EDITORIAL:Will defeated school budgets push legislative action on tax reform?
With only one opportunity to express dissatisfaction with tax rates available, voters are choosing more and more often to vent in April elections, rather than in November balloting.
This may be one reason progress to reform New Jersey’s tax system which seems to enjoy the confidence of no one is moving so slowly. But moving it is.
We can understand why Trenton politicians are so loathe to make any changes that go beyond adjusting discounts, rebates or refunds.
Voters expect every politician to pledge not to raise taxes, raising the specter of Jim Florio if a firm and definitive "I will not raise taxes" promise isn’t made.
Such a promise could be described as, to paraphrase Mary Poppins, a "pie crust promise" easy to make and easy to break. But to live in the state we do and ignore the tax pressures on homeowners is to live in Ms. Poppins’ fairy-tale, 19th-century world.
This year, residents in many communities saw their property assessments catch up to current real estate values, adding thousands of dollars to their property tax bills.
On paper, such dramatic increases in values should be offset by a similar drop in tax rates, sort of a "rising tide lifting all boats" metaphor.
But that didn’t happen because our communities also face erosion of other revenue including state aid, due to the state’s current drop in tax revenues and other budget shortfalls.
These factors conspired to result in budgeting problems for both schools and municipalities.
So it’s not surprising to discover that of the 332 bills before the Assembly and state Senate addressing taxes, more than one third deal with property taxes. Most of them are of the sort mentioned above, but two bills stand out.
One seeks to convene a constitutional convention to examine the state’s tax system, while the other would convene a special "School Tax Policy Funding Commission."
Both bills are currently in committee review, the stage at which most legislation dies a slow and quiet death including previous versions of the bills. But we can’t help wonder if the committees are looking at them more closely after April 16.
Assembly bill 719, first introduced in 2000, would create a commission of experts and legislators to try to end the state’s inability to craft a school funding mechanism that withstands court review.
The bill notes that the state Supreme Court has three times declared school funding statutes unconstitutional, and urges the Legislature to take responsibility for finding a reasonable solution through such a commission, rather than "reacting to the decisions of the Supreme Court."
The second measure calling for a constitutional convention has been languishing in Statehouse halls for some time. It was written to have asked for voter approval for a convention in November 2001, with recommendations to be placed on ballots this fall.
Obviously, that didn’t happen and we are at least two years from action, if this bill ever emerges from it’s committee review.
A petition drive underway is seeking the same plan, but successfully petitioning enough voters in New Jersey to gain access to the ballots is a daunting task.
We encourage our local legislators to consider which proposal they favor and make a strong stand to help move tax reform forward. Voters have said in the only way they can that they want a more equitable tax system in the state.