 During the Legislatures Special Session for Property Tax Reform, Committee Members will hear the cries of many special interests. Their decisions will profoundly affect municipal government in our Garden State. The wrong decisions, or an over-emphasis on the wrong issues, could create new problems that might take decades to solve. The decision to do nothing about some aspect of the property tax crisis will serve to perpetuate the status quo.
Officials at the local level have been dealing with the property tax crisis on a daily basis for many years. Our fellow citizens rely on us to deliver vital, life enhancing and life sustaining
services. Yet our only reliable revenue source is the property tax. We have known that we have needed reform for a long time. And we have appealed for action, time and time again, to a long series of state Administrations and Legislatures.
In the past, all three branches of state government have contributed to the crisis. If the Special Session recognizes that, progress is possible. But if, by the end of the year, real and sustainable reforms still elude us, we hope the Legislature will turn the problem over to the people who pay the bills—to a Citizens Convention for Property Tax Reform.
We sincerely hope that this Special Session will make a Citizens Convention unnecessary by delivering property tax relief and reform. But that will only happen if Legislators are willing to stand up to many special interests and to focus, instead, on the real human impact of our over-reliance on such a regressive source of revenue.
No matter where you think money is needed or money is wasted; no matter how much money you believe is needed, the simple fact of the matter is that there has to be a fairer way of raising it. Let’s hope the Legislature brings this kind of fairness to the property taxpayers of our state
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE |
FROM
407 WEST
STATE STREET
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It's a Question of Fairness
During the Legislatures Special Session for Property Tax Reform, Committee Members will hear the cries of many special interests. Their decisions will profoundly affect municipal government in our Garden State. The wrong decisions, or an over-emphasis on the wrong issues, could create new problems that might take decades to solve. The decision to do nothing about some aspect of the property tax crisis will serve to perpetuate the status quo.
Officials at the local level have been dealing with the property tax crisis on a daily basis for many years. Our fellow citizens rely on us to deliver vital, life enhancing and life sustaining
services. Yet our only reliable revenue source is the property tax. We have known that we have needed reform for a long time. And we have appealed for action, time and time again, to a long series of state Administrations and Legislatures.
In the past, all three branches of state government have contributed to the crisis. If the Special Session recognizes that, progress is possible. But if, by the end of the year, real and sustainable reforms still elude us, we hope the Legislature will turn the problem over to the people who pay the bills—to a Citizens Convention for Property Tax Reform.
We sincerely hope that this Special Session will make a Citizens Convention unnecessary by delivering property tax relief and reform. But that will only happen if Legislators are willing to stand up to many special interests and to focus, instead, on the real human impact of our over-reliance on such a regressive source of revenue.
No matter where you think money is needed or money is wasted; no matter how much money you believe is needed, the simple fact of the matter is that there has to be a fairer way of raising it. Let’s hope the Legislature brings this kind of fairness to the property taxpayers of our state
Editorial from New Jersey
Municipalities, Volume 83, Number 7, October 2006 |
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