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April 13, 2017
Trenton, NJ
League President Comments on Local Hopes for Next State Budget
Today, in Deptford, League of Municipalities’ President,
Mayor Albert Kelly of the City of Bridgeton, spoke before the Senate
Budget and Appropriations Committee. Mayor Kelly urged the legislators
responsible for spending decisions during the State’s next fiscal year,
beginning on July 1, to “focus on ways that you can help local
officials to better serve our property taxpayers.”
Mayor Kelly went on to list a number of specific matters where State action could help to contain property taxes, including:
- Restoration of $320 million ETR / CMPTRA funding, which
the State has been using since the recession hit, to balance State
spending;
- Protection for taxpayers in municipalities, where the
Urban Enterprise Zone program was allowed to expire at the end of last
year;
- Relief from a new mandate, requiring municipal public
defenders to represent certain indigent defendants in County criminal
courts; and
- An end to the diversion of the fees collected to
modernize New Jersey’s 911 emergency response system, and the
rededication of those resources to providing our citizens with the
State of the Art emergency communications system that they were
promised and that they have been paying for since 2004.
Mayor Kelly also urged the legislators to:
- Extend the interest arbitration cap (set to expire at
the end of the year), which limits the awards that an independent
arbitrator can impose on local taxpayers, when a town and a public
safety employees’ union reach an impasse in contract negotiations; and
- Resist efforts to use future local government health benefit savings to fund State government pension obligations.
Finally, on the matter of school funding, Mayor Kelly told
the committee, “We stand ready to assist that effort in any way that
we can. … As you work to improve school funding, we only ask that you
respect two principles: Fairness and Equity for our property taxpaying
residents and businesses. You know that property taxes are unfair and
inequitable. They are not based on the ability to pay and fall heaviest
on those living on fixed incomes. They drive investment and economic
development away from the Garden State. The solution to school funding
must not make the property tax burden any heavier. We hope it can make
it much lighter.”
Read the full text of Mayor Kelly’s testimony (PDF).
Contact: Email Michael Cerra, Assistant Executive Director or call him at 609-695-3481, ext. 120
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