Two days and counting. With the state Legislature and governor still at an impasse on tax cuts, the state budget remains in limbo and New Jersey residents are left to wonder what will happen on Monday.
In 2006, a similar impasse resulted in a week-long shutdown of state government that resulted in a flawed compromise and three years of incremental changes that resulted in something short of reform — and the election of Chris Christie as governor.
Now, two-and-a-half years into the Christie administration, we are facing the same potential impasse — and a different set of flawed reforms.
The state pension plan remains a mess, with the governor refusing to make the kind of payments necessary to make it whole and instead blaming state and local workers — you know, police officers firefighters, teachers, social workers, road crews, prison guards, etc.
Property tax growth has slowed, but our tax bills remain the among the highest in the nation, driven in part by our foolish unwillingness to move education funding from the property tax to the income tax or to drastically cut the number of government entities in the state.
More than 1,400 taxing agencies is way too many. Fire districts, garbage districts, etc., only create mini-fiefdoms and generate momentum for spending. Decisions on fire services should be in the hands of municipal or county governments and not in the hands of fire commissioners who sometimes win their positions in elections in which turnout sometimes fails to exceed a couple of percentage points.
On top of this, we have 566 (soon to be 565) municipal governments, nearly 600 school districts and 21 county governments — a number that should be slashed by about a third. There are 70 municipalities in Bergen County, most of which are relatively small both in terms of geography and population. In Middlesex, there are 25 towns, 20 percent of which either have populations of less than 10,000 or are smaller than 2 square miles.
State residents have long viewed this as a problem, though most voters have viewed the need for municipal and school district consolidation as someone else’s problem.
Complicating things is the longstanding antitax mood in the state. For too long, we have want our services in New Jersey, but we do not want to pay for them.
Instead of these issues being the primary focus of our budget debate, Christie and Democratic legislative leaders are arguing over a tax cut that cannot be sustained unless the state meets unrealistic growth projections or brutally slashes spending.
Come Monday, state government may or may not be open for business. But it is guaranteed that business as usual in New Jersey will continue unabated.
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- Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 