"...New Jersey homeowners have reached the breaking point. Aid to suburban schools has been essentially frozen for the past five years while property tax rebate programs have been slashed...The freeze in school aid has had a dramatic impact on the growth of local property tax bills. By failing to fully fund the CEIFA school aid formula, districts have had to turn to local taxpayers to make up the difference in lost aid..." Read to learn the Republican's position on how to address property tax relief/reform and state budget deficit.

15 steps to control spending, trim property taxes

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/14/06

BY JOSEPH R. MALONE

New Jersey homeowners have reached the breaking point. Unable to afford constantly rising property tax bills and watching a state government that has shown no ability to control the problem, many people are finally packing up and leaving our state.

The time has come to put a stop to the property tax crisis that is forcing recent college graduates, young families and seniors out of this state.

As the Assembly Republican budget officer, I have sat through budget hearings for five years now. Despite the best efforts of the members on that committee to make significant changes to the structure of state government, nobody has been successful in curbing the insatiable appetite of the state bureaucracy for more spending.

During the past five years, the state budget has increased by nearly $10 billion. There have been billions of dollars in additional borrowing and new taxes to help cover this spending spree.

It is in large part because of this growth in government spending that there has been less money available for school aid and direct property tax relief. Aid to suburban schools has been essentially frozen for the past five years while property tax rebate programs have been slashed.

The freeze in school aid has had a dramatic impact on the growth of local property tax bills. By failing to fully fund the CEIFA school aid formula, districts have had to turn to local taxpayers to make up the difference in lost aid. In many cases, this means that property taxes are $3,000 to $5,000 higher than they were when school aid was last fully funded in 2001. Statewide, the average bill climbed by $1,309 to an average property tax bill of $5,867.

Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr., D-Camden, and Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, recently announced that four bipartisan, bicameral committees will be appointed to study a variety of property tax issues this summer.

I commend Roberts and Codey for taking the action that New Jersey homeowners have been waiting to see happen for five years. I would like to begin this process by offering my views on what these committees must accomplish.

There are 15 steps we can take that would significantly reduce the property tax burden while restoring fiscal sanity to our state budget. I call this my "15-Point Plan for State Renewal."

We should freeze the property tax at its 2001 level, which is the last year that full CEIFA funding was provided. This means some type of reduction in property taxes that will put property taxpayers where they would be had we not frozen aid to our schools the past five years.

We must take steps to remove the Supreme Court from the school funding issue. It is the job of the Legislature to determine the best system for providing funding to support a "thorough and efficient education," not the courts.

Once we have done that, we can make progress on eliminating non-qualifying Abbott school districts — those districts that have undergone a socioeconomic change that means they no longer should be considered disadvantaged.

Former Education Commissioner William Librera suggested that we take this step. It has been estimated this might eliminate Abbott designation for as many as 13 districts.

After that, Abbott aid should be frozen at the 2005 level, subject to evaluation of district budgets and the needs of students in those districts. At the same time, we should look to consolidate or regionalize all of the state's non-operating school districts, as well as those that are not K-12 districts. We also should review the dates of school board elections to increase participation by taxpayers.

Not only should we be restructuring our school districts to save costs, we also should look at restructuring the way we deliver municipal services as well. One way to accomplish this would be to mandate a regionalization/shared services plan for any municipality with fewer than 20,000 residents.

At the state level, we can save money by eliminating or consolidating a number of state departments and agencies. Among those agencies that should be eliminated, with their essential duties shifted to existing departments, are the Personnel Department and the Commerce Commission.

Likewise, the Department of Information Technology should either absorb all state information technology functions or delegate each department to run its own, as is becoming common practice.

The Division of Purchasing and Property should be mandated to adopt a "best price" policy with vendors that requires vendors to supply materials to the state at the same or a lower price than they provide those same services to any non-state customer they service.

The Legislature should take steps to convene a constitutional convention within six months. That convention would be charged with reviewing state spending, the elimination of Supreme Court intervention in school funding, the state's school funding formula, suggestions for eliminating the property tax as the primary source of funding for education, and all aspects of educational administrative structure.

All of these suggestions would have a real impact on reducing the cost of state government and providing for a more equitable distribution of education funds. If we accomplish those two goals, we will also succeed in reducing the property tax burden.

I hope the committees that meet this summer will explore all 15 of these ideas and consider adopting them as part of any proposal made to the Legislature. Anything short of this will produce little in the way of real results for our taxpayers.

Joseph R. Malone is a Republican member of the Assembly. He represents the 30th Legislative District, which includes portions of Burlington, Ocean, Monmouth and Mercer counties.