Property tax battle: Deadline looms on expiration of key law
TRENTON — Mayors say a group with an obscure and achingly bureaucratic name has been the most important tool in slowing the growth of New Jersey’s property taxes, the highest in the nation.
For the last three years, arbitrators who decide contract disputes between towns and their police and fire unions — known collectively as the Interest Arbitration Task Force — have been limited to increasing the workers’ salaries by just 2 percent.
But if the Legislature doesn’t act by April 1, that limit will expire. That would leave towns constrained by a 2 percent cap in overall tax increases but with less control over how much to pay police officers and firemen.
“We’re playing a little Russian roulette here,” said Bill Dressel, executive director of the League of Municipalities. “We could see arbitration awards potentially exceed the 2 percent cap that would put a stranglehold on municipalities to the extent that they would have to cut services.”
Gov. Chris Christie in his January State of the State speech called on the Legislature to make the cap permanent. (Friedman/Star-Ledger)
Arbitration is a joke.
The unions are ALWAYS rewarded with a raise equal to the highest other town they can find.
Its call ‘parity’ by the arbitrators.
More accurately the taxpayers are basically grabbing their ankles. I cant post that word.
I disagree with #1’s post, the Ridgewood supervisors lost in arbitration, the Ridgewood pba (ptl’s) lost in arbitration, Midland park Pd. supervisors and Ptl’s lost in arbitration, the Paramus police lost in arbitration, so did the Tenafly pd. so obviously #1 doesn’t know WTF he or she is talking about.
Hard to argue they really “lost” ? The Ridgewood PBA got effective +4.24% annual wage increases every year from 2009-2012 in the depths of a recession in addition to longetivity payments, and 15 days of annual sick leave which accumulates from year to year and can be paid out as a lump sum cash payment upon retirement. They “only” pay at most $480 per year for full coverage family plan health insurance vs. +$3000 for comparable private employer based plans, and pay less than 10% towards their own pensions as part of the CBA. That’s well above the 2% cap on property tax increases, and that’s why the growth in pension & healthcare expenses far outstrips growth in any other area of the Village budget. The CBAs are on the Village website here https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/main_recent.cfm?ArticleID=1135 Should they have gotten more in your opinion ?
OK Big mouth.
How about I post the names of the PBA members who made more than $200,000 per year , which included their PSEG side jobs using our taxpayer owned Police cars?
How about you don’t know WTF you’re talking about.
to #4 go right ahead their compensation was well earned. PSEG pays the cops at their expense not the tax payer. Make sure when you post you include how much the town made in administrative fee’s and how much money the town collected from the contractors for use of the police cars. Go ahead BIG MOUTH there’s nothing to hide from anyone . Your just jealous and envious that you cant’ do it as well. If you had the same opportunity you’d jump on it with both feet.
Well earned? Thanks for the laugh.
Sitting on their ass while the Village owned police car is wearing out burning up taxpayers gasoline so they can earn $89 per hour in their pockets?
So I guess my post is correct about our police officers earning over $200,000 per year there big mouth.
Too bad we are not on the side of the road so you got zero leverage- you won’t win this.
I’m not jealous, I do a lot better than that, but over $200,000 without a 4 year college degree isn’t bad.
So now that the ‘cat is out of the bag’ on the excessive pay…don’t come crying for a raise or more overly generous pensions and benefits.
Why can’t the greedy police allow our ’emergency service’ volunteers to do these grossly overpaid ‘side jobs’?
The volunteers are good enough to sit out in the rain, snow and other crappy weather and do the shit jobs that the police don’t want.
If they are good enough to do traffic duty for free, then they should be allowed to participate in the ‘gravy’ train from PSEG.
And to #5, PSEG happens to be paid by the ratepayers, who prefer not to subsidize you sitting in your car getting $89 per hour to play with your cellphone. So us TAXPAYERS are footing the tab… as usual.
And taking it a step further… since nobody ‘directs’ traffic, let PSEG rent the squad cars and park them with the lights. Its the same thing. And that ‘money the town makes’ doesn’t cover insurance, maintentance, and gas when a vehicle wears out prematurely. Its another lousy deal for taxpayers and ratepayers.
Here’s hoping the Village ends the extra duty rate for police personnel working for outside vendors on an extra duty basis. It’s just too contentious, and it’s unclear what net benefit this provides to the Village given concerns over shortages of officers for public safety. A compromise would be to have Class II officers handle this work. The union will squawk about ending this practice, or using “specials”, but if they want this practice to continue, it’s probably fair to assume that this is not in the best interests of property tax payers.
Its not like their presence adds to safety.
They do not ‘direct’ traffic.
They put cones up with arrows on top detouring traffic to other streets.
When the job has 2 cops, it would be expected that for the excessive hourly rate, they would ‘direct traffic’, stopping one lane at a time to allow the other to pass.
But that’s too much effort for $89 per hour, so they just put up cones and arrows so they can bullshit with each other or the construction workers.
Its a pure waste of money and the taxpayers are inconvenienced by having to take a detour unnecessarily.