The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
Why mandatory pension payment would be worst idea ever for N.J.
Through a ballot question in November, voters are expected to decide whether New Jersey’s constitution should require the state to make regular payments to its $80 billion public pension debt. Paul Brubaker, NJ.com Read more
FEBRUARY 8, 2016, 10:01 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2016, 6:33 AM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
When a junior at Fair Lawn High School with pro-Palestinian views was accused of bullying after celebrating that a pro-Israeli classmate had stopped following her on Twitter, many believed she was being silenced because of her opinions. Why else, they wondered, would the school want to investigate her?
While it may have been baffling to outsiders, the bullying probe was hardly a surprise in New Jersey, where insults and conflicts, even isolated ones, often result in formal inquiries. That’s because New Jersey’s anti-bullying law put tough requirements on schools to take swift action to report on accusations of bullying, intimidation and harassment.
When the law was signed in 2011 after the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, it was considered a landmark piece of legislation to protect students from harm and a model for the country. By nearly all accounts, the law has made schools safer. But critics say that it goes too far, pushing schools to investigate all or most allegations and sometimes hurting the very students it was designed to help.
A state anti-bullying task force has recommended changes to the state code that would give principals discretion in handling cases. It also said that there should be an investigation whenever a case involves a power imbalance, such as when one student is perceived to be weaker or less popular. The state has not taken action on those recommendations, although the state education commissioner is expected to discuss the task force’s findings at a Board of Education meeting Wednesday.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-anti-bullying-law-draws-fresh-scrutiny-1.1508225
file photo by Boyd loving
What the Top 5 States People Are Moving From Have in Common
Salim Furth / @salimfurth / January 06, 2016
Salim Furth, Ph.D., researches and explains how public policy affects economic growth as a research fellow in macroeconomics at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.Read his research.
Americans are moving to places with affordable costs of living and strong labor markets (or good retirement communities). The top destination states of 2015could hardly be more different geographically and culturally: Oregon and South Carolina. What they have in common is that both states are relatively affordable places to live.
The data on moving comes from United Van Lines, which ranks the states based on the proportion of interstate moves that were inbound or outbound.
In Oregon, 69 percent of moves were inbound. The state with the worst ratio was New Jersey, from which 67 percent of moves were outbound.
The top five outbound states of 2015 were:
New Jersey
New York
Illinois
Connecticut
Ohio
In metro Portland, Ore., the average owner-occupied home cost $305,402 in 2013, compared to $380,420 in Seattle or a budget-busting $730,156 in San Francisco. But even in Portland there is room for improvement: Easing regulation a bit could make the average house $39,000 more affordable.
In South Carolina, homes are even cheaper, with free-market competition keeping the price of a new home close to the actual construction cost.
Where urban and suburban land use regulation is modest, builders can meet demand with new supply. In places like San Francisco and Boston that lack that flexibility, people leave despite those cities’ high wages and dynamic economies.
Moving patterns show how important cost of living is to American families. With perfect weather and a booming, high-tech economy, California ought to be the #1 destination. Instead, more moving trucks are leaving the state than entering.
The top five inbound states of 2015 were:
Oregon
South Carolina
Vermont
Idaho
North Carolina
Policymakers can lower the cost of living by removing unnecessary regulations and licensure requirements, streamlining bureaucracy, and ending protections that have been granted to favored industries.
Eleven cities in New Jersey, and two counties, have a higher proportion of young children with dangerous lead levels than Flint, Mich., does, according to New Jersey and Michigan statistics cited by a community advocacy group. Ben Horowitz, NJ.comRead more
A Senate committee Thursday voted 5-0 to dissolve local and county ethics boards and turn the responsibility of investigating the questionable behavior of any government official to the State Ethic Commission. Susan K. Livio, NJ.com Read more
By Eric Boehm / January 20, 2016 / News / 25 Comments
Just days ahead of an expected blizzard on the East Coast, New Jersey has officially repealed a nonsensical rule banning the shoveling of snow without a license.
SNOW JOB: Police in Bound Brook, N.J., told two boys, Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, they were not allowed to shovel their neighbors’ driveways without a permit. A new state law puts the boys on the right side of the law, and common sense.
Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday signed a bill making it legal for New Jersey residents to offer snow shoveling services without first registering with their town. Last year, two entrepreneurial teens going door-to-door and offering to shovel snow for a small fee were stopped by local police in Bound Brook.
The cops told the two boys, Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, they were not allowed to solicit businesses without a permit.
In Bound Brook, that license costs $450 and is only good for a period of 180 days.
After the story made national headlines — including here at Watchdog, where it was featured as our “Nanny State of the Week” story — state lawmakers began working on a solution.
State Sen. Mike Doherty, R-Washington, who sponsored the so-called “right-to-shovel” bill, said it was incredible that some towns wanted teens to pay expensive licensing fees just to clear snow off driveways.
DOHERTY: State Sen. Mike Doherty says government red tape shouldn’t stop kids from making a few bucks by shoveling snow.
“This new law sends the message that kids looking to make a few bucks on a snow day shouldn’t be subjected to government red tape or fined for shoveling snow,” Doherty said.
The bill removes only licensing requirements for snow shoveling services, and only applies to solicitations made within 24 hours before a predicted snow storm. Towns with laws prohibiting door-to-door solicitation will be able to enforce those laws in all other circumstances.
The bill was one of 93 signed by Christie this week, according to the governor’s office. He also vetoed 65 bills.
The governor’s signature comes just in time. Parts of New Jersey could see more than a foot of snow this week as a powerful storm takes aim at the East Coast.
In Bound Brook, there’s no word on whether Molinari and Schnepf are planning to offer their shoveling services again.
If they do, though, they will be on the right side of the law — and common sense.
By Samantha Marcus | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 07, 2016 at 7:31 PM, updated January 08, 2016 at 8:19 AM
TRENTON — State Senate President Stephen Sweeney and labor leaders on Thursday defended his proposal to constitutionally enforce payments into the public pension system against arguments it’s a gift to special interests that will shackle New Jersey’s finances.
The scrap between Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and labor leaders vs. Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union) and business lobbyists centered on what would be worse: a mandated pension contribution that would eat up so much money the state couldn’t respond to fiscal emergencies, or a pension system that continues hurtling toward insolvency.
Sweeney, the Democrat leading the charge on the amendment, told the Senate state government committee it’s in everyone’s interest to pay the bill now. Should a pension fund run out of money, the state would have to pay retirees’ pension benefits out of pocket, he said.
“If we don’t do this, by 2026 or 2027, when the pensions go broke, it’s nine or ten billion dollars. And that’s coming out of the budget. Directly out of the budget,” Sweeney said. “That’s armageddon.”
file photo by Boyd Loving
New Jersey is the only state which Americans tend to have an unfavorable opinion of
As America prepares to celebrate its 239th birthday this Saturday, YouGov compiled a ‘State of the States’, asking Americans how they feel about each and every state that forms our country.
This research shows that New Jersey is the only state in the country which people tend to have a negative opinion of. 40% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of New Jersey while 30% have a favorable opinion of the state, giving the state a net favorability rating of -10%. In contrast, Alabama, the second least popular state in the country, has a net favorability rating of +8%, as 39% of Americans have a favorable view of Alabama and 31% have an unfavorable opinion. After Alabama the least popular states are Illinois (+9%), Mississippi (+9%) and Indiana (+12%).
Hawaii is the most popular state in the union with a net favorability rating of +56%, with 67% of Americans having a favorable view of the state and only 11% having an unfavorable opinion. Hawaii is followed by Montana (+43%), Wyoming (+42%), Alaska (+42%) and Maine (+42%).
https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/07/01/new-jersey-least-liked-state-america/
file photo by Boyd Loving
Check out your own state’s cost per mile with Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report.
Nick Gillespie|Dec. 7, 2015 12:09 pm
This new video uses data from Reason Foundation’s 21st Annual Highway Report to make a simple but devastating point: New Jersey’s roads are paved not with asphalt but wasted taxpayer dollars. (Disclosure: Reason Foundation is the nonprofit that funds this website.)
Indeed, according to the report, the Garden State spends way, way more than other states to maintain its roads:
South Carolina and West Virginia spent just $39,000 per mile of road in 2012 while New Jersey spent over $2 million per state-controlled mile. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California and Florida were the next biggest spenders, outlaying more than $500,000 per state-controlled mile.
See where your state stacks up here.
Spoiler alert: if you live in California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Alaska, or Hawaii, you can suck it in terms of road costs and road quality. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
Legislators in Jersey (and many other states) are eyeing ways to pay for more road construction. Recent polls show about 57 percent of Jersey residents are against a gas-tax hike even as five roadways popped up on a list of the “worst traffic bottlenecks” in the country.
Critics of Reason Foundation’s methodology counter that a fairer accounting of costs finds that Jersey spends “only”$270,000 per mile on its roads.
Yeah, maybe, but almost certainly not.
Jersey’s gas tax is a relatively cheap-o 14.5 cents per gallon while neighboring New York’s is a relatively whopping 45 cents per gallon. These taxes are supposed to fund capital road projects and maintenance but neither is accomplishing that basic task. Capital New York notes that while New Jersey’s transportation fund is wallowing in debt (about one-third of receipts go to debt service), New York’s fund is giving away money to a wide range of activities, with less than a quarter of receipts going to road projects. Give the state too little money and they need more; give it too much and they spend it on whatever they want to.
And there’s this for Jersey folks:
New Jerseyans pay an average $601 annually in extra repairs due to driving on roads in need of fixing, according to [Department of Transportation] data.
https://reason.com/blog/2015/12/07/new-jerseys-roads-dont-just-suck-theyre
For every $1 paid in NJ gas tax:
36 cents – Mass transit
23 cents – “Local System Support,” including regional planning and state aid for county and local roads
12.6 cents – Behind-the-scenes work on implementing the capital program, such as research, planning and design.
12 cents – Road upgrades, including pothole repairs, resurfacing, drainage, landscaping and environmental compliance
8 cents – Bridge maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement
3 cents – Support facilities, such as office buildings and highway rest areas
2 cents – Congestion relief, including road widening
2 cents – Safety improvements at intersections, railroad crossings, traffic signals, restriping highways
1 cent – Multimodal programs, including bicycle, pedestrian, ferry and freight programs
0.4 cents – Airport improvement program
Source: NJ Department of Transportation
Bill to restart BEIP payments angers some NJ businesses
DECEMBER 20, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The passage last week of a bill that would restart incentive payments to about 270 New Jersey companies owed hundreds of millions of dollars for creating jobs in New Jersey sounds, at first glance, like good news for the companies.
Yet the legislation has upset some of the businesses by including a delayed payment schedule that means some won’t get their money for years.
The state stopped funding the Business Employment Incentive Program (BEIP) more than two years ago, after underfunding it and skipping payments for years because of budget constraints. The revived program changes the method of payment, from rebates needed to be provided for in the state budget, to tax credits, which are reductions in taxes the businesses have to pay.
But the new system’s delayed payment schedule has only renewed criticism from the companies affected, which are now owed $785 million.
Payments not made between 2008 and 2013, for example, will now be paid in five installments, beginning in 2017 and concluding in 2021 – more than a decade after some first became due. Payments not made in 2014 and 2015, won’t be paid until 2019, and all payments for the next five years will be paid at least three years after they are accrued.
Sponsors of the bill, which passed both houses of the Legislature on Thursday and is expected to be signed by Governor Christie, say the payment delays are needed to cope with an estimated total obligation of $1.267 billion once all the bills are paid by 2025. The estimate comes from the state Economic Development Authority, which manages the state economic development programs.
But the delays are too long for some companies already irate that they reshaped their business – in some cases moving into New Jersey from out of state – based on a commitment that the state hasn’t kept.
“That’s absolutely asinine, literally,” said Thomas Churchill, vice president for operations at Model Electronics in Ramsey, of the delayed payment schedule.
Churchill, whose company remanufacturers audio navigation and other auto parts, added, “If they are doing it over a period of time, it becomes monotonous, and idiotic. It becomes very, very hard to manage, and it’s probably not worth the cost.” He said spreading payments over several years makes calculating how much money the company receives, and the taxes owed on it, more complicated and burdensome.
Churchill’s company moved from Rockland County, N.Y., to Bergen County in 2005 with the help of a grant for $468,000 over 10 years, contingent on bringing 85 new jobs to the state. After he fulfilled that commitment, the state at first paid the annual rebate checks on schedule, but the company has not received a check since getting the company’s 2011 incentive payment.
Another business owner, who is owed payments but declined to be identified, welcomed the bill but added: “However, I cannot get excited for something that is four years away, and six years after the first payment was due initially.” In a reflection of how the BEIP history has damaged confidence in the state’s development efforts, the owner added: “I am sure anything can happen and change by then anyway, as it did two years ago.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/n-j-trying-to-make-good-1.1477063
Dead people get $2M in N.J. property tax credits while home sellers lose $10M
Thousands of New Jerseyans who sold their homes in the year and a half it took the state to issue the most recent Homestead Benefit missed out on $10 million in property tax credits, according to an audit released Tuesday. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
NJ Senator Mike Doherty (R-23) questioned New Jersey’s outsized spending on transportation infrastructure, saying that he has not found a satisfactory explanation as to why the state pays more than ten times what similarly populous states like Massachusetts pay to fix their roads, bridges and highways
Sweeney Trots out ‘New Jersey – Investing in You’ with Key Senators
They came bearing gifts in the Christmas season, – $174 million’s worth, to be precise – state Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) and his colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus, the statehouse cough-up of seven weeks-worth of round table visits around New Jersey in the respective districts of the senators who now stood sedately at attention with Sweeney. Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ Read more
N.J. Democratic, Republican lawmakers unveil competing economic plans
DECEMBER 14, 2015, 7:30 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2015, 7:59 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Democrats and Republicans in the state Senate unveiled competing economic plans for New Jersey on Monday, with each side promising a lasting fix to the haphazard way the state has been funding major expenses such as pensions and road projects over the years.
The dueling plans are as ambitious as their details are hazy.
On the Democratic side, Senate President Stephen Sweeney outlined a plan to invest at least $1 billion over the next four years on transportation projects, school initiatives, new study commissions and a new “infrastructure bank.”
His plan calls for expanding pre-kindergarten to 17 school districts that do not now offer it; extending light rail service farther into Bergen County and widening the eligibility range for tax breaks on retiree income, raising the income limit for married couples from $10,000 to $100,000. Funding for higher-education scholarships also would grow.
But Senate Democrats did not include a funding mechanism; Sweeney said his proposal would spur enough economic activity to pay for itself, namely by enticing older residents to stay in-state instead of moving after they retire.
“This state has been starved of investment for too long, and we now need to refocus,” he said at a Statehouse news conference.
Sweeney, O’Toole Discuss Bipartisanship in Newark
It seems that South Jersey-based Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) is continuing his charm offensive in the northern part of the state as he continues to angle for a likely 2017 gubernatorial run. Today, Sweeney joined Republican Senator Kevin O’Toole (R-40) for an event at Newark’s North Ward Center to honor O’Toole for his dedication to the mission of the center: to help underserved populations. Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ Read more
If you needed further proof that this is the era of the political outsider, a new poll shows nearly half of New Jersey voters lack confidence in either major political party to solve the state’s problems. Claude Brodesser-Akner, NJ.com Read more
