Ridgewood Public Schools will drive emptynesters out of the village. The cycle is moving faster. Soon the town will be unable to afford all the kids in the district with special needs and the red-shirted “gifted”. Our reputation for quality schools is not based on out full/half day K program.
Full day K will definitely raise my taxes, it will not increase the quality of a Ridgewood Education.
I am saying this as someone who moved to the town before I had children . I paid taxes before, during and after I had children in the district. No one moves to Ridgewood for full day K. There are many great enrichment programs, some with transportation for working parents. Be grateful for what you have.
This survey is more likely to be filled out by people with preschool children. How are they reaching residents of all ages? They made it easy to be filled out by one part of the population Click here to take the survey.
It is not hard to take this survey more than once. I hope that the board does not think that this is a representative sample of taxpayers
Ridgewood property taxes already 6th highest in the state… shouldn’t our schools be top ten as well?
Take a look at the administrators salaries in comparison to the quality of their work. Half of them don’t even need to be there – another reason taxes are so high here
I have been hearing this argument about school taxes driving people out of the village for decades just as long as to how we need a parking garage.It is all bull,people just seem to need something in common to bitch about yet do nothing.
the population according to Gwen Hauck was 27,000 plus 30 years ago now its 24,000 plus sounds like people moved out to me
There are residents who think that there is a state mandate for gifted student programs.
In Ridgewood no one thinks that their kid is average. People pay to send their kids to “gifted” enrichment programs. Then they can tell everyone that their kid was in a gifted program.
Great business model. Just call your program gifted or little ivy and the Ridgewood parents are all over it. A real money maker.
Ridgewood property taxes are not even in the top 10 in the state!
Guess you missed the new dated posted on this blog yesterday… Ridgewood #6 on taxes
EDITORS NOTE in all respect to my list , we just searched Bergen County
There are lots of us old folks who never had kids in the schools.
It is increasingly difficult to justify the expense of living here.
Every one of our homes will be sold to young families with children.
As you chase us out with the tax increases, your taxes will then go up exponentially to provide the schools and more classrooms.
The best deal for the town is to find a way to keep residents here that do not have children in school as they subsidize those of you with kids.
I never saw a home buyer in recent memory that did not have children, or one “on the way”
Any significant increase in property tax would make me leave. My four-bedroom house could then be occupied by a three-child family and cost the town a whole lot more than it does now. Good luck.
10:42
Actually families are smaller than they were thirty years ago so fewer people overall and fewer school aged children in the village. Approximately same number of households.
Correct Red. The birth rate peaked in 1972. There are 1000 less kids in schools than 1972. Per pupil cost is higher. Special Ed mainly.
Does anyone have the census data?
What % of property taxes went to the school system 30 years ago? I doubt it was 75% but I would love to see the real numbers.
Why did they build Hawes?
the current rate is appx 2.4%… wonder what the rate was in 1972?
3 words describe our current fiscal problems: Unsustainable union contracts. Time to allow the free market to determine the price of labor.
3 words describe our current fiscal problems: Illegal Political theft from State Pensions. Time to make the people responsible for this obvious theft repay what was taken and properly fund state pensions like they were and are suppose to……
6:18. I cannot afford to fully fund your retirement. I am working on my own.
Sorry previous administrations skipped payments. Should have sued them. Too late, the make-up costs are now too high.
Start saving.
Parents are looking for full day K, others are demanding gifted classes for their average students. This is not sustainable.
Empty nesters are moving out and you are getting a lot of demanding parents with children.
January 13, 2016 at 7:54 pm said, 6:18. I cannot afford to fully fund your retirement. I am working on my own. Sorry previous administrations skipped payments. Should have sued them. Too late, the make-up costs are now too high.
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7:54 pm, No need to worry about my retirement, my retirement is already secure, Looks like your gonna have to contribute a little less to your retirement account to make up for the mess made by your elected officials. Sorry about that, but you should have been paying more attention to what was going on down in Trenton instead of watching so much television. Maybe you can sue those rascally politicians. Reach deeper my friend.
James, looks like your old friend the bipolar blogger is back at 6:18 and 9:50… sue and andrew
9:50, your benefits will be reduced because you were promised too much by union backed Democrats. It’s a sad state of affairs, but amending the state constitution in itself is not going to magically increase revenue. If that happens, the state would be forced to pass a crushing $3 billion in new tax increases, or deny funding for health care, education, criminal justice, the poor, our environment, our children and our infrastructure to pander to pensioners. We cannot soak every taxpayer for the benefit of the privileged few.
A public pension is not a constitutional right
@826 it will be in the future.!
You are correct 8:26 am, it is however a contractual right. Which is just as good and possibly better.
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8:25 am said your benefits will be reduced because you were promised too much by union backed Democrats.
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You may hope so 8:25 am, and you may even pray so, but the fact is that’s never gonna happen.
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Read this and educate yourself. Then go back to stealing money from your clients
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. https://www.cgsh.com/files/News/2b17e269-552e-44b8-90c9-f9a350b4dab0/Presentation/NewsAttachment/25ad0391-4959-4f6c-8a04-fa138e0e1630/N.J.%20State%20Pensions%20-%20Veto%20of%20Pension%20Funding%20Violates%20Public%20Employees%e2%80%99%20Contractual%20Rights.pdf
That will never happen 8:40, but keep dreaming. No other state has been that stupid and neither will NJ. You are clearly a fan boy of the failed status quo, and completely unwilling to compromise on your excessive benefits…. wonder why that is?
New Jersey’s pensions are projected to run out of assets to pay liabilities between 2021 and 2032, depending on the retirement system, under new GASB67 accounting rules, lower assumed rate of returns, and longer assumed lifespans than the old assumptions from 2000. Six of New Jersey’s seven funds, for example, disclosed depletion dates as of their June 30, 2014 valuations. The two largest – covering retired state employees and teachers – said their tipping points would come in 2024 and 2027, respectively. Sweeney’s proposal to constitutionally mandate pension payments, which no other state does, is nothing more than a $3 billion tax increase on 90% of state taxpayers to benefit his political patrons, who amount to 10% of the state, i.e. the 800,000 active & retired public workers in NJ. Governor Christie instead wants to scale back health benefits for public employees and use the savings to pay down the pension debt.
Legal obligations and contractual rights can be diminished/reduced in bankruptcy proceedings, which is what the state will get if you aren’t willing to share more sacrifice with state taxpayers. Just ask retirees in Detroit
Our friendly retired Fire Captain has been let off his chain again at 8:43… Apparently you’re not willing to share in the sacrifice that current public employees will face in terms of reduced benefits. Current employees will be downgraded to “bronze” health benefits from 2018, shifted to defined contribution pension schemes like 401(k) plans, and early retirees won’t be allowed to start collecting their public pensions until age 62. Only then will it be possible to ask for increased state, local and consumption taxes as a fair trade-off with NJ taxpayers, who are already the highest taxed Americans. Just throwing more money at a failed status quo solves nothing, it’s nothing more than a money grab
9:11 am, Ummmm CK I hate to tell you but you are WRONG! I suggest you read the link posted at 8:43 am. Pay particular attention to page 4 under the heading of “Significance of the decision”…..which states:
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“The opinion is significant because it grapples with the much-debated issue of a government’s ability to revise its commitment to fund future benefits when fiscal realities threaten to make such funding untenable. In particular, this opinion deals with the issue in the context of a state government, which is ineligible for Chapter 9 relief under the Bankruptcy Code. The opinion does allow for non-funding in emergency situations, but it is otherwise highly skeptical of all post-hoc justifications and arguments for non-funding. It remains to be seen whether the Court’s legal defense of the state-employees’ contractual rights is ultimately upheld as a matter of New Jersey law, but the Court’s opinion stands clearly for the proposition that strongly worded promises – in particular, those cloaked in the Contract Clause – may be too strong to break.”
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Nice try Charlie.
“the population according to Gwen Hauck was 27,000 plus 30 years ago now its 24,000 plus sounds like people moved out to me”
Not sure about that but what I do know is that according to the BOE school enrollment in 1981 was 5,262 and in 2015 it was 5,782. It dipped down to as low as 4,576 in 1990 and then cycled back up. That is what happens in towns like this that are so school driven.
9:19, and cows may fly over the moon. No one said anything about breaking unsustainable promises, only reducing them. No one deserves free pensions and health benefits for more years than you actually served, sorry, but taxpayers aren’t paying for your health benefits when we have our own benefits to pay for. It’s stunning how you think you can just take from everyone else’s pockets to pay your benefits.
Well lookie here,January 14, 2016 at 9:17 am must be Crazy Kime, one of the authors of the bogus Ridgewood Financial Adversary Report, and one of the members of Paul Aronsohn’s “Tiger Team” is back at it.
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Notice he doesn’t mention at all that the pensions for county & local (municipal) employees, which include all Police, Fire & Department of Public works employees, are adequately funded and continue to be properly funded by the employees and the government agencies they work for.
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He also doesn’t mention that it’s the state’s pensions systems which are way underfunded. This was reported in the New Jersey Pension study dated January 2014 on page 13.
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https://watchdog-newjersey.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2014/01/CSI-NJ-Pension-Study-2014.pdf
According to that report the financial status of the various pensions plans show ONLY the states pensions plans, particularly the teachers retirement plan (TPAF), which covers teachers in the state, county and municipalities are all seriously underfunded. Here is the FACTS from that report from page 13
Teachers Pensions System was at 60.46%
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The county and municipal Public Employees Pension System (PERS) was at 74.5%.
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The state Public Employees Pension System (PERS) was at 49.1%.
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The county & municipal Police & Firefighters Retirement System (PFRS) was at 77.6%.
The state Police & Firefighters Retirement System (PFRS) was at 51.5%
Krazy Kime wants municipalities & counties & their employees to give the adequate funding in their respective pension systems to the state to help prop up the failing state pensions. Then he wants municipal & county employees to agree to bail out the state’s pension problems by agreeing to take less than they are entitled to receive! Now you have to ask yourself why would Krazy Kime want to do this to bail out the governor who failed to make the statutory payments into the state pensions? What’s in it for him?
Is there a minimum ‘number of years’ time to server before a village employees are eligible for pension? For example the new village manager, new cfo etc look like they may server for 4-5 years max before their retirement age. Will they be able to collect life long pension by serving for just 4-5 years? In the private sector, we have to serve for minimum 20 years to be eligible for pension.
11:45 am,
A quick answer to your question is not really possible. The basic rules however require a specific number of years of service depending on the pension system. It’s doubtful the VM or CFO will work the 25 years to become eligible. However, if either one had prior service credit with a municipality, county or state agency, those years would be combined with her years of service in Ridgewood and they could become eligible for a pension. There is no way that I know of that serving only 4-5 years anyone can obtain a pension.
Thanks 12:34.. that sounds a fair system. So if they have prior municipal credits and they do become eligible (they are just an example, and my question is for all new hires that are coming to our village with new administration), – in that event, do we (ridgewood) only pay part of the pension pool and rest will be paid by the other municipality where they served earlier or do we pay full amount since they last served here?
1:11 pm, yes Anon, each community would contribute to the employees pension along with the employee. So the total cost is shared by each community based on the number of years the individual served in a particular community.
Who? Stop stealing from taxpayers to pay for your free healthcare
I think it’s unfair I’m paying for free healthcare for early retirees, with family plans costing over $25,000. If you want to retire early that’s great, but I have my own health care to pay for, so why am I paying for your health benefits, too, when you get a $100K public pension? The contracts aren’t fair, you should pay for your own health benefits.
Still spreading lies Krazy Kime…..Healthcare for retirees isn’t anywhere near $25,000
Looks like Krazy Kime had been exposed ?
Actually the BCBS good plan is appx 1600 per month at the preferred negotiated rate for parent/child…the family one is appx 1900 a month so 25k is not far off the mark for the top family plan.
You can look online and then apply a volume discount of 15-20% to see what it costs for a civil service employee with bcbsnj