the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Wyckoff NJ, the Township of Wyckoff has approved a drop in the municipal property tax rate. The change was approved by the Township Committee at its budget hearing, lowering property taxes on the average home valued at $793,800, by $5.56 to $2,002.76.
The 2020 municipal budget, excluding grants, is $20,087,460, up $366,749 or 1.86%. The municipal amount to be raised by taxes, excluding the state-mandated $1.56 million for the library, is $11,940,626, up $4,123 or 0.03% . The municipal tax rate is down 0.00007 cents per $100 assessed valuation from 0.253 to 0.2523.
Ridgewood should do the same.
We have large numbers of non EMS public safety employees sitting around on their keesters, because there are no traffic accidents, no fires (apart from Bagelicious which burnt to the ground anyways), and no emergencies beyond suspected COVID-19 cases… which the Valley EMS paramedics can handle anyway. Huge waste of taxpayer funds!!!
“We have large numbers of non EMS public safety employees sitting around on their keesters,”
If its such an easy job maybe you should come out of your mom’s basement and do their job.
I see that poster #1 above clearly has no idea what he is talking about. He talks in a vacuum of ignorance, which is typical of someone with a poor education.
You self interested much?
Question: What jackass claims public safety workers are a Huge waste of taxpayer funds ?
Answer: A landlord who rents property in town who would never need those services. Why would he want public safety workers layed off, because he’s a greedy PIG 🐖 who wants to pay less in property taxes so he makes more money on his rentals! It’s Obvious he doesn’t care others, he just cares about the all mighty dollar.
The village of Ridgewood will never lower taxes. Stop dreaming. When there is a cold day in hell then maybe until then stick your thumb up your ass.
Commenters could make their points more effectively by dropping the crudeness. It’s unnecessary and nauseating. Think of a better way to say it, please.
Ladies and Gentlemen… let’s behave ourselves, please.
I agree with the OP. Ridgewood should lower tax rates (but not for the reason he/she stated).
We all need services. And, naturally, we have to pay for these services. Police and fire are “essential”.
There is probably a lot of waste that can be cut out. We should spend money on a consultant to come in and do a thorough analysis of Village costs. Then, offer suggestions as to “how we can do more with less”.
Case in point: the Village Manager is earning $200,000 per year. A local government civil servant earning that amount is truly outrageous.
The only reason “Ridgewood will never lower taxes” is because we, the taxpayers, *allow* the politicians (who work for us, by the way) to run wild…
The municipal services portion of my tax bill is very reasonable for our professional police, fire, sanitation and street departments. I have zero complaint.
The waste and excess is the board of education. Increase class sizes, cut teachers on the payroll, problem solved. After this home schooling it proves the smaller class sizes waste our tax dollars.
School taxes should be flat. No 2% increase.
New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said that he was open to the idea of the state providing illegal immigrants with $600 a week.
During Murphy’s COVID-19 news briefing on Thursday, the governor was asked about cash assistance for illegal immigrants.
Immigrants rights group Make the Road NJ released a report titled, “Essential and Excluded,” that documented the “experiences of low-wage immigrant workers and families in New Jersey during the first month of the COVID-19 crisis.”
“After this home schooling it proves the smaller class sizes waste our tax dollars.”
Look at Dr. Fishbein’s presentation on the school budget:
https://www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us/news/district_news/2020-2021_school_budget_presentation
Our class sizes are LARGER than other similarly situated school districts.
Concerningly, Ridgewood’s average test scores are worse than that of our peers. What we’re doing isn’t working.
Salaries and employee benefits account for nearly 70% of the overall school budget.
With these kind of subpar results, I completely agree that the school taxes should not increase 2%. They should be flat, or even decline. I’m certain that we can find inefficiencies *somewhere* in hte school processes that can be cut.
If this were the private sector, employees would be cut, performance bonuses would be slashed and expenses would be significantly reduced. There is no reason we can’t do that here!
@Dr. Fishbein — would you be willing to give up some of your salary to keep the budget from increasing? Oh, nevermind…
No denying that village manager is an important and highly responsible job but $200K is too much.
Maybe she works on Wall Street?
The Village Council and BOE are only good at one thing: Wasting taxpayers’ money. They continue to spend irresponsibly and excessively on wastage like >$200,000+ salaries for the Superintendent (who supposed to leave after his kids graduated) and Village Manager. There are lots of qualified people who would work for $150,000 or less. Why do our police need a private shooting range (when they’ve never discharged a weapon) and always all new, late model, blacked out Window SUVs?
Fact 1: 27 million people filed for unemployment benefits over the past few weeks.
Fact 2: the unemployment rate is currently 4.4% and is forecast to climb to nearly 20% in the next 12 months.
If the scenario that most economist forecast plays out, then 1 in 5 people will be either unemployed or underemployed.
I do not think it’s responsible to ask taxpayers to pay MORE when the economy is so fragile and people are losing jobs left and right.
Let’s make due with what we have until the macro environment improves. The school budget should not increase in this economic environment (particularly in view of the fact that schools are not providing much value right now, and there is a reasonable probability that schools in NJ will not reopen in the Fall).
I agree with other posters. Let’s find inefficiencies and use that money to pay for some of the items that the proposed 2% increase would cover.
where is the private range?
I thought they used the Waldwick range?
I don’t think the police have a “private” shooting range. In all likelihood, they go to a range in the proximate area.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that they can’t go for shooting practice. If they carry a firearm, they should at least be proficient in its use. And yes, we HOPE that they never have to discharge their weapons in an actual scenario. We don’t want that sort of underlying activity in our town.
Anyway, a shooting range is small potatoes in terms of tax dollars. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars that can be cut without anyone noticing (e.g. bloated salaries of town employees who deliver very little value). We just need the right people to buy in and make the cuts.
Like Knudsen who has two sons on the police force?
Yes take a look at the BOE…There are some 200 thou salaries there also besides a lot of administrative excess…….