New Jersey faces an immediate budget crisis at all levels of government and a long-term fiscal problem that can no longer be solved by gimmicks. The estimated state budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year is over $8 billion and there is an over $1 billion hole to plug in the current budget. While an improving economy will help, costs such as unfunded pension liabilities mean that our budget problems will be with us long after this recession has past.
As a result, responsible government cost cutting is the next big challenge facing New Jersey. And given the fact that over $6 out of every $10 tax dollars are spent at the local level, this is a problem that cannot be solved by Trenton alone. Enacting significant cost-saving measures at the local level and building a new culture of savings provides a constructive alternative to the skyrocketing property taxes and shrinking of essential services that will otherwise be the certain outcome of dramatic and continuing declines in state aid to municipalities and school districts.
That is why the Citizens’ Campaign has recently unveiled its first round of 10 ready for adoption cost-cutting proposals prepared for citizens to present to their hometown governments in a grass roots attack on rising property taxes. Taken together, these proposals offer the potential for major savings — over $1 million annually for most New Jersey municipalities. Among the proposals are: joining or forming a regional emergency dispatch service; eliminating benefits for part-time elected officials and professionals; sharing computer administration between the municipality and school board and the performance of energy audits for government buildings.
Also included is a salary sunshine online model law by which municipalities would place on their website the top five salaries for each department, their overtime costs and all labor contracts A report released by the State Commission on Investigation in late November documented wasteful personnel practices that exist in many municipalities. Salary sunshine online will give citizens the information they need to examine the practices in their own hometowns and to fight for changes if they are needed.
The Citizens’ Campaign’s Jersey Call to Service will empower residents to become citizen leaders and present the model costcutting proposal of their choice to their hometown governing bodies. The goal of the effort is not only to win adoption of these critical cost-saving measures, but to build a culture of savings where citizens and elected officials focus on constructive ways to address the property tax crisis and put frugality front and center. The Citizens’ Campaign used a similar strategy of winning the adoption of local pay-to-play government contract reforms, which not only save money locally but resulted in New Jersey adopting the strongest state-level governing contracting reforms in the country.
The menu was developed by the Citizens’ Campaign Law and Policy Task Force chaired by Gov. Tom Kean’s former Policy Chief Gary Stein and is based in part on successes identified by Citizens’ Campaign members that some municipalities are having in the area of cost-cutting. The menu will be expanded as additional cost-saving ideas are brought to the task force and made into ready for adoption models.
Citizens will also be encouraged to construct their own costcutting ideas on the Citizen Campaign’s Platform for the People, a web-based forum for the campaign’s empowered citizen leaders to formulate solutions to the property tax problem.
Avoidance of catastrophic property tax increases will require that citizens join with current local officials in the fight to develop and advance sensible cost-cutting solutions. Fortunately, there is no shortage of opportunities to cut waste. If we begin today, we can develop a new culture of savings and frugality that will keep property taxes in check and make essential services cost effective.
The future of our state depends on it.
All that is necessary is that we use our common sense and Jersey gumption and answer the Jersey call to service.
Harry Pozycki Citizens Campaign
Metuchen