Every day, I wake up with a different song playing on an endless loop in my brain. Why my brain picks that day’s song has always been a mystery to me.
On days when the song of the day is something by Ry Cooder or Bruce Springsteen, I walk with an extra spring in my step. On days when it’s something silly, like Alan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” song, I smile all day:
“Our camp nurse is quite a swimmer, “She says swimming makes you slimmer. “Her name is Mrs. Pellagrini. “Have you ever seen a whale in a bikini?”
Come on, that’s funny, right?
On days when the song is something by the 1910 Fruit Gum Company, or the Ohio Express, or the Monkees, I watch the clock wishing the day would end so the music will leave me alone. You try going to a personnel meeting or a doctor’s appointment with “The Last Train to Clarksville” repeating endlessly in your brainpan, and you’ll know what I mean. I once suffered through three days of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” and thought it would finally drive me bull goose loony. It was there when I woke up, it was there when I ate lunch and it was there when I turned out the lights. But before I drifted off, I said my prayers and asked that they be answered with a whole truckload of Xanax.
For the last couple of days, the song has been Anne Murray’s “Little Good News,” the one where she bemoans all the bad news in the papers and on television and says, “We sure could use a little good news today.”
I don’t think I need to see a therapist to know where that is coming from, but maybe she’s right. Maybe we could all use a little good news today. So here’s some good news.
Unlike the federal government, where the best idea they can come up with to raise money is to increase the tax on tobacco products once again, and put one more tax on the nation’s highest earners (a two-pronged plan summed up by CNN’s Jack Cafferty in one word, “Morons!), it looks like many communities in New Jersey are finally getting the message.
In my home community of East Brunswick, for example, I’ve written a column every year for the last several years about burdensome tax increases, but next year’s budget calls for only a moderate increase on the municipal side — about $230 a year on the average home. And for the first time in my memory, there’ll be no increase at all in the school budget. On the municipal side, that is nothing short of extraordinary, considering the reduced income from the Golden Triangle redevelopment project and reduced state aid, but it is happening because local politicians are questioning every dime and doing the things that need to be done, like curtailing overtime and instituting a hiring freeze.
For weeks, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that because of the Golden Triangle situation, we should all think of moving because I expected municipal taxes to go up 43 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, or more. And I also expected another school tax increase. Turns out I was wrong, and that’s good news.
The same thing is happening in other Middlesex County communities. In Jamesburg, taxpayers are looking at a relatively modest increase for 2009, about $133 a year for the average home. In South River, where they had a 31.9-cent per $100 tax increase last year, taxpayers will have no increase at all in 2009.
They’re also anticipating a small tax decrease in the Middlesex County community of North Brunswick, and in neighboring South Brunswick, they’re looking at a modest increase because of personnel reductions and other cost-saving initiatives.
And it isn’t just Middlesex County communities, either. In many Monmouth County communities — where the freeholders set the tone for 2009 by passing what they called an “austere” budget with a 1.9 percent increase — they seem to be holding the line, or very close to it.
In Upper Freehold, according to a recent story in Greater Media Newspapers’ publication the Examiner, taxpayers are actually looking at a tax decrease over last year. I had to read the article twice to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Sure, they’ve had to make sacrifices to accomplish that — pay cuts, layoffs and the like — but when was the last time you heard of a community in New Jersey proposing a budget that was smaller than the year before?
I sure can’t remember it happening while I’ve lived in the state. So, that’s good news.
Taxpayers in Marlboro may also get a small break this year. In that community, taxpayers are looking at the first decrease in the school budget since 1995. Granted, it’s a teeny-weeny decrease, and due more to a jump in state aid than in reduced programs or staff, but a decrease is still a decrease.
In Tinton Falls, the municipal budget will remain flat in 2009; they’re tightening their belts in Red Bank at the municipal level, where there will likely be a modest increase in 2009, and there was a decrease in the school budget. In Middletown, they’re working on a municipal budget with no increase for 2009, and the Board of Education proposed a budget with a 2.6 percent increase (2.8 cents on $100 in valuation), the lowest increase in a decade.
Of course, not every community is sharing the joy. You folks in Millstone, for example, might not be too happy about the proposed school budget that would raise the tab by 11.1 cents per $100 in valuation. Then again, voters in that community voted down the fire budget in February, so maybe things will balance out, as long as no schools catch fire.
So it’s not good news everywhere, but as my granddaddy used to say, it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Still, you have to wonder why none of these communities could have tightened their belts in any other budget cycle over the last decade or longer.
I guess they just needed motivation. But now we know many of them can do it, and we ought to remember that when this miserable economy improves and they start telling us again why we need huge increases every year “for the children.”
Gregory Bean is the former executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].