Not so fast
Richard LoCascio, Chesterfield
Your cover story in last week’s edition (“Districts Receive Hike in State Aid”) would have readers believe happy days are here again. Not so fast. What the article neglects to point out is that the nominal increases in dollars flowing back to local communities in the proposed state budget fail to restore the huge amounts cut from the same towns in last year’s budget. As a result, suburban homeowners still holding their breath for property tax relief can expect to see an increase in their tax bills again this year, despite all the talk in Trenton about 2 percent property tax cap proposals, that have enough loopholes to resemble Swiss cheese.
The reason is simple. Property tax relief from Trenton to local communities is derived primarily through the state income tax. That income tax revenue has never been distributed fairly back to the taxpayers who are paying it. As a result, roughly 60 pecent of the income taxes Trenton collects get funneled to the state’s 31 urban-aid “Abbott” school districts, leaving the other 550 districts to fight over the remaining 40 percent. Looked at another way, the Abbott’s get three-fifths of the state aid, despite having roughly only one-fifth of the students.
As part of this problem, $600 million in preschool aid is included in the state budget. But don’t expect to see it in the communities served by this newspaper. It is reserved for those same Abbott districts, despite the fact the State Constitution only mandates public education for grades K-12, i.e.: students from ages 5-18. What this means is that parents who want to send their 4-year-old to the local elementary school’s pre-school program here in Chesterfield, will need to write out a check, separate and apart from their property taxes. Meanwhile, their income taxes are paying for the same type of program in Jersey City, for example, so those taxpayers don’t have to.
So, for all the bluster and fanfare in Trenton about how teachers, police and firemen are costing local taxpayers a small fortune, don’t be so quick to believe it. The problem continues to be the state’s unwillingness to reform a property tax relief system that has become nothing more than a welfare program for the few, paid for by suburban homeowners, many of whom are struggling to get by.
When this budget is presented to the Legislature in the coming months, I would urge our state representatives to carefully consider its impact on the towns they represent.

