The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, a growing number of Ridgewood taxpayers are raising red flags about the proposed 2025 municipal budget and its advertised 3.14% tax increase—with some suggesting the real increase could be as high as 6.6%.
Continue reading Ridgewood Residents Raise Concerns Over Possible Hidden Tax Hike in 2025 Budget
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Ridgewood NJ, Democrat Congressman Josh Gottheimer’s recent remarks regarding Ridgewood Water and its efforts to address contamination have sparked a wave of criticism from local residents. While some applaud his coordination with local officials, others are calling out what they perceive as misleading statements and inaction on pressing community issues, particularly regarding veterans and environmental concerns.
file photo
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Ridgewood NJ, yet another slap in the face to Ridgewood taxpayers is currently being concocted by Mayor Paul Vagianos and his conniving crew.
photos by Boyd Loving
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Ridgewood NJ, at 6pm every Friday or Saturday night you can find parking anywhere in the Ridgewood CBD. There’s no shortage. There never was. The never-full garage loses at least $750,000 a year according to the village CFO.
Continue reading The Hudson Street Parking Garage in Ridgewood Loses $750,000 a year
photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, from the “Keep Our Vote” site ,voting on the school budget vote is an insurance policy against Ridgewood taxpayers being unnecessarily overcharged.
What will it take for the Council to take the plugs out of their ears and blinders off their eyes? Residents have been begging, pleading, showing how items can only bankrupt the town and make taxes even higher with no sign that the council has heard or read a word. If the library wants to grow (unnecessarily)it can self fund. Most of the tutors, self employed business people, and book readers are not even from Ridgewood. Self funding would include monies from these people and let the Ridgewood taxpayers alone from providing luxury items that everyone (including the library board–they just “want it” not “need it”) knows is not essential. If the board still feels it is necessary, start your fund drive and wait to see if you get one red cent to splurge on the library and take from libraries and towns who NEED the money just to survive. The council is all spend, spend, spend and who cares if Ridgewood has enough money to pay their new debts. And we thought the prior council was bad. The present one is composed of nice people with not one bit of economic knowledge in all their heads put together.
I am at the library weekly, I love reading real hold in my hands books. The library is a great place to learn, to meet, to expose oneself to new ideas. However, I would like to see a study done about who is actually using the Ridgewood library. I rarely see my neighbors or friends there. Instead I see tutors, I see NY license plates, I see cars with parking stickers from towns in southern bergen county. You see, we have the nicest library in bergen county, we have the only library in bergen county that is open on Sundays in the summer! Why oh Why do we the taxpayers of Ridgewood have to pay for an even better library when more than 50% of the patrons are from other towns? Other than bragging rights or simply because “it’s ridgewood”, there is no reason for the taxpayers of Ridgewood to foot the bill so that the rest of BCCLS can benefit.
I agree with the above. System has to be changed. No more using the last few years of highest earnings to determine pension payout – should be average of working years. No more pensions for part timers. If taxes are raised any more, anyone who is able to move will even if they wanted to stay. No more platinum health care unless the workers pay more for it if they choose. Don’t get me started on teachers … most believe they are a special class of worker and have the hardest jobs in the world. No, not an easy job but I am not seeing the dedication in the profession that I remember seeing in teachers I had as a child. I stand with our BOE and draw the line for providing benefits better than the private sector offers.
Just got an update from my financial advisor saying my wife and I need to save $366,000 for health care insurance in retirement because Medicare will only cover 51% of total costs after 65. Long-term care costs can run up to $1,680 A WEEK. And 45% of retirees are expected to pay more than 20% of their income on health care by 2040. Yet teachers, cops and firefighters just expect taxpayers to subsidize their “platinum” health benefits year after year, including those who take “special” early retirements as early as their 40s. It’s sickening, and we can’t afford to be paying for better health plan benefits for public sector workers than we get ourselves. Christie and the Ridgewoid BOE are fighting for taxpayers – we must support them against the lies and misinformation being spread by the REA and the full-time Union lawyers and lobbyists behind them from the NJEA. Support our students, support Ridgewood taxpayers, and support the BOE
file photo by Boyd Loving
Reader asks ,please don’t forget the ACA excise taxes from 2020~…. that’s another 40% on platinum level health benefits like those our teachers, police and fire currently enjoy. They either all need to be downgraded to bronze level health benefits or taxpayers will bear the brunt of the 40% tax on $25,000 family plans, i.e. an additional $10,000 a year per Village and BOE employee with a platinum family plan. Who pays for that?
Ridgewood NJ, On December 18, 2015, Congress passed and the President signed a two-year delay of the 40 percent excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans, also known as the “Cadillac Tax.” This delay was part of a year-end government funding package and changes the effective date from 2018 to 2020. While the tax was originally non-tax deductible, the December 2015 changes make it tax deductible for employers who pay it.
No regulations have been issued to date. In February and July 2015, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued notices covering a number of issues concerning the Cadillac Tax, and requested comments on the possible approaches that could ultimately be incorporated into proposed regulations.
| What it is/fee duration | Permanent, annual tax beginning in 2020 on high-cost employer-sponsored health coverage. |
| Purposes |
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| Amount |
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| Who calculates and pays |
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| How a group health plan’s cost is determined |
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| How the tax will be paid | Forms and instructions for paying the tax are not yet available. |
| Tax implications | Based on the December 2015 changes, Cadillac Tax payments will be deductible for federal tax purposes. |
| Applicable types of coverage |
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https://www.cigna.com/health-care-reform/cadillac-tax
$81,000 average salary for Ridgewood teacher. Glen Rock, Fairlawn, Wyckoff are around $72,000 average. A $102,000,000 budget for around 5,500 students is approx $18,000 per student. Ridgewood also ranks high for greater number of teachers making over $100,000. Easy commute, easy district, unlimited fundraising from parents to fund better technology, environment and resources, not to mention intelligent students served by private tutoring, parent involvement and less negative secondary factors. I love and respect our teachers and feel fortunate to have such a wonderful school district for my kids. But, I need either more information or stronger argument from teachers to be convinced they are getting a bad deal in these negotiations. Anyone?
These teachers need to understand the private sector reality – taxpayers cannot be subsidizing better benefits for teachers than they have themselves, it doesn’t work.
The village manager recently responded to a post on Facebook saying the previous design was 18 feet more than plan D. So plan A was encroaching 23 FEET, not 12 feet which we had assumed. 23 feet encroachment in plan A?? Was that a sincere starting point where we claim a ‘compromise’.
23 feet is 23 feet , however you measure it . The point is the only way anyone found out this dimension was when another option became more attractive then a previous one. Why do the taxpayers, who are going to guarantee this bond, have to go through hoops to find out this basic information?
file photo by Boyd Loving
January 7,2014
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Ridgewood Nj, Residents continue to voice concerns about Gwen Hauck’s serious conflict of interest with Valley Hospital . Many were entirely shocked with last nights discovery the Gwen was representing Ridgewood tax payers in negotiations over the Valley law suit. Its seems common sense would dictate be it legal or not that a life long donor to Valley Hospital as well as her significant involvement with Valley hospital operations since she was a candy striper would make her participation null and void .
At last nights meeting Anne Loving raised concerns about Gwenn Hauck serving on the mediation team in the Valley suit against the village , ” Under any scenario, she should have recused herself. She has stated often that she is in complete support of the entire expansion project. How can she be objective and serve the village properly?”
Gwen was challenged as to whether she was on the current donor list for Valley of not ,readers questioned , What I’d like to know though is why Ms. Hauck would have failed to contact The Valley to advise them of the error if she’s known about it for some time.Hold the phone.who’s lying Valley or Gwenn. How can Valley falsify donor lists?
Councilwomen Hauck vehemently denied that she and her husband had made any donations to Valley since she has been on the council , while Valley had her on the donor list .” The only reason I can think of that The Valley would want to falsify a donor list – to make it seem that everyone important was giving and that we should too.” , speculated a reader.
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organization.The presence of a conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety. Therefore, a conflict of interest can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs. A widely used definition is: “A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest.”[1] Primary interest refers to the principal goals of the profession or activity, such as the protection of clients, the health of patients, the integrity of research, and the duties of public office. Secondary interest includes not only financial gain but also such motives as the desire for professional advancement and the wish to do favours for family and friends, but conflict of interest rules usually focus on financial relationships because they are relatively more objective, fungible, and quantifiable. The secondary interests are not treated as wrong in themselves, but become objectionable when they are believed to have greater weight than the primary interests. The conflict in a conflict of interest exists whether or not a particular individual is actually influenced by the secondary interest. It exists if the circumstances are reasonably believed (on the basis of past experience and objective evidence) to create a risk that decisions may be unduly influenced by secondary interests. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest )
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Readers say Record Article Paints and Inaccurate Picture of Hudson Parking Garage Meeting
1. one sentence about public comment at the very end of the article, when the public spoke for hours.
2. indicates that most favor plan A, when many public members spoke about related issues and not about which plan they favor. No discussion of related concerns.
3. completely omitted that Mayor Aronsohn intends to disregard the STATE law and do an end-run around the requirement that FOUR council members must vote for a bond. In the event that two decide not to vote for the bond, Aronsohn will go directly to the county to get them to issue the bond. He has already met with them and already has this in place with them just waiting for his call. This is despicable. Gwenn and Albert are going right along with this. Even though it is LEGAL to do this, it is completely disrespectful to our local government and flies in the face of the spirit of good governance.
Local Bond Law N.J.S.A. 40A:2-1 et seq. November, 2009 Page 1 Local Bond Law N.J.S.A. 40A:2
A bond ordinance shall be finally adopted by the recorded affirmative votes of at least 2/3 of the full membership of the governing body. In a local unit in which the approval of any officer is required to make an ordinance or resolution effective, such bond ordinance shall be so approved, or passed over veto before it shall be published after final adoption.
This law, above, is a state law and requires 2/3 majority to issue a bond. Three out of five is only a 60% majority. Here goes out elected officials all set up to break the law.
The public comments were certainly not “binary”, and the council’s opinion wasn’t really the focus of the time.
Would Ridgewood be “legally on the hook” for any bond the county issued? I agree that seems like a major end-run around the law!
The actual council session is available here online: https://www.ustream.tv/channel/village-of-ridgewood-public-access
