file photo by Boyd Loving
December 19,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The League, along with a coalition of local government groups have made clear to the Legislature the need to extend the cap on arbitration awards , The league called on local mayors , saying “We know that hundreds of municipalities have publicly called for the extension of the cap, but it is clear we must redouble our efforts to maintain this important protection for property taxpayers”. The law is set to expire in two weeks.
In an analysis of the cap released this fall found it saved taxpayers $530 million on police and firefighter salaries and more broadly found the duo of caps saved taxpayers $2.9 billion.
The expiration date coincides with the expiration of at least 100 public safety municipal contracts, according to the League of Municipalities, and proponents said they would expect unions to quickly file for interest arbitration.
“The conclusions the data supports are undeniable. The arbitration award cap and property tax cap are unseverable and essential policies if we are serious about keeping property tax increases at the historically low rates of the last few years. The data and the report confirm what the laws of mathematics dictated from the start, you can’t have an effective cap on property taxes without an identical cap on arbitration awards. We can’t tell local officials their revenues can only increase by two percent, but that the largest line item in their budgets must increase by three percent or eight percent or any amount higher than the tax cap. And it isn’t just police and firefighter salary costs that are effected, there is a ripple effect throughout all salary expenses.” , Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon.
The League of Municipalities says that Trenton needs to hear directly from you on the critical need for the common sense extension of the 2% cap on interest arbitration awards. In 32 calendar days the cap will expire along with over a 100 police and fire contracts. With this deadline looming, local officials’ voices must be heard in Trenton. If the cap is not extended it will be local leaders, not the special interest groups or State elected leaders, facing the dilemma of funding an unelected third party arbitrator’s award under the state mandated 2% levy cap.
In addition, to personally contacting your State representatives on the urgent need for the 2% cap on interest arbitration awards, please contact the following:
Senate President Sweeney at 856-251-9801 or SenSweeney@njleg.org
Senate Republic Leader Kean at 908-232-3673 or SenKean@njleg.org
Assembly Speaker Prieto at 201-770-1303 or AsmPrieto@njleg.org
Assembly Republican Leader Bramnick at 908-232-2073 or AsmBramnick@njleg.org
Assembly Speaker Elect Coughlin at 732-855-7441 or AsmCoughlin@njleg.org
Governor Christie at 609-292-6000
Governor-Elect Murphy (Transition office) 609- 292-4075
Call and tell them to consolidate services. One school supt. per several towns. one police chief , one fire chief and so on. Combine schools.
It will be forced on NJ anyway. and Rutgers has been recommending for years. Other states consolidate.
Hey try it. It just may work. They can always hire project manager . ?????? Hummm
I know the police would love that at two percent Exhausted. It would be nice if upper management stay under the two percent. Or how about everybody get the same percentage raise throughout the village. That would make sense wouldn’t it, but that’s the problem and it’s a big problem. As we see , The taxpayers.
Why would municipal taxes rise any more than 2? Inflation is running around 2% but has averaged closer to 1.8% since the 2009 recession. Property values are only back to 2006 levels based on actual sales data on the Village website, and based on Zillow estimates, are only seen rising 1.1% in 2018 from a median $697,500. Anecdotally, there have been many price changes lower and delistings on recent homes for sale in 07450. The only reason to raise taxes any more than 2% in bad labor contracts for municipal and public safety employees, which of course is what municipal taxpayers have been saddled with by the Village Council.