Council remains unable to come together to pass already proposed sensible cost cutting measures that include folding the Jersey City Incinerator Authority (JCIA) into the Department of Public Works (DPW) eliminating redundancies; moving retirees to a less costly, but equivalent health care plan as the city has already done for current employees and NJ has done for state retirees; eliminate health benefits for volunteer board members for the Jersey City Incinerator Authority (JCIA) and Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority (JCMUA), and label all city-owned vehicles to discourage abuse.
Like most of you, whether owner or renter, the budget failings and tax increases have become front and center in our lives. Many of us have seen our incomes fall during the past few years and health insurance costs rise while bearing a 40 percent increase in property taxes. We are experiencing haphazard reductions in municipal services with no guiding plan and no public input.
It does not have to be this way. There are strategies and methods to prioritize the outcomes and services residents expect and then align these with goals. Consider a strategic, more transparent budgeting process used by the City of Baltimore, called Outcome Budgeting:
Addresses fiscal constraints
Rewards innovations
Measures performance
Makes the budget process more transparent
To learn more about Outcome Budgeting, please visit – http://onejerseycity.org/?p=1131
We must seek and implement new solutions to stabilize our taxes because the old way – following a development boom of historic proportions – left us with a deficit of $30 million which has grown to a potential $80 million in the hands of our “old way” council comprised of mostly current and former employees of local government and their family members.
Daniel Levin
Candidate Council At-Large
onejerseycity.org