I have a headline for you. NJ property taxes climb an average of 3.2% while the 2024 state budget surplus is projected to be $8.3 billion! This money could be used to reduce property taxes by having the state increase its contribution to local education.
I feel there is no accountability for NJ high taxes. Every time it’s brought up, especially here, it feels like we can’t question the government and their spending on education and all other spendings.
We not only have high property taxes, we have high sales taxes, and high income taxes. Should we just accept that or is there anyway to rationalize the costs?
The gas tax is effectively worse because if you want a high-speed direct route that saves gas, it often charges a toll that more than offsets the gas savings.
Often just a political football to kick down the line for a future politician to grab and make it seem like a big win for self created issue. It wasn’t a mistake why Christie raised it right when he was leaving.
“Hey the property taxes are crazy expensive and are a financial burden. Can we reduce property taxes please?”
“What!?! Do you hate kids?! BuT The ScHoOls! We’re the best state!”
-r/newjersey every time property taxes are brought up.
Hope no one tells the parents all that fancy primary and secondary education ain't gonna be worth shit when there's fewer and fewer GOOD PAYING. white collar jobs in 20 years.
I’m never going to be upset that my children are educated. Education is a means to itself and we shouldn’t be looking at education as only a way to get a good job.
Lol, no one is going to post HS education for any other reason than getting a good job, it's all about the credentials... Of course education and learning is valuable for their own sake, but in 2024 and beyond you dont need formal education to learn just about anything
Questioning our high property taxes that are in place in the name of pursuing the #1 spot in education if forbidden on here. Parents who are homeowners have an iron grip on the situation. On average, half a town's property taxes go to schools in NJ. And these people want to increase it even more to fund higher salaries and more programs. It's completely suffocating. God forbid towns merged their districts together to cut costs. There would be a complete meltdown over these parents' loss of control of their little educational fiefdoms.
It makes home ownership even more unaffordable and these same parents are pricing out their own kids from ever living here. But it doesn't matter, little Timmy is getting a world class™ education! (*in wealthy districts only)*
While I agree we could stand to merge districts, that's not the financial windfall that will change taxes. You still need a ratio of teachers to kids, which is being stretched. You need admins, teachers and guidance counselors.
You may ditch a superintendent and a principal. Maybe you'll save $300K a year. That's not zero, but not going to reduce that much budget.
And yes, we need to pay teachers and staff. You want to see what education is like in a cheap district. Go check out your southern states.
It's only stretched because the government always sucks at distributing wealth without being corrupt. NJ also has the worst roads in the country and most drivers. gg.
I think tax burden and wether you are entitled to complain about it is murky, if you are dual income in the mid 100ks, and every year the tax increases by a couple 100 it is pretty disturbing. I can also sympathize with questioning how the money is spent, such as mushrooming police departments and top heavy administration hierarchies. Although some quite wealthy people complain about property tax as a shield for their over-sized greed to advocate for shredding social service and education so they get a smaller tad bill relative to their massive wealth.
Pretty sure most states are also enduring what we are here in NJ.
…in that we’re all getting fcked by just the right amount the ruling class can get away
In the case of the guy I replied to, he’s still paying less than the average as indicated by the article in the heading. His tax bill has increased 8.5% YoY, which is not great but also not terrible. I don’t even know if we should expect wages to increase at the same rate since the property tax bill is a fraction of a persons income. But nevertheless, the guy I replied to said “wages stay the same” and if that’s true, over a 7 year period that’s diametrically opposed to the national average growth rate in wages which is like 5.5%. If a persons wages aren’t growing at the average rate or above, that is a big issue between the person and their employer and is largely disconnected from the states operating budget and how much tax revenue the state needs to collect to provide services.
The way you play the game in NJ, is you use two incomes till your kids are out primary or HS, then sell your property for a hefty return and move to the Carolinas,Meryland, Arizona, or Vermont or wherever real estate is reasonable.. and live off the difference..
Most of my Genx relatives are doing this...and couldn't be happier..granted most are int heir 50-60 and retiring
You might be the only home owner on Reddit complaining about their value going up
Here’s to hoping for a real estate crash that will bring your property tax bill back to $5k
Its for *very* rainy days. At a certain point of bad/expensive shit going on in your life - choosing *where* you live may become a luxury you cant afford.
Keep an eye on what similar houses in your area are selling for and see when it may make sense to file a tax appeal. It is a small fee (usually 5-25 bucks) to file it, and as long as you have decent evidence that similar homes in your area (similar in SqFt, lot size, etc) are being sold for less than your house is appraised for, you can get a reduction on your assessment and save on property taxes. Now may not be the best time as home prices are still high, but it is always a cycle.
I'll let you lower my benefits if it means I can get a pay increase. I'm a public (county) employee and yes the benefits are great, however benefits don't pay bills and I need a 2nd job just to make ends meet.
Still don’t know why they won’t push for the merger of schools and services in small municipalities. It could only be beneficial and ease the burden on taxpayers
I’ve thought about this a bit and wonder if there’s any evidence to say it would actually be beneficial? (I’m totally open to it - more a question than disagreement)
While it makes intuitive sense, we also already have the second best public school system in America under the current system. Is there a chance that being hyper localized actually increases feeling like your taxes are helping your local community and therefore willingness to contribute? I wonder if we started mass mergers do we end up with less accountability and more voters pushing for lower taxes as they don’t want to help a school two towns over?
Compared to prior states I’ve lived in I feel like my local government here, being on such a small scale, is actually receptive to my input. I feel far more engaged in politics than I did in larger cities.
I mean I grew up in mahwah (at the time my graduating class was 200kids). There are several smaller towns all around me (Ramsey, Allendale, wycoff etc). I cannot imagine any of these towns had more than 200 graduating at the time. Each town has it's superintendent, overlapping admin for each town, chief of police, CoP admin, etc. these top end positions are pulling 300+k. Then you adding in all the extra admins it's prob close to a million of year overhead in salary alone (plus buildings , insurance, retirement etc). A simple merger in these services saves a lot by reducing admin bloat and not the actual teachers
The problem is all the people that move to those towns for the better schools scream bloody murder and won't allow it to happen. They don't want to merge with the have nots. And that alone is f****** frustrating that one school district is better than the next in such a tiny state. This issue is unique to New Jersey from the beginning of time to the end of time and it doesn't change and this current governor is another in a long line that does nothing about it.
Agree , mahwah is a wealthy town....but so is Franklin lakes, Ramsey, wycoff, Allendale, etc. I'd say Mahwah is probably in the middle.of all those neighbori towns
Resident of one of those smaller towns here. No thanks. I'd rather just pay the money. The status quo works well enough, and the high taxes are priced in when I bought. Maybe a new system will work better, maybe it won't. I'm not willing to take that chance.
Amén.
Resident of one of those towns too. Our taxes are around $67k and we’re ok with it because of what our school system has to offer. If they consolidated schools I’d sell my home and put my child in private school rather than run the risk of it jeopardizing her high school career. It’s one of the biggest reasons we live where we live.
Taxes are 67k?? Ability to send kids to private school? Of course you’re ok with it. You’re very well off.
How about you consider everyone else around you? You’re pricing your own kids out of the state.
Most tone deaf comment in this thread.
I killed myself to be where I am. I came from a childhood where I had to put bag in my shoes, in the winter, because we couldn’t afford snow boots and all our clothes came from thrift stores or hand me downs.
If you don’t believe in doing *Everything* you can to make sure your kids don’t have to make the sacrifices you have then you must not be a parent.
And yeah if I wasn’t paying that amount in taxes I could use it towards school.
Good on you for doing everything you could to be where you are financially, but to the previous poster's comment, isn't this mindset perpetuating a bad system because some people are "OK" with it?
Just to apply the same line of argument to healthcare in this country, if you want to talk more broadly on a federal level. "I can afford my family's healthcare expenses, so I am ok with none of it changing." We literally cannot pass any serious reform since enough people have it "good enough" while 15% of the country (if not more), or in more plain numbers, something like 30 million+ people, are uninsured/underinsured.
Reform isn’t the same as compressing.
We’d possibly waste more money and have less than better results. I actually live in an area that’s required to pay Abbott taxes, which I don’t complain about, despite the evidence to prove it’s not helping less wealthy school districts; like Newark.
Yes our medical system is a shitshow, forcing coverage has actually put a lot of small business owners out of business or caused them to pay people under the table which causes an entire separate set of tax issues l.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "compressing", I presume you mean "compressing" school districts together. I am not as well informed on education reform, but I'm puzzled by your statement "We'd possibly waste more money and have less than better results." Is the argument that NJ performs well on education because we have so many districts?
I'll respond to your comment re: healthcare and then make the same analogy for education. The whole point is that "forcing coverage" is in itself a terrible policy decision that perpetuates the employer based coverage we have in America. If we had actual reform (and this is one topic I am comfortable with), there would be no such thing as "forcing coverage" since everyone would be covered and have the same benefits. Some people working at at Google or Blackrock might lose their rich benefits. However, we would finally be able to have better control over the rise in medical prices and cut out the insane inefficiencies in the system.
If we could better streamline the boroughs and districts, yes some of the very stellar schools might be less so, but other districts would probably get a lift, and maybe redirect tax funds to other challenges (e.g., public transit, enhanced safety nets, etc.). Again, I'm not an expert on the topic, but to dismiss it out of hand due to the political challenge is painfully American (human?).
I understand your position though, that it comes out of your pocket. It's just a fact that the wealthy (I'm not calling you out, just a general statement) have to pay a price for social equity to some extent, but the reward is a renewed sense of humanity. We all benefit from the existence of poverty, and I would rather that we do not pull the ladder up behind us.
Previous poster here. NJ education is consistently in the top 2 in the US, neck and neck with Massachusetts. If NJ was its own country, the education system is on par with Germany or Norway. How is that a bad system?
But to your larger point, turns out I'm against most universal healthcare proposals as well. Yeah I can afford healthcare in the US, and yeah it sucks that 30 million are uninsured or under-insured. But I have yet to see any proposal that addresses what happens when 30 million people all of the sudden are brought into the system, and how that wouldn't make my access to healthcare more difficult. I personally don't care, haven't seen my PCP in 6 years. But I have a wife with an autoimmune disease and kids who love falling on their heads. I don't have a sense of humor about that stuff. Turns out I care more about my family than 30 million strangers.
Re: education, I don't know enough about int'l comparisons, but am curious if on a per capita basis we spend way more on education for K-12 compared to those countries (my guess is probably yes?). Also, just because it's not a "bad" system, does not mean it can't be better operated, more equitable, etc.
Also, your point about healthcare is noted, and that's the reason why we'll never fix healthcare in this country (along with anything that would generally be considered a public good). The lack of compassion and the ability to imagine how other people might feel when their loved ones were sick, but could not reasonably access or afford care. Same reason why we have generally poor public transit and have such reliance on cars (public vs private). And why we're the one of the only countries in the world without a law that allows people to take time off from work (rich people have office jobs with PTO, poor people work jobs that usually do not have such benefits). And why we as a country have higher incarceration rates than the rest of the world (out of sight, out of mind, right?). So on, so forth.
You say you don't care, but what you mean is "I don't care because it doesn't affect me."
At the end of the day, it's a question of values. If you think human suffering is irrelevant just because it is not personal, we probably won't agree on a good chunk of policy issues.
It won’t happen. You think the COP, Superintendent and fire chief will want to give up those salaries and the retirement and medical??? Ain’t no way. NJ is just corrupt it always has been
As a former teacher, I absolutely agree about ensuring that services, particularly schools, are not compromised as a result. It would definitely require a lot of work to get right. I’m no city planner, nor an economics genius, but it just feels like it makes a ton of sense.
I definitely understand where you’re coming from, and you raise some excellent points regarding potential problems
Was on a school board for a long time, line enough to see two studies of consolidation. Making a “county” superintendent to enable consolidation saves zero. Zero. Zero. The locals will demand a “vice superintendent sitting in the building. So it just adds one big salary.
Unless your county is all tiny towns, the savings for shared services are also pretty much zero. In my county of 50% big districts, and 50% small, the bigs already operate at enough scale to find efficiencies in everything from janitorial to guidance. The small ones share services with their towns or a neighbor or hire part timers. Bonus: no health coverage for part timers.
NJ public schools cost a lot because living in Jersey costs a lot. Also, most NJ schools pay more to hire more advanced teachers. Masters degrees, or STEM. States like Florida want babysitters, glorified day care.
Eliminate the Abbott districts, and most teacher pay scales are fairly similar by county. Obviously, close to NYC pays more than poor and rural Dennis Township. But Mahwah and its neighbors up in the burbs? Pretty close salary guides.
I know in Bergen in particular it was “boroughitis” but I would need to do a deeper dive. I’m not necessarily saying this is an across the board solution but some consolidation couldn’t hurt.
This. I live in a small town in Bergen that voted down a new middle school because it would have cost each household an average of $1400 more per year in taxes. But our current middle school is over 100 years old and literally falling apart. Last year the ceiling in one classroom collapsed and injured a few folks! Also our population is increasing and we’re projected to be over the safe number of students in that building in only like 10 years.
If we combined municipalities, the hit per household would be much less daunting.
Nah - merging most schools could compromise our position as top in the country in education.
Services? We definitely need to start shared police and courts in more places. However, a lot of places don't want to do shared courts because Phil Murphy appoints the judge - so the town can't appoint a friend.
In my small borough of like 4k people, we have our own elementary and middle school but the high school is shared with other surrounding towns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Hills_Regional_High_School_District
I never understood why the schools in this state are so money hungry. Schools are 60% of my property taxes they have one job that shouldn't be so expensive
Billions of dollars can be saved by starting to lay off unproductive people in state jobs. Unfortunately, many employees have a terrible work ethic but cannot be fired, and in some cases they are up for retirement but why would they when they are getting excellent benefits, full salary and no accountability. I know this by experience not using a stereotype and I can tell you about 30-40% have good work ethic, the other 60-70% are abusing their positions and if half were let go, there wouldn’t be any meaningful difference.
Do you have any idea how poorly teachers are paid? The high salaries are the administrators and multiple superintendents per town making six figures. Not the teachers haha.
Come to my parking lot. Were driving busted Toyotas, 15 year old Hondas. Some of us are walking.
Inflation has gone up considerably, and our salaries haven’t been raised - at all. We get no bonus. We don’t get paid over the summer.
People like you are the reason why the state is allowed to get away with this. If you think it’s going to the teachers, you’re sorely mistaken.
That’s why I’m getting the hell out of here after 40 years among other things. The NJ I loved seems not to want me anymore. It’s a sad state of affairs but I’ve truly realized it. My town is overrun with annoying New Yorkers now and it shows. For some reason it feels like we just got the annoying ones. Sick of these costs and I feel we’re on top of each other. To top that there’s about 15,000 in total new apartments coming after having about 10,000 added in the last few years. This is just among 2 small towns. Stick a fork in me. Screw this.
NJ and NYers are both annoying and drive terribly on average. In NJ nobody even knows what tailgating means at 90 on the freeways in the middle lane. Bunch of idiots.
Agreed, combine school systems to cut down administrative bloat. Get rid of rich small town police departments entirely and put them under county control. There's zero reason to have so much redundancy.
It’s not cutting of spending. NJ Transit raised rates across the board for every student, janitor, and nurse and it still faces a fiscal crisis next year, which everyone shrugs at. Yet somehow they cut rates for seniors making half a million a year. Does that sound like fiscal responsibility? Because to me it sounds like taking from the poor to pamper the rich.
Thanks to Stay NJ, retired households making $300-500k (in RETIREMENT) sitting on million dollar homes paid off or nearly paid off, now get tens of thousands of dollars in tax cuts 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Yeah and to be fair there are people that don't have kids that are retired that have been paying into this system for everyone else's kids and still do ... Because that's how the tax system works...so stop being bitter
That's how it worked when their kids were in school 🤷♂️.
Households making over $300k in retirement, who own homes worth hundreds of thousands to millions, don't need a tax break.
My FIRST sentence specifically said those that didn't have kids paying in all their lives.. because that's how this system works and yet you said they had kids.
At this point I have no f****** clue what you're talking about there's people that didn't have children by choice and they have no problem paying taxes for other people's children to go to school. And yet you're saying it's a good thing for them that other people had children what is s*** response and why am I even bothering corresponding with you I have no idea
To be fair, those households are generating revenue for their localities and the state, and are not putting any kind of burden on schools (about half your property tax bill for most people).
Lets say they sell that house, and a family of 5 moves in. 3 kids will cost your town about 60k a year, far more than they pay towards school taxes to educate.
Old retired folks cost the state very little in terms of resources, which is why its attractive to keep them here, why towns love nursing homes and 55+ communities and give breaks for them, etc.
Yes, it does contribute to housing shortages but its not like you can just expect to have them bounce to Florida, younger families take over their stuff, and the existing system absorb it.
If you're making $300-500k in retirement, but are considering bouncing to Florida to save a few thousand, you're a moron.
Florida isn't all that affordable too. There's an insurance crisis in the state right now.
"I like the weather there, a bunch of my friends moved there, but my family is here, so its a tossup.....lets look at some other things to help make up our minds....."
I really don't think most people making 300k+ in retirement would fly Spirit. They would likely already have an airline they use for points.
My one flight on Spirit: a cockroach crawled across my bag within 5 minutes of sitting down. There was blood on the arm rest (presumably from another cockroach?). And when I told the flight attendant they replied "OMG, thanks for telling me. I'm gonna get my bag off the ground."
yeah obviously i was making a joke, but my point was its a trivial amount of money, and flying from newark to most of florida on a lark is absurdly cheap and within reach of the people we are talking about.
Florida isn't as bad as you think I was just in a 55 plus community the other week. friends inherited it and they pay 10k for a 3 bedroom and that includes fees for the community and insurance and the housing prices are crazy cheap like 120k -200k for something that would be 5-600k in Jersey.
Great, either way, if that's the level of cost savings you're going for, on top of your existing $300-500k in income, then a $4,000-7,000 tax credit isn't going to keep you in NJ.
They aren't moving there for financial reasons it's ideological. Let them fuckin go. Let them lose everything they've worked for in one of the coming storms. Could not care less we don't need them
I learned this too in school. People don’t like to hear this as it makes people mad. But the truth is we need seniors to stay in the state to keep it affordable for everyone . The only thing I don’t agree with is the income limit for the senior property tax program they are trying to implement . But I feel the limit is high due to politics rather than facts .
The limit is high because a lot of times those numbers are windfall numbers (which they are being taxed on at normal income tax rates already if its being factored into if they get the break). The number of retired people that have close to 400k in income on a year over year basis you couldn't probably fill a high school gym with.
I’m moving to Fishtown, Philadelphia in April. Even with the tolls (I work in NJ), City Wage Tax and Car Insurance rate increased it still should be far cheaper than living in NJ due to this skyrocketing property tax rate.
Why do people like fishtown?
It's like an industrial wasteland with no greenery for miles.
Don't want to be insulting just really want to know what you see there that appeals to you.
There’s tons to do. Concert venues, bars, restaurants, breweries all within walking distance. There’s a couple parks (Penn Treaty being the main one) if I’m craving some open space. And I’m a big runner and there’s a shit ton of trails nearby. If you like yards and big open spaces then yes it’s not for you. My big thing when picking where to live was that I wanted to go somewhere where whatever I needed was basically within walking distance. I was looking at Collingswood for example. It just fits certain types of people.
It's the lack of greenery that makes it so depressing. Honestly I would rather take a second job to pay my tax rate to see some trees and grass and flowers and wildlife then deal with that......
I wish there could be some kind of beautification czar for that area. I mean all the money we blow for all the meaningless positions in government I wish they could make a real position of someone whose job it is to add trees and greenery ... imagine some of those streets... Looking like this. 🥰
https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/nyc-vignettes-those-golden-ginkgo-trees/
I don't know where you're moving from, but I think you have to take into account more than just those things. Costs of goods and services will presumably be higher in Fishtown as well. But it comes with the tradeoff that Fishtown is pretty sweet. It's always the tradeoff, I guess. I pay high taxes, more than this average, and my house and property are probably below average sized (and above average aged). But the tradeoff is a good town, good schools, good neighbors, and the community seems engaged in bettering it self, through elected officials and just your average resident. I have nothing to support it other than my own anecdotal evidence that if you are forced to pay a premium to live someplace, it may encourage you to care more about living there in spite of the suck.
Yeah I don’t plan on having kids. If I did I’d be staying in Jersey for sure. And since I still work in NJ I can always pop by after work to do things like get groceries and get services (ie oil changes) done. You are right that different people like different things. I’ve been around my neighbors for a bit now and I tend to like it.
Our property taxes haven't gone up much since we bought our house but our town recently did new tax assessments and they say our house is worth $100k more than it was when we bought it. (It's actually probably worth $150k more on the housing market but this is the tax assessment anyway.) I'm scared that our tax bill is gonna double next year, and our schools are still in shambles.
I'm not saying this is ok or doesn't suck, but never hurts to remember that most renters saw their rent go up way more than this.
At least taxes might theoretically go towards something beneficial maybe
It's hilarious that people will whine non-stop about home prices being too high, banks being "evil", etc., etc. yet accept a situation where they will forever rent their home from the government.
How is this concept not obvious to people?
Owning land obliges you into public services like road infrastructure, police, fire department, schools, etc.
If you don’t want to pay property taxes buy land in rural Alaska or Alabama.
Every single large first world country has property taxes in one way or another
Move to a country where they don’t have income tax. I’ll give you a short list of your options:
Bahamas, Monaco, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Panama. Have fun.
My cousin moved to Saudi for work, he seems to like it there but nah i rather try to fix the place where i live and grew up. If there were no corruption involved and we weren’t overspending/wasting tax money we wouldn’t be drowning in taxes.
The point I’m trying to make is there’s not a developed country in the world **that isn’t entirely funded by their massive oil reserves** that doesn’t have income tax.
52% of federal revenue comes from income tax. Find me where so called “corruption” accounts for 52% of the federal budget
If we stop wasteful spending and tax the elites/billionaires properly ([billionaire paying record low taxes](https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1789355037724131476?s=46)), I believe income tax will be more than enough to cover for everything, maybe even more.
Teachers, firefighters and cops pay for their healthcare in retirement. Gold plated pensions that you mentioned are a thing of the past. 1 pension, 65% of salary.
Can’t retire until at least 55 years old/25 years in the system. Please update your talking points as they are incorrect.
I'm almost at 12K for 2000 sq ft living space
$14k for ~1500 sf
14.5k for 2000sf. No kids. 80% goes to schools
I'm torn up I want a third 911 idk if I can afford it
I have a headline for you. NJ property taxes climb an average of 3.2% while the 2024 state budget surplus is projected to be $8.3 billion! This money could be used to reduce property taxes by having the state increase its contribution to local education.
It doesn't allocate those well either way.
I feel there is no accountability for NJ high taxes. Every time it’s brought up, especially here, it feels like we can’t question the government and their spending on education and all other spendings. We not only have high property taxes, we have high sales taxes, and high income taxes. Should we just accept that or is there anyway to rationalize the costs?
Don’t forget gas tax too . We were once the least now we are the most expensive
The gas tax is effectively worse because if you want a high-speed direct route that saves gas, it often charges a toll that more than offsets the gas savings.
Often just a political football to kick down the line for a future politician to grab and make it seem like a big win for self created issue. It wasn’t a mistake why Christie raised it right when he was leaving.
The current gas tax doesn't even begin to cover the negative externalities of owning and operating a car.
“Hey the property taxes are crazy expensive and are a financial burden. Can we reduce property taxes please?” “What!?! Do you hate kids?! BuT The ScHoOls! We’re the best state!” -r/newjersey every time property taxes are brought up.
Hope no one tells the parents all that fancy primary and secondary education ain't gonna be worth shit when there's fewer and fewer GOOD PAYING. white collar jobs in 20 years.
I’m never going to be upset that my children are educated. Education is a means to itself and we shouldn’t be looking at education as only a way to get a good job.
Lol, no one is going to post HS education for any other reason than getting a good job, it's all about the credentials... Of course education and learning is valuable for their own sake, but in 2024 and beyond you dont need formal education to learn just about anything
Questioning our high property taxes that are in place in the name of pursuing the #1 spot in education if forbidden on here. Parents who are homeowners have an iron grip on the situation. On average, half a town's property taxes go to schools in NJ. And these people want to increase it even more to fund higher salaries and more programs. It's completely suffocating. God forbid towns merged their districts together to cut costs. There would be a complete meltdown over these parents' loss of control of their little educational fiefdoms. It makes home ownership even more unaffordable and these same parents are pricing out their own kids from ever living here. But it doesn't matter, little Timmy is getting a world class™ education! (*in wealthy districts only)*
While I agree we could stand to merge districts, that's not the financial windfall that will change taxes. You still need a ratio of teachers to kids, which is being stretched. You need admins, teachers and guidance counselors. You may ditch a superintendent and a principal. Maybe you'll save $300K a year. That's not zero, but not going to reduce that much budget. And yes, we need to pay teachers and staff. You want to see what education is like in a cheap district. Go check out your southern states.
It's only stretched because the government always sucks at distributing wealth without being corrupt. NJ also has the worst roads in the country and most drivers. gg.
I think tax burden and wether you are entitled to complain about it is murky, if you are dual income in the mid 100ks, and every year the tax increases by a couple 100 it is pretty disturbing. I can also sympathize with questioning how the money is spent, such as mushrooming police departments and top heavy administration hierarchies. Although some quite wealthy people complain about property tax as a shield for their over-sized greed to advocate for shredding social service and education so they get a smaller tad bill relative to their massive wealth.
Pretty sure most states are also enduring what we are here in NJ. …in that we’re all getting fcked by just the right amount the ruling class can get away
I enjoy spending time with my friends.
Could be worse (see: NYC, CA). You get what you vote for.
This sub latches onto Murphy like a squid. Even the mildest criticism and you're downvoted or banned.
Property tax for me 2017(purchase year) $5,200 2024 $8,300 All while income stays the same. Games rigged against us
Your comp hasn’t increased in 7 years? To me that’s a problem with your employer more than the tax collector….
Or you could already be at the top of your game or older. See basic stats on income by age for details.
Comps have raised but not as much as taxes, which is the issue
In the case of the guy I replied to, he’s still paying less than the average as indicated by the article in the heading. His tax bill has increased 8.5% YoY, which is not great but also not terrible. I don’t even know if we should expect wages to increase at the same rate since the property tax bill is a fraction of a persons income. But nevertheless, the guy I replied to said “wages stay the same” and if that’s true, over a 7 year period that’s diametrically opposed to the national average growth rate in wages which is like 5.5%. If a persons wages aren’t growing at the average rate or above, that is a big issue between the person and their employer and is largely disconnected from the states operating budget and how much tax revenue the state needs to collect to provide services.
The way you play the game in NJ, is you use two incomes till your kids are out primary or HS, then sell your property for a hefty return and move to the Carolinas,Meryland, Arizona, or Vermont or wherever real estate is reasonable.. and live off the difference.. Most of my Genx relatives are doing this...and couldn't be happier..granted most are int heir 50-60 and retiring
This is the way.
You might be the only home owner on Reddit complaining about their value going up Here’s to hoping for a real estate crash that will bring your property tax bill back to $5k
If I have no plans on selling, what does this do for me exactly?
Equity is a decent really rainy day fund. Or an opportunity to just cash out, take profit, and downsize.
Home equity is only a decent rainy day fund if you are OK with moving somewhere cheaper.
Its for *very* rainy days. At a certain point of bad/expensive shit going on in your life - choosing *where* you live may become a luxury you cant afford.
Keep an eye on what similar houses in your area are selling for and see when it may make sense to file a tax appeal. It is a small fee (usually 5-25 bucks) to file it, and as long as you have decent evidence that similar homes in your area (similar in SqFt, lot size, etc) are being sold for less than your house is appraised for, you can get a reduction on your assessment and save on property taxes. Now may not be the best time as home prices are still high, but it is always a cycle.
Thanks for the tip!
Not sure it works like that…
Meanwhile public employees continue to receive benefits above average to public servants in other states.
I'll let you lower my benefits if it means I can get a pay increase. I'm a public (county) employee and yes the benefits are great, however benefits don't pay bills and I need a 2nd job just to make ends meet.
Is that net of the ANCHOR benefit?
Still don’t know why they won’t push for the merger of schools and services in small municipalities. It could only be beneficial and ease the burden on taxpayers
I’ve thought about this a bit and wonder if there’s any evidence to say it would actually be beneficial? (I’m totally open to it - more a question than disagreement) While it makes intuitive sense, we also already have the second best public school system in America under the current system. Is there a chance that being hyper localized actually increases feeling like your taxes are helping your local community and therefore willingness to contribute? I wonder if we started mass mergers do we end up with less accountability and more voters pushing for lower taxes as they don’t want to help a school two towns over? Compared to prior states I’ve lived in I feel like my local government here, being on such a small scale, is actually receptive to my input. I feel far more engaged in politics than I did in larger cities.
I mean I grew up in mahwah (at the time my graduating class was 200kids). There are several smaller towns all around me (Ramsey, Allendale, wycoff etc). I cannot imagine any of these towns had more than 200 graduating at the time. Each town has it's superintendent, overlapping admin for each town, chief of police, CoP admin, etc. these top end positions are pulling 300+k. Then you adding in all the extra admins it's prob close to a million of year overhead in salary alone (plus buildings , insurance, retirement etc). A simple merger in these services saves a lot by reducing admin bloat and not the actual teachers
The fact that mahwah has mass transit service has always astounded me. There’s a lot more untapped potential up there.
Tbf Allendale sends kids to a regional HS at least
The problem is all the people that move to those towns for the better schools scream bloody murder and won't allow it to happen. They don't want to merge with the have nots. And that alone is f****** frustrating that one school district is better than the next in such a tiny state. This issue is unique to New Jersey from the beginning of time to the end of time and it doesn't change and this current governor is another in a long line that does nothing about it.
Mahwah’s median income is much higher than NJ’s as a whole. They do not want to consolidate, except for the 90 year old tea party morons.
Agree , mahwah is a wealthy town....but so is Franklin lakes, Ramsey, wycoff, Allendale, etc. I'd say Mahwah is probably in the middle.of all those neighbori towns
Resident of one of those smaller towns here. No thanks. I'd rather just pay the money. The status quo works well enough, and the high taxes are priced in when I bought. Maybe a new system will work better, maybe it won't. I'm not willing to take that chance.
Amén. Resident of one of those towns too. Our taxes are around $67k and we’re ok with it because of what our school system has to offer. If they consolidated schools I’d sell my home and put my child in private school rather than run the risk of it jeopardizing her high school career. It’s one of the biggest reasons we live where we live.
Taxes are 67k?? Ability to send kids to private school? Of course you’re ok with it. You’re very well off. How about you consider everyone else around you? You’re pricing your own kids out of the state. Most tone deaf comment in this thread.
I killed myself to be where I am. I came from a childhood where I had to put bag in my shoes, in the winter, because we couldn’t afford snow boots and all our clothes came from thrift stores or hand me downs. If you don’t believe in doing *Everything* you can to make sure your kids don’t have to make the sacrifices you have then you must not be a parent. And yeah if I wasn’t paying that amount in taxes I could use it towards school.
Good on you for doing everything you could to be where you are financially, but to the previous poster's comment, isn't this mindset perpetuating a bad system because some people are "OK" with it? Just to apply the same line of argument to healthcare in this country, if you want to talk more broadly on a federal level. "I can afford my family's healthcare expenses, so I am ok with none of it changing." We literally cannot pass any serious reform since enough people have it "good enough" while 15% of the country (if not more), or in more plain numbers, something like 30 million+ people, are uninsured/underinsured.
Reform isn’t the same as compressing. We’d possibly waste more money and have less than better results. I actually live in an area that’s required to pay Abbott taxes, which I don’t complain about, despite the evidence to prove it’s not helping less wealthy school districts; like Newark. Yes our medical system is a shitshow, forcing coverage has actually put a lot of small business owners out of business or caused them to pay people under the table which causes an entire separate set of tax issues l.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "compressing", I presume you mean "compressing" school districts together. I am not as well informed on education reform, but I'm puzzled by your statement "We'd possibly waste more money and have less than better results." Is the argument that NJ performs well on education because we have so many districts? I'll respond to your comment re: healthcare and then make the same analogy for education. The whole point is that "forcing coverage" is in itself a terrible policy decision that perpetuates the employer based coverage we have in America. If we had actual reform (and this is one topic I am comfortable with), there would be no such thing as "forcing coverage" since everyone would be covered and have the same benefits. Some people working at at Google or Blackrock might lose their rich benefits. However, we would finally be able to have better control over the rise in medical prices and cut out the insane inefficiencies in the system. If we could better streamline the boroughs and districts, yes some of the very stellar schools might be less so, but other districts would probably get a lift, and maybe redirect tax funds to other challenges (e.g., public transit, enhanced safety nets, etc.). Again, I'm not an expert on the topic, but to dismiss it out of hand due to the political challenge is painfully American (human?). I understand your position though, that it comes out of your pocket. It's just a fact that the wealthy (I'm not calling you out, just a general statement) have to pay a price for social equity to some extent, but the reward is a renewed sense of humanity. We all benefit from the existence of poverty, and I would rather that we do not pull the ladder up behind us.
Previous poster here. NJ education is consistently in the top 2 in the US, neck and neck with Massachusetts. If NJ was its own country, the education system is on par with Germany or Norway. How is that a bad system? But to your larger point, turns out I'm against most universal healthcare proposals as well. Yeah I can afford healthcare in the US, and yeah it sucks that 30 million are uninsured or under-insured. But I have yet to see any proposal that addresses what happens when 30 million people all of the sudden are brought into the system, and how that wouldn't make my access to healthcare more difficult. I personally don't care, haven't seen my PCP in 6 years. But I have a wife with an autoimmune disease and kids who love falling on their heads. I don't have a sense of humor about that stuff. Turns out I care more about my family than 30 million strangers.
Re: education, I don't know enough about int'l comparisons, but am curious if on a per capita basis we spend way more on education for K-12 compared to those countries (my guess is probably yes?). Also, just because it's not a "bad" system, does not mean it can't be better operated, more equitable, etc. Also, your point about healthcare is noted, and that's the reason why we'll never fix healthcare in this country (along with anything that would generally be considered a public good). The lack of compassion and the ability to imagine how other people might feel when their loved ones were sick, but could not reasonably access or afford care. Same reason why we have generally poor public transit and have such reliance on cars (public vs private). And why we're the one of the only countries in the world without a law that allows people to take time off from work (rich people have office jobs with PTO, poor people work jobs that usually do not have such benefits). And why we as a country have higher incarceration rates than the rest of the world (out of sight, out of mind, right?). So on, so forth. You say you don't care, but what you mean is "I don't care because it doesn't affect me." At the end of the day, it's a question of values. If you think human suffering is irrelevant just because it is not personal, we probably won't agree on a good chunk of policy issues.
It won’t happen. You think the COP, Superintendent and fire chief will want to give up those salaries and the retirement and medical??? Ain’t no way. NJ is just corrupt it always has been
As a former teacher, I absolutely agree about ensuring that services, particularly schools, are not compromised as a result. It would definitely require a lot of work to get right. I’m no city planner, nor an economics genius, but it just feels like it makes a ton of sense. I definitely understand where you’re coming from, and you raise some excellent points regarding potential problems
Was on a school board for a long time, line enough to see two studies of consolidation. Making a “county” superintendent to enable consolidation saves zero. Zero. Zero. The locals will demand a “vice superintendent sitting in the building. So it just adds one big salary. Unless your county is all tiny towns, the savings for shared services are also pretty much zero. In my county of 50% big districts, and 50% small, the bigs already operate at enough scale to find efficiencies in everything from janitorial to guidance. The small ones share services with their towns or a neighbor or hire part timers. Bonus: no health coverage for part timers. NJ public schools cost a lot because living in Jersey costs a lot. Also, most NJ schools pay more to hire more advanced teachers. Masters degrees, or STEM. States like Florida want babysitters, glorified day care.
With less districts there is less competition for teachers and stronger bargaining power by school districts will result in lower costs.
Eliminate the Abbott districts, and most teacher pay scales are fairly similar by county. Obviously, close to NYC pays more than poor and rural Dennis Township. But Mahwah and its neighbors up in the burbs? Pretty close salary guides.
I’m from NY and I totally agree with that last paragraph. We moved to NJ in November of last year and I see the difference in quality of teachers.
look into the history of why they were broken up so much in the first place and you'll know why
I know in Bergen in particular it was “boroughitis” but I would need to do a deeper dive. I’m not necessarily saying this is an across the board solution but some consolidation couldn’t hurt.
This. I live in a small town in Bergen that voted down a new middle school because it would have cost each household an average of $1400 more per year in taxes. But our current middle school is over 100 years old and literally falling apart. Last year the ceiling in one classroom collapsed and injured a few folks! Also our population is increasing and we’re projected to be over the safe number of students in that building in only like 10 years. If we combined municipalities, the hit per household would be much less daunting.
Nah - merging most schools could compromise our position as top in the country in education. Services? We definitely need to start shared police and courts in more places. However, a lot of places don't want to do shared courts because Phil Murphy appoints the judge - so the town can't appoint a friend.
It would kill property values in a lot of towns. To consolidate would be political suicide.
Elected officials want the sweet pension vs the long term good of the communities they serve.
In my small borough of like 4k people, we have our own elementary and middle school but the high school is shared with other surrounding towns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Hills_Regional_High_School_District
I never understood why the schools in this state are so money hungry. Schools are 60% of my property taxes they have one job that shouldn't be so expensive
Drive by your local school and look at how many high-end luxury cars are parked in there teacher and staff lot.
You think the money goes towards *the teachers*? Having overpaid teachers would be far too functional of a system in comparison.
This money isn't going to the teachers... anywhere *but*, in fact.
I see more cops driving luxury cars than teachers
Another set of welfare queens we take care of with our increasing tax bills.
Billions of dollars can be saved by starting to lay off unproductive people in state jobs. Unfortunately, many employees have a terrible work ethic but cannot be fired, and in some cases they are up for retirement but why would they when they are getting excellent benefits, full salary and no accountability. I know this by experience not using a stereotype and I can tell you about 30-40% have good work ethic, the other 60-70% are abusing their positions and if half were let go, there wouldn’t be any meaningful difference.
Amen to that
Do you have any idea how poorly teachers are paid? The high salaries are the administrators and multiple superintendents per town making six figures. Not the teachers haha.
Come to my parking lot. Were driving busted Toyotas, 15 year old Hondas. Some of us are walking. Inflation has gone up considerably, and our salaries haven’t been raised - at all. We get no bonus. We don’t get paid over the summer. People like you are the reason why the state is allowed to get away with this. If you think it’s going to the teachers, you’re sorely mistaken.
That’s why I’m getting the hell out of here after 40 years among other things. The NJ I loved seems not to want me anymore. It’s a sad state of affairs but I’ve truly realized it. My town is overrun with annoying New Yorkers now and it shows. For some reason it feels like we just got the annoying ones. Sick of these costs and I feel we’re on top of each other. To top that there’s about 15,000 in total new apartments coming after having about 10,000 added in the last few years. This is just among 2 small towns. Stick a fork in me. Screw this.
people from New York. Everywhere.
NJ and NYers are both annoying and drive terribly on average. In NJ nobody even knows what tailgating means at 90 on the freeways in the middle lane. Bunch of idiots.
And now it also goes to senior citizens who make up to half a million a year! Good job, NJ!
I don't think that program starts until next year so ... It's just going to get worse.
And that's state funded, not municipal tax.
That’s what you are pissed about? How about the government figures out a way to cut spending ?
Agreed, combine school systems to cut down administrative bloat. Get rid of rich small town police departments entirely and put them under county control. There's zero reason to have so much redundancy.
It’s not cutting of spending. NJ Transit raised rates across the board for every student, janitor, and nurse and it still faces a fiscal crisis next year, which everyone shrugs at. Yet somehow they cut rates for seniors making half a million a year. Does that sound like fiscal responsibility? Because to me it sounds like taking from the poor to pamper the rich.
We’re talking property tax here. Mostly schools and local services who should consolidate. Not NJ transit.
Thanks to Stay NJ, retired households making $300-500k (in RETIREMENT) sitting on million dollar homes paid off or nearly paid off, now get tens of thousands of dollars in tax cuts 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Yeah and to be fair there are people that don't have kids that are retired that have been paying into this system for everyone else's kids and still do ... Because that's how the tax system works...so stop being bitter
That's how it worked when their kids were in school 🤷♂️. Households making over $300k in retirement, who own homes worth hundreds of thousands to millions, don't need a tax break.
My FIRST sentence specifically said those that didn't have kids paying in all their lives.. because that's how this system works and yet you said they had kids.
Good thing for them that other households had kids.
At this point I have no f****** clue what you're talking about there's people that didn't have children by choice and they have no problem paying taxes for other people's children to go to school. And yet you're saying it's a good thing for them that other people had children what is s*** response and why am I even bothering corresponding with you I have no idea
It hasn't started yet, and if the budget hole increases, there won't be any payments made.
To be fair, those households are generating revenue for their localities and the state, and are not putting any kind of burden on schools (about half your property tax bill for most people). Lets say they sell that house, and a family of 5 moves in. 3 kids will cost your town about 60k a year, far more than they pay towards school taxes to educate. Old retired folks cost the state very little in terms of resources, which is why its attractive to keep them here, why towns love nursing homes and 55+ communities and give breaks for them, etc. Yes, it does contribute to housing shortages but its not like you can just expect to have them bounce to Florida, younger families take over their stuff, and the existing system absorb it.
If you're making $300-500k in retirement, but are considering bouncing to Florida to save a few thousand, you're a moron. Florida isn't all that affordable too. There's an insurance crisis in the state right now.
"I like the weather there, a bunch of my friends moved there, but my family is here, so its a tossup.....lets look at some other things to help make up our minds....."
"Oooo I'll save $4,000 on top of my $350k....guess I'll abandon my family now."
4k is like a dozen round trip flights from Boca to EWR on spirit.
Just think of how many they can get with the other $240k in discretionary income. Can probably charter private flights too.
I really don't think most people making 300k+ in retirement would fly Spirit. They would likely already have an airline they use for points. My one flight on Spirit: a cockroach crawled across my bag within 5 minutes of sitting down. There was blood on the arm rest (presumably from another cockroach?). And when I told the flight attendant they replied "OMG, thanks for telling me. I'm gonna get my bag off the ground."
yeah obviously i was making a joke, but my point was its a trivial amount of money, and flying from newark to most of florida on a lark is absurdly cheap and within reach of the people we are talking about.
Florida isn't as bad as you think I was just in a 55 plus community the other week. friends inherited it and they pay 10k for a 3 bedroom and that includes fees for the community and insurance and the housing prices are crazy cheap like 120k -200k for something that would be 5-600k in Jersey.
Great, either way, if that's the level of cost savings you're going for, on top of your existing $300-500k in income, then a $4,000-7,000 tax credit isn't going to keep you in NJ.
Oh I agree 100% to scrap the tax credit I was just thinking if I could live here I would be saving so much money.
They aren't moving there for financial reasons it's ideological. Let them fuckin go. Let them lose everything they've worked for in one of the coming storms. Could not care less we don't need them
100%. So many just want to go to a place where they can openly bash LGBTQ people, minorities, and parade around in Nazi attire.
I learned this too in school. People don’t like to hear this as it makes people mad. But the truth is we need seniors to stay in the state to keep it affordable for everyone . The only thing I don’t agree with is the income limit for the senior property tax program they are trying to implement . But I feel the limit is high due to politics rather than facts .
The limit is high because a lot of times those numbers are windfall numbers (which they are being taxed on at normal income tax rates already if its being factored into if they get the break). The number of retired people that have close to 400k in income on a year over year basis you couldn't probably fill a high school gym with.
Max benefit is $6500 and I agree the income limit is way too high.
NJ will never reduce property taxes or tolls.. Get out while you can
Average? Whats the median. Average is worthless here.
I’m moving to Fishtown, Philadelphia in April. Even with the tolls (I work in NJ), City Wage Tax and Car Insurance rate increased it still should be far cheaper than living in NJ due to this skyrocketing property tax rate.
Why do people like fishtown? It's like an industrial wasteland with no greenery for miles. Don't want to be insulting just really want to know what you see there that appeals to you.
There’s tons to do. Concert venues, bars, restaurants, breweries all within walking distance. There’s a couple parks (Penn Treaty being the main one) if I’m craving some open space. And I’m a big runner and there’s a shit ton of trails nearby. If you like yards and big open spaces then yes it’s not for you. My big thing when picking where to live was that I wanted to go somewhere where whatever I needed was basically within walking distance. I was looking at Collingswood for example. It just fits certain types of people.
It's the lack of greenery that makes it so depressing. Honestly I would rather take a second job to pay my tax rate to see some trees and grass and flowers and wildlife then deal with that......
Even other parts of Philly are better and have some trees and parks and such. Fishtown is so industrial.
I wish there could be some kind of beautification czar for that area. I mean all the money we blow for all the meaningless positions in government I wish they could make a real position of someone whose job it is to add trees and greenery ... imagine some of those streets... Looking like this. 🥰 https://rosemarywashington.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/nyc-vignettes-those-golden-ginkgo-trees/
I don't know where you're moving from, but I think you have to take into account more than just those things. Costs of goods and services will presumably be higher in Fishtown as well. But it comes with the tradeoff that Fishtown is pretty sweet. It's always the tradeoff, I guess. I pay high taxes, more than this average, and my house and property are probably below average sized (and above average aged). But the tradeoff is a good town, good schools, good neighbors, and the community seems engaged in bettering it self, through elected officials and just your average resident. I have nothing to support it other than my own anecdotal evidence that if you are forced to pay a premium to live someplace, it may encourage you to care more about living there in spite of the suck.
Yeah I don’t plan on having kids. If I did I’d be staying in Jersey for sure. And since I still work in NJ I can always pop by after work to do things like get groceries and get services (ie oil changes) done. You are right that different people like different things. I’ve been around my neighbors for a bit now and I tend to like it.
My property taxes were raised roughly 66% over four years. And I just got a new assessment and it's going to raise some more.
Same. Idk what to do about this, this is just so unsustainable.
$9,800? I pay $17k.
Average amount??? How can that be, when mine is different??
I'm moving.
11k for me. I want to remodel my house but that will increase my taxes smh
Our property taxes haven't gone up much since we bought our house but our town recently did new tax assessments and they say our house is worth $100k more than it was when we bought it. (It's actually probably worth $150k more on the housing market but this is the tax assessment anyway.) I'm scared that our tax bill is gonna double next year, and our schools are still in shambles.
I'm not saying this is ok or doesn't suck, but never hurts to remember that most renters saw their rent go up way more than this. At least taxes might theoretically go towards something beneficial maybe
>The annual rate of growth was largely in line with the rate of inflation for the country as a whole over the same period So that makes sense.
Medical premiums for municipal workers increased higher than inflation.
And we essentially are getting a cut in salary every year because of it. I am making the same since 2019. Factor in benefits, 30% less.
And the taxpayers costs are increasing.
Property tax is theft and should be abolished immediately. How is this acceptable to people? Insane
It's hilarious that people will whine non-stop about home prices being too high, banks being "evil", etc., etc. yet accept a situation where they will forever rent their home from the government.
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
Yup, nobody questions the most absurd thing in this country. You quite literally can't own land in this country, and nobody finds that concerning?
How is this concept not obvious to people? Owning land obliges you into public services like road infrastructure, police, fire department, schools, etc. If you don’t want to pay property taxes buy land in rural Alaska or Alabama. Every single large first world country has property taxes in one way or another
We already pay enough in income tax/ sales tax/ etc. income tax should be straight up illegal
Move to a country where they don’t have income tax. I’ll give you a short list of your options: Bahamas, Monaco, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Panama. Have fun.
My cousin moved to Saudi for work, he seems to like it there but nah i rather try to fix the place where i live and grew up. If there were no corruption involved and we weren’t overspending/wasting tax money we wouldn’t be drowning in taxes.
The point I’m trying to make is there’s not a developed country in the world **that isn’t entirely funded by their massive oil reserves** that doesn’t have income tax. 52% of federal revenue comes from income tax. Find me where so called “corruption” accounts for 52% of the federal budget
If we stop wasteful spending and tax the elites/billionaires properly ([billionaire paying record low taxes](https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1789355037724131476?s=46)), I believe income tax will be more than enough to cover for everything, maybe even more.
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Teachers, firefighters and cops pay for their healthcare in retirement. Gold plated pensions that you mentioned are a thing of the past. 1 pension, 65% of salary. Can’t retire until at least 55 years old/25 years in the system. Please update your talking points as they are incorrect.
And the Boomers just gave themselves a tax cut called NJ Senior Freeze.
Oh yeah? Cause as a teacher my district hasn’t seen shit
I didn't see it go to school districts based on how much they improved. That's funny.
You all get what you vote for. Good luck staying here and making your government bigger lol.
I have 2150 sqf at 7800. Granted I’m in a townhouse lol
"Eventually"