Let me suggest that you do some reporting that exposes the ongoing myth that there are “rich” and “poor” districts upon which state aid is based. The characterization would be true if there were only rich or only poor people living in those districts.
The reality is there are an entire range of incomes represented in each. Individuals pay taxes by themselves. Their rich neighbor has nothing to do with that ability.
I live in Middletown where we receive state aid toward education in the mid to upper teens as a percent of the total budget. Middletown has one of the more efficient per pupil costs, nothing near the Abbotts or other high-spending districts. We receive so little aid because we have a lot of wealthy residents. But I have yet to receive anything from those well-off folk to help me pay my property taxes. Why is my ability to afford taxes based upon their wealth?
As you know, Middletown borders Keansburg, an Abbott district. They are a “poor” district. Across the street is my “rich” district of Middletown.
My suggestion is that you choose a street or block that acts as a border between the two towns. They will have similar sized and valued homes. The people who live in them will likely be in similar income brackets.
But because one lives in Middletown and the other in Keansburg, they are each imputed with a different ability to shoulder the cost of local education spending. Obviously, they do not have differing abilities. But the state designates each district’s ability to afford based on an average of the town’s aggregate income, regardless of the range of actual incomes. Just because Keansburg does not have a Navesink River Road or a Locust, it has a lower average income, a lower “wealth” factor.
You can see how this is unfair and totally misses the point. If the aid from Trenton was credited directly to individual taxpayers property tax obligation based on personal income then it might be fair. Of course, that would mean the property tax would then be a quasi income tax, an ability-to-pay based tax.
But this is not what exists. Just because one lives on the wrong side of the street, they are imputed with greater ability to pay than the guy they see out their front window. Ridiculous.
The above is why the context of the discussion about property taxes is so off-center and not based on the reality, the actual context. Fairness is the issue. No matter where one lives, they should be expected to contribute based on their own ability to pay, not an imputed ability simply because they have a rich neighbor.
It is forgotten that the burden of the property tax is individually borne and not supplemented for by one’s rich neighbor. [Which raises the concomitant issue of the short shrift and lack of attention the disproportionate share lower income and fixed income taxpayers bear based on total income].
John C. Hendrickson
Middletown
www.save-our-homes–
our-future.blogspot.com/