The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
East Rutherford NJ, a Bergen County judge has ruled that American Dream Mall was fully open for business when it welcomed visitors in 2019, delivering a legal victory to Meadowlands municipalities seeking $13 million in unpaid payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT).
Continue reading American Dream Mall Ordered to Pay $13M in PILOT Fees to Meadowlands Towns
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Hackensack NJ, the City of Hackensack has seen a massive influx of development that has transformed the city’s downtown in recent years. The development has been made possible by Financial incentives.
Continue reading Financial Incentives Fuel Hackensack’s Transformation of it’s Downtown
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Governor Murphy signed into law legislation that will protect the non-profit status of hospitals while ensuring that they compensate their communities for municipal services.
Continue reading Governor Signs Law Setting Municipal Contributions for Non-Profit Hospitals
A pilot is one of those jobs kids around the world dream of having. Training to become a pilot you get to fly your own airplane all over the world, seeing amazing sights and meeting amazing people each and every day.
Continue reading Always Dreamed of Becoming a Pilot? Here’s What to Do
April 6,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood
Ridgewood NJ, Valley is a business first and foremost. They do not pay taxes, do minimal charity work and pay their execs millions.
As any time they can be acquired/sold to a large hospital system, making the execs even more money.
This expansion is an attempt to polish their brand, nice hospital in upscale setting. Who wouldn’t want to go there for elective surgery? They compete against hospitals in Bergen, Pasaic, Rockland, Westchester and Dutchess counties. The judge sais that he was looking out for the needs of the region not just the neighbors.
While the “common good” is often sighted as the reason for the Valley Expansion ,but in 2012 The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood did all they could to block HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley from opening .
It’s important for young East Side parents to understand how important this is. Your kids are little but this project will still be going on when they are in middle school. Think about that for a minute. Valley does NOT care about you our your kids. Their lawsuit against the Village claims that Ridgewood “acted capriciously” but putting the needs of Valley’s immediate neighbors (including Travell School and BF Middle School) above the needs of the region. Said a different way, any detriment to Valley’s immediate neighbors will be outweighed by their self proclaimed benefits to the broader region.
Valley is not your friend.
The state takeover of Atlantic City is only an Assembly vote away, with Governor Chris Christie saying that he will veto any version of the bill and its accompanying PILOT agreement for the city’s casinos that differ from the versions passed in the Senate. Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-28) has been the most vocal of the PILOT bill’s last-minute Senate amendment allowing casinos to opt out of the PILOT program if casino gaming expands into North Jersey. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
BY MARY DIDUCH AND LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Both Teaneck and Englewood are challenging the tax-exempt status of their local hospitals, joining a growing list of municipalities who want non-profit hospitals to pay property taxes.
The councils of the two municipalities voted to file tax appeals against Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Of 62 non-profit hospitals in the state, 17 others now face similar lawsuits.
BY MARY DIDUCH AND LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Teaneck’s township council voted Tuesday to file suit against Holy Name Medical Center’s exemption from local property taxes, as municipal governments around the state take aim at non-profit hospitals for potential tax revenues.
The council voted, 5-1, to authorize the action after two Holy Name executives spoke against the resolution.
“We can avoid all those legal expenses,” said Ryan Kennedy, the hospital’s chief financial officer, appealing to the council to work with the hospital to find a solution.
“It’s a silly route to go,” Michael Maron, the hospital’s president and CEO, said before the meeting. “We’ve had a reasonable relationship over the course of time. We should sit down and talk.” Once a tax appeal is filed, both sides have to hire lawyers and litigation takes years.
The town should wait and negotiate with the hospital, he said. “Worst case scenario, another year goes by,” he said. “Is that the end of the world?”
“We support the town, and we’re willing to consider supporting the town even more,” he said.
Emboldened by a recent state tax court decision, the council took action to “preserve its rights” to potential tax revenues as an Apr. 1 deadline for 2016 tax appeals looms.
Under the current tax rate, if Holy Name’s entire 20-acre property were to be taxed, the liability would be about $2 million. But Maron said the hospital already pays taxes on various smaller properties it owns. It provides free flu vaccines to borough employees, supplies to the ambulance corps, and funds to support special township initiatives, he said.
Guardian Asks for Assembly Support for PILOT Bill
Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian spoke at Monday’s meeting of the Assembly Budget Committee in Trenton to voice his opposition to the state takeover effort. The Assembly will be the determining factor now that the takeover package from Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) has cleared the Senate. Assembly Speaker Vince Prieto (D-32) has said that he objects to allowing the state broad powers in altering collective bargaining agreements and may not put the bill to a vote. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
BY MARY JO LAYTON AND LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Governor Christie is expected on Friday to call for legislation creating a two-year moratorium on efforts by municipalities to get property tax payments from non-profit hospitals – more than a dozen lawsuits have already been filed – as well as a blue-ribbon panel to study the issue.
BY MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
As more patients become insured by Medicaid, hospitals are providing less charity care, one of the major factors in an $89 million decrease in state subsidies that left some hospitals losing nearly half their funding.
Executives at hospitals throughout New Jersey were digesting the numbers released Thursday afternoon from the state Department of Health, which are based on documented care provided in the previous year.
There were dramatic increases and decreases.
Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus, the state’s largest hospital, is receiving $19.9 million, far less than the $36.6 million received last year, while Hackensack University Medical Center’s subsidy more than doubled to $16.5 million this year, according to state data.
“Since HackensackUMC serves as an important safety-net hospital for the state, an increase in funding will enable us to continue our mission to provide world-class healthcare to everyone in the communities we serve,’’ said Robert C. Garrett, president and chief executive officer of Hackensack University Health Network, the hospitals’ parent company.
A spokeswoman for Bergen Regional said, “We are still in the process of assessing the impact this information will have on the Medical Center.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-looks-to-cut-89m-in-hospital-subsidies-1.1518351
Talks are under way to avert a potentially protracted tax battle between non-profit hospitals and the communities that host them, said the prime sponsor of a bill that tried unsuccessfully last month to work out a solution.
Assemblyman John Burzichelli said Tuesday that talks are underway between the New Jersey Hospital Association and the New Jersey League of Municipalities with the aim of helping redraft legislation in the wake of a landmark Tax Court ruling that called into question the property tax exemption of non-profit hospitals.
He said there have been no talks thus far with the administration on the issue, nor does he expect any while Christie is pursuing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Christie vetoed the earlier bill in January at the end of the last legislative session.
Burzichelli, D-Gloucester, the chair of the Assembly’s appropriations committee, said he and three other co-sponsors recently resubmitted the bill, but added that the document likely will serve as a “place holder” until a revised bill can be worked out.
“Everybody’s regrouped coming out of the hectic last session,” Burzicelli said of the informal talks.
But he warned if no agreement can be reached, “it’ll be a field day for the tax attorneys.”
The bill stemmed from a state Tax Court decision last summer in which a judge invalidated the non-profit Morristown Medical Center’s property tax exemption. The hospital’s parent company agreed to pay $15.5 million to satisfy back taxes and interest plus make annual payment of about $1 million as tax on the for-profit component of its operations.
The Record Read more
My Bill Fair to Both Non-Profit Hospitals and Host Municipalities
As the last legislative session concluded, I diligently worked on enacting a piece of legislation that will benefit my constituents – and the greater Newark area – by providing additional economic support to municipalities, increased cost certainty to non-profit hospitals, as well as maintaining the existing property tax exemption. Eliana Pintor Marin, PolitickerNJ Read more
JANUARY 5, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY MATTHEW MCGRATH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Local officials reacted cautiously to a proposal to charge hospitals a “community service” fee intended to offset, in part, property tax revenue that municipalities lose out on because of the non-profit status of most medical centers.
The proposed bill, which has cleared the state Senate but has not been posted for a vote in the General Assembly, would require hospitals to pay the towns in which they are built $2.50 per bed each day. If the bill becomes law, the fees would infuse about $2.7 million a year into six North Jersey communities that host the medical centers.
Not-for-profits are exempt from paying property taxes for certain uses. The proposal has been endorsed by the New Jersey Hospital Association, which hopes the payments will head off potential lawsuits from towns, but it is opposed by the League of Municipalities, whose members generally think they deserve more from the hospitals than the proposed law would allow.
In landmark shift, hospitals agree to fees in lieu of property taxes
JANUARY 3, 2016, 10:59 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2016, 11:00 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
For more than a century, New Jersey’s non-profit hospitals have been exempt from paying property taxes, despite relying on their communities to maintain local roads and provide police and fire protection. Now the state’s largest hospital association says its members are willing to make payments to towns they reside in — but many municipalities want more.
In a historic change, the New Jersey Hospital Association recently declared its support for a proposal in the Legislature to require non-profit hospitals to make “community service contributions” to municipalities. The move came after a tax court decision this summer that Morristown Medical Center was not entitled to its property-tax exemption because its operations were little different from those of a for-profit company. That hospital has since agreed to pay $15.5 million over 10 years.
Concerned that Judge Vito Bianco’s decision would lead to tax battles involving many other hospitals, the hospital association endorsed a proposal by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney. The measure would assess non-profit hospitals a fixed daily contribution — not a tax — of $2.50 per bed, to be used for public safety expenses or to reduce property taxes.
The association estimated that the payments from all of the state’s s would total $21 million to $25 million, including about $2.7 million annually from the six non-profits in Bergen and Passaic counties, if the measure is enacted as written. They are Hackensack University Medical Center; The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood; St. Joseph’s Healthcare System’s two hospitals in Paterson and Wayne; Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Hospitals owned by for-profit companies — HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley in Westwood and St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic — already pay property taxes.