Property Tax Proposal Due Today
From the Star Ledger:
Corzine prepares a new fiscal order
Corzine prepares a new fiscal order
Gov. Jon Corzine today will unveil far-reaching proposals to ease New Jerseyans' property taxes and the state's chronic budget problems, including adding hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to suburban schools and possibly selling the New Jersey Turnpike to cut the state's debt.
With the state suffering from annual budget shortfalls and its homeowners struggling to pay tax bills that average nearly $6,000, Corzine has decided a bold, comprehensive plan is needed to address both problems, several Statehouse sources said.
The former Wall Street investment banker's prescriptions for New Jersey's fiscal ills include tighter cost controls at all levels of government and less generous fringe benefits for state workers. He will propose direct state credits on local property tax bills and an incentive fund to encourage towns to share services.
The governor's speech will kick off a special legislative session dedicated to reducing the pain of the property taxes, which pay for local government services and public schools.
Corzine will emphasize connections between the state government's money problems and the burden on local taxpayers, aides said yesterday.
7 Comments:
Special session begins at 11am this morning. Will be updated as soon as information becomes available.
Great post over at Global Economic Analysis:
Lights Out in Georgia
A list of posts made by a realtor over on the Motley Fool forum. It's amazing how quickly both the market and sentiment turned.
grim
I didn't see much in the way of sticks, in the preview which scares me.
Selling the Turnpike is idiotic. These are always bad deals for governments. I also have a bit of a problem with the state imposing penalties on citizens at the behest of a private concern (tickets for not paying tolls).
Is their anywhere else that the state takes an active (as opposed to passive) role in ensuring a company receives its revenue?
I cannot express fully how horrendous I find this type of privatization. It allows private concerns monopoloy access to profits from public facilities, invariably decreases public convenience and degrades working conditions and employee pay further eroding our economic base.
Lindsey
That Lights Out post lived up to its billing.
Lindsey
Contrary to Lindsey, I think selling the turnpike is a great idea. Invariably private enterprises are run better than quasi state agencies. How long did it take the Turnpike to implement EZ Pass? State workers have no sense of urgency about anything - they just waited for the EZ Pass contractor to fix everything, rather than act like a private company and threaten to break the contract at the first sign of implementation problems. The less functions that State government has any hand in, the better, as far as I am concerned. The State collecting tickets for a private concern? Who cares, pay your tolls and you don't have to worry about it. If you don't pay a toll, that is a theft of service, punishable by law, same as any other theft. Either the police or the state are usually somehow involved in enforcing laws. They should sell NJ Transit while they are at it, they suck too.
8:30am-4:30pm equals 9 to 5, which is condidered a "40 hour week."
Turnpikes are money losers. It sounds like a great idea, but any investor will avoid it like the plague. Chicago sold the Skyway, and the buyer regretted it. That said, if they sell the Trunpike on a lowball offer just to get it off the books and get the cash, they should be forced to cross the NJTP at rush hour like a deer.
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