It seems the state Legislature is finally, kicking and screaming, going to focus upon property tax relief. Such action is long overdue, as any taxpayer knows.
Once and for all, there needs to be a “Truth from Trenton” law that spells out, in plain English, what the Legislature’s actions really mean to taxpayers.
It is surely a slick trick to say this tax will go up and that one will go down, but in the end, we know no tax goes down, not now, not ever.
What an austere sound bellows from Trenton to local school boards: State aid will remain level, again.
Immediately, if there was a “Truth from Trenton” law in place, our First District legislators would have to personally tell each school district: “What that means is, your taxpayers, the ones who vote on your budget in April, will have to pay more, or, you can just cut teachers or something else.”
That’s what level aid for schools means. It means a tax hike.
The bill doesn’t come from Trenton, so the elite stay clean and above reproach.
It’s left to school board officials to scrimp and make cuts, doing the dirty work of firing, slicing and raising taxes.
The same goes for college students and their families. As aid from the state flattens, tuitions rise.
What is often forgotten in the capital is that contractual obligations force increases in pay, which must come from somewhere.
Another reason a “Truth from Trenton” law should be in place is because every time a local government wants to do public project, it must pay a permit fee.
Imagine, a public body paying a state agency to review plans for a public project, funded by tax dollars. That’s double taxation.
What’s wrong with that picture?
Although it happens every day around the glorious Garden State, such a raw display came to the surface Aug. 1 at Stone Harbor Borough Council’s meeting.
There was debate, some heated, about paying for permits to the U.S. Soil Conservation Service ($980), a federal entity which we also fund, and state Department of Environmental Protection ($300) to review the proposed restoration of Sedge Island.
The job, should it ever gets the stamp of approval, will push some dredge material, mostly sand, around, plant vegetation on the 11-acre tract, and turn it back to nature.
Every tax-paying resident of this state should be irate about such “pay to play” permits that cost even a penny of tax money.
It’s often stated that such fees are only instituted to cover costs of administration.
Aren’t we, the residents of New Jersey, paying the wages of the workers at the D.E.P.? Why then, should we be forced to pay those workers, again, to review plans for work that will be paid by tax funds?
Why do we have high taxes? There’s just another example, and it doesn’t touch the tip of the iceberg when it comes to paying for play in New Jersey.
It should be noted that the permits Stone Harbor had applied for are what may otherwise be known as stumbling blocks.
Should any agency (read between the lines, the person sitting at the desk who has God-like power to reject) have a particularly bad day, say a bad Monday after a long weekend, chances are slim the project gets the O.K. stamp.
Too many fiefdoms are included in such shore projects.
From fish to birds, shellfish to sand particle size, every mother’s child with a title gets into the act and can stop any project, without so much as the decency to give a reason.
The state will never refund permit money. That’s like expecting an Atlantic City gambling house to return money lost in a slot machine during a night on the town.
“Truth from Trenton” would have to tell the municipal bodies the acid truth: “We took your money, but didn’t like the color of the paper the application was on, so we denied your permit.”
If words like that had to emanate from legislators’ mouths, think how different things might become, or how much less costly.
Public funds would never be charged by a state agency to do the people’s work.
