The Concerned Citizens of Montclair – a non-partisian group of more than 300 local taxpayers who want to establish fiscal restraint and a transparent budget process by the town’s elected officials — continue to call their fellow property owners to action after Tuesday’s town council meeting.
On the heels of an 8.6% increase in the municipal portion of Montclair’s property taxes for 2010, at Tuesday’s meeting Town Manager Marc Dashield presented a budget which would result in a 6 to 7% increase in the same portion for 2011.
When the 2010 budget was finally approved in October 2010, our Town leadership admitted that Montclair was in the midst of a financial crisis. And now, only four months later, that seems to have been forgotten. We are facing another unsustainable increase in the municipal portion of our property taxes.
This is not a fiscally responsible or financially prudent budget! Our leadership needs to take a hard look at our municipal operations and make the tough decisions that need to be made.
If you share their concerns, CCM suggests you take action by emailing town councilors to tell them that a 7% increase is unacceptable,
attending the next council meeting on Tuesday, March 8th at 8pm, joining the organization and spreading the word.
“The larger we are, the stronger our voice will be.”
Contact Concerned Citizens of Montclair here and follow the group on Facebook.
How does this square with the caps?
Budget increases in this town always seem to be about the same–6 to 9 percent. Each year our town wise ones make a big deal out of how next year they’re going to get a handle on the increases, and the number come it the same. This year we have the big fat excuse of Christie–oh, my, Christie’s draconian cuts have put our backs to the wall, it’s crisis time, etc. And so guess what: we’ll face the same old increases we’ve faced the last few years.
No matter what the situation is, what the hand waving is all about, it goes down to more or less the same increases each year.
This is what people mean when they refer to taxpayers being an ATM.
Here’s a humble alternative: Fix the budget, and make whatever cuts are necessary to meet it. If we have to cut 19 police, cut 19 police. Let the sh*t hit the fan. See what happens. Bring it on.
Not that I really care. I expect my husband will be made partner at the hedge fund he works for next year or the year after, and we will then have elevated ourselves from the modestly rich to the ridiculously rich. So tax away, baby. For us, it’s a bagatelle.
ROCK ON, Hildy!!!
Once it happens, I’ll put you in touch with my broker who will work hard to find you your very own Palatial Estate in the Borough of UPPER Montclair. Then, like me, you can laugh at the little people who worry about taxes.
HAIL! HAIL!!
Hildys property should be sized and her money confiscated to the good of all. What function does her leach-like wealth serve society?
“Cut, Cut Cut”…..just don’t cut what I’m interested in. Cuts are for other people.
Cut and run. That’s what I’m doing.
Thanks prof, but we’re not going anywhere. (Though we may buy a vacation home or two.) And I would never laugh at people who worry about taxes. On the contrary, I am concerned about Montclair. I think the town is mismanaged and should get its spending under control. I wouldn’t want Montclair to turn into another Short Hills. I like the diversity. My kids are in the public schools and, God willing, will graduate from MHS one day.
Hildy,
For the last two years I have been saying how rising taxes will “kill” the diversity I came to Montclair for.
I coined the term, Upper Glen Ridge for Montclair, and definitely compared the towns transformation to Short Hills or Westfield.
Everyday elections creep closer. I truly believe the field for the Non-Partisan elections is going to be HUGE!
Jerry Fried will go down as the worst Mayor in Montclair history!
I think like most places across the country, Montclair has three of every department. One overstaffed department (given that technology today can reduce the number of pencil pushers) that presently is doing the work, and the two departments that previously did the work, but is now retired yet living off Montclair taxpayers. Unless we pass a law to ban unrealistic and unreasonable retire plans that have to be funded by tax dollars we will never see the end of this misery. I will vote for anyone who will make an honest attempt to contain the retirement plan burden on property tax.
Next I will vote for anyone who will attempt to consolidate fiefdoms that each town has into a single depart6ment for the whole county. Let technology work for us. Instead of having 100s of individual fire departments, school boards etc let us have one for every county. If we do this we WILL see savings.
Finally it is about time that like the Egyptians we too demonstrate at the Townhall and seek our freedom from the atrocity of high property taxes. We need freedom to retire in the very town we grew up in. We need to be free of being taxed to death. We need a regime change here in Montclair, NJ. How dare the town offcials seek a lifstyle and retirement plan that no major corporation can afford to provide to its employees.
Comrade Lasermike, I too agree that Hildy’s property should be “sized.” I’m thinking that your lefty Borat posts are some form of pastiche that is meant to rattle some cages around here. Otherwise, to paraphrase a saying that was popular a few years ago: Somewhere a commune is missing it’s idiot.
We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if there were a progressive tax system in the US. The more you earn, the more you pay.
The robber barons pit the middle class against each other as the little people fight over crumbs while the Dick Fulds of the world run off with hundreds of millions and claim they earn it while demanding a bailout–OR ELSE.
“We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if there were a progressive tax system in the US. The more you earn, the more you pay.”
The system is in collaps. The old structures can not uphold the people. We have to cast off the old system. The have nots must have more of what the haves have.
Bebobgun,
How does a progressive tax system make sense ? When you goto a restaurant do you pay for what you eat or what you can afford ? Tax should be based on consumption, if you have more members in a family than you need to pay more for garbage collection.
Likewise, if you have more kids at school you should contribute more for the education system.
If you occupy a bigger lot (not how well you have furnished your home) than you should play more than the person who uses less space in the town.
Likewise we need a way to voluntarily reduce our tax burden by accepting less services.
At the end of the day, we need to be responsible and hence pay for what we consume. But this debate should be after i) we curtail the retirement plans of town employees, and ii) figure out how to consolidate mutiple smaller departments into larger single department, and iii) figure out better costing algorithm so that the town offcials do not give away contracts at inflated cost to their buddies.
I do not think we will ever start looking into “realistic” ways of reducing costs while we are engaged in class envy and class warfare. It is not the “Rich” who are causing the tax inflation, it is the greed of the Town officials. We have given them a gun to shoot us down with. It is about time we exercise control over issues that are killing us.
Even my realtor told me that there is no comparison between Montclair and Short Hills. And diversity seems to be alive and well, if the police blotter is any barometer. No, their HS is #1 in NJ, while we’re 85th. We made a terrible mistake not coughing up the extra dough and moving there years ago. Before the midtown direct train, which they got 3 or 4 years before we did, MTC was a better driving commute. So much for that. Over the years Short Hills home prices skyrocketed while ours stagnated. Now, I’d have to pay almost 3 times what I could sell my house for to get something comparable there. It’s been a nice place to live, but overall a bad trade. That’s why our depressed home values will actually help promote more diversity, since the barrier to entry is much lower despite the taxes. Now, if this contemplated police layoff scheme, coupled with the stark observable increase in crime, starts to look like a perfect storm, there’s at least one house on my street that’s going up for sale. I’m not going to be caught behind the curve again.
Bebop: Dick Fuld may not be your best example, in that he didn’t get bailed out (the only one not to), and he lost the vast majority of his money which was tied up in Lehman stock which was wiped out. I’m afraid Dick is flying coach now.
The US is $1 trillion underfunded in pension plans. Given the US population, that is about $3,200 per person to cough up. Every child, woman or man would have to give this much. That is just to play catch up. What about going forward? It is unsustainable.
Montclair tax dollars are primarily going to labor, labor related costs and costs to pay off our huge debt. These costs are only going to grow unless some difficult changes are made. Tax away and watch the residents and businesses flee…. But no worries, more Hildy Foxs will buy our homes (at a steal) and there will be no complaints from the annoying little people worried about their taxes. Let them eat cake….
Shaan: I must warn you. You cannot win this debate with logic and reason. You’re pitted against some true believers here, although I suspect one to be a phony.
Deadeye,
Everywhere the town officials are upto the same games. We cannot keep on running. Sooner or later wherever we go will become as bad unless to get things under control.
Think about this, we say we live in the land of the free and yet we have no freedom from the greed of the town officials. We are slaves to whatever they can get away with. We are worst than the Egyptians. Atleast they had the courage to gather at Liberation Square and duke it out, we just want to run.
I think CCM is doomed to be ineffective unless they refocus their efforts.
Currently, it’s like an oversight role for NASA’s management of the space shuttle program. Applying band-aids to a bad system with no future.
Instead, it should continue similar activities/mission they are currently undertaking, but focus on creating real change through multi-town/regional level cooperation. This is the future.
Further, they are not bound by bureaucracies or County lines, they can leverage talent/assets from other towns, and they have the access & means to force local governments to really work together or get out of the way.
Shaan,
We are on the forefront of a national municipal finance crisis, in addition to the federal budget issues. This will not end without fireworks. We are most likely to see European style strikes from the unions sooner than later. Then, if the government continues it’s reckless fiscal policies we will see rampant inflation, runaway commodity prices and global food riots. I’ve long believed that the plan has been to inflate our way out of this debt crisis, the consequences of which are already beginning to be observed.
@ Khan, “If you occupy a bigger lot (not how well you have furnished your home) than you should pay more than the person who uses less space in the town.” That system is in place, but we also have to tax those who use 100% of their lot to build a mc mansion. I agree with the school kids and garbage kids and consumption tax
As far as the pension plans in montclair, I think we should dedicate a housing complex to put all the retired workers. If they knew in advance (say 20 years when they started their career) that this was where they’d end up, Im sure they could save or invest like the rest of us for their retirement. However, to say that we need a fire department for every county is a horrible idea. Perhaps switch to a volunteer FD like Glen Ridge had for so many years
deadeye is dead on. I just purchased a second home as I can’t sell my Montclair multi-family without taking a huge hit in the wallet. Maintained high property values? NOT! Due to my excellent credit and no personal debt besides my remaining mortgage on my multi, we were able to get the new home with only 10% down without paying PMI through a piggy back loan (yup, they are still alive and available today). I am so leveraged up with mortgage debt that it’s unbelievable. I look forward to watching my mortgage debt inflate away with the government’s debt. If I’m wrong, we are all screwed anyway! Might as well have some fun. So what if people are planning coups over food inflation in foreign lands. For I’m just doing what the local investment banker would do.
ipsofacto, what a sad statement to say CCM is doomed. At least they have stepped up and are willing to try. I receive their email updates and have been very impressed with their financial data. Is it baby steps, yup. But at least it’s steps in the right direction.
Confused on a few points:
+Glen Ridge has a volunteer fire dept? I thought they were using ours.
+”…it is the greed of the Town officials” – which officials? Don’t the mayor and council receive on the order of $3K a year for the privilege of becoming townwide punching bags? I know there were some in the previous administration who were tight with developers, but the current council seems more hapless than devious. Examples, please.
+If you restructure the pensions workers have been promised (often through contract negotiations, at the expense of cost of living increases and other commonplace giveaways) they may not have the ability now to replace lost expected income. Grandfather the current workers and rewrite the pension plan for workers under 35 and all new hires, but this meanspiritedness has to stop. These are our neighbors, not some slithery cabal of evildoers!
(PS, our defined benefit pensions – in financial services – were eliminated back in the 1980s, but those approaching retirement age were grandfathered.)
Deadeye
Unfortunately the very people who have caused this mess want to distract us with i)Class warfare and ii)External Threats. I hope this nation wakes up to the fact that the biggest threat to our existence is i)Runaway high taxes; ii)Bloating Debt and iii)Atrocious Regulations. So while it is true that we do face many threats in this ever evolving world, what is certain is that our own government is killing our way of life. Our biggest threat is our own corrupt system.
If you are a person that will not allow some family member to create debt liabilities in your name then you should resist the government to create debt that you will have to pay (one way or the other). It is time to speak up now.
If you find your survival impossible because the government and quasi government regulations has stacked the odds against you then you need to demonstrate against those who are causing this misery. Again, regulations are necessary for our safety, but regulations that are excessive and abusive need to go.
If you cannot retire peacefully in the very town you grew up in because the high property taxes does not allow you that “luxury” then you need to work to change this situation.
Nothing will happen by itself. There is a “Hosni Mubarak” at the head of every town and county in our country. We need to get rid of them and have people who will control taxes, regulation and debt. These three issues must be a litmus test. I for one would like Montclair township to know that I am old and tired and cannot take their abuse any more. They were meant to work for me and make my life easy, but sadly they have become center productive. I cannot live at the mercy of their greed. I cannot live on the crumbs that they “allow” me to keep. It is not the rich, nor some terrorist, but they who are the biggest threat to our way of life. I hope and pray that if not me, atleast my children will be free from high taxes, abusive regulations and back breaking debt. I am willing to demonstrate for this, are you ?
Jimmytown
If a McMansion occupies a relative bigger lot (and footprint), then tax him more but why tax the same to a relatively smaller lot/footrpint only because he has a fully furnished basement etc. ?
Also a town can have its own fire station but the management can be under a single roof that looks after several such “fire stations” in the county. Duplication of the management in the age of technology is a waste of our money.
Does anyone know why we haven’t/don’t move to a defined contribution plan? As stated above, this was done years ago in the corporate world, so there are existing formulas and ways for doing this. Seems pretty obvious to me so I suspect there are laws on the books?
“If you find your survival impossible because the government and quasi government regulations has stacked the odds against you”
—what on earth are you talking about?
I might feel under the gun from taxes, like you, but you totally lose me with this one.
see, i have a feeling you have highly personal issues that you are disguising under vague generalities like this.
but i have never once felt that government regulations have made my “survival impossible”—and, again, I really have no idea what that could even mean.
“I have a feeling you have highly personal issues that you are disguising under vague generalities.”
jcunningham, you have just summarized, in a single sentence, my suspicion about most comments on Baristanet regarding town finances!
You lost me here:
There is a “Hosni Mubarak” at the head of every town and county in our country.
(In truth, you lost me way before that, but this just confirmed it.)
From the Montclair Times, quoting Mayor Fried
“There’s no magic wand that can create a responsible budget without a tax increase. There’s just too much of an increase in mandatory costs.”
He was duly elected to determine what is “responsible”. He will not be reelected if he runs, and will go down as the worst Mayor in Montclair ever.
The municipal building will look dramatic on March 8th. The special interests will be out just like April 2009, when Joe Hartnett produced the “draconian” budget requested by this very same council. The union leaders and their cohorts will try to line the room before others arrive, and crowd the Mic to quell the voices of struggling Montclair citizens. I expect more SNAKE OIL selling B.S. to spew from the Mayor’s mouth, as well from his lackey’s Lewis and Weller-Demming.
I await the opinions of Baskerville and Terry as they are the true swing votes on this Council. If I were Marc Dashield, I would be nervous, the blame game will be squarely dropped on him if the Mayor and his two buddies do not get their way.
Well the spew from Nick Lewis is quoted below from the Montclair Times today, he should be ashamed of himself. Does he mean if I can’t afford a penny more in property taxes and I NEED a 0% increase, I am anti-government?
“The people that are the real budget hawks, are either kidding themselves or they are just so anti-government that they are just really basically willing to destroy municipal government in the interest of not having a tax increase this year”
@ jcunningham
“I might feel under the gun from taxes, like you, but you totally lose me with this one”
When you see businesses fleeing US soil, please note that it is not only because of labor cost. Talk to anyone doing business. The regulations are becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with. A major reason why businesses are fleeing is REGULATIONS. We are loosing jobs (worse knowledge/skills) thanks to excessive and abusive regulation. It is easier to build/manufacture something overseas than in US (this is sad). Just like our debt is a risk to our survival, so is regulation and high taxes.
Take for example, Solar Technology, we found it but Singapore/China etc are reaping the benefits. Why ?
@ Hildy Fox
Please don’t blame me, were you ever not lost
The truth is media is vigilant (at best) at the national level, but when you get into local politics/finances etc, things are as bad as they are in third world countries.
Dazed,
You left out the best part of the Nick Lewis quote. i will repost:
But 3rd Ward Councilman Nick Lewis said a zero percent increase is totally unrealistic.
“The people who are the real budget hawks, they’re either kidding themselves or they are the people who are just so anti-government that they are just really basically willing to destroy municipal government in the interest of not having a tax increase this year,” Lewis said. “It just isn’t happening.”
“IT JUST ISN’T HAPPENING” Thanks for the effort, your a failure just like the Parking Authority of which you sit on the Board. This guy is a complete joke. I implore you to run again for any elected position Mr. Lewis, i will spend my hard earned money and countless hours to make sure people know how ignorant and self serving you are!
So Nick thinks everyone who CANNOT afford significant tax increases every year is anti-government? Reallly?????? And Fried thinks that everyone who files a tax appeal is a bad citizen who is hurting the rest of us? Honestly. You cannot make this stuff up. Most of the no more increases please people are not anti-government. They are anti – waste. How’s the Park St. beautification project going? And that $35mm school worked out really well too.
I’m not anti -government, but the way things are going, I have about 3 -4 years left before I have to move. I honestly cannot afford $25k a year in real estate taxes.
@ D&C,
The CCM has not stepped up yet. They are only advocating complaining so far and have yet to lay out any plan/support for how to deal with specific cuts we need. Just regurgitating historical data.
Baby steps? We are long past making baby steps and I think that is part of the problem – we allow too low a bar for results.
I am also not sure the CCM is not positioning itself for jumping off point to run candidates in the next election. I personally don’t think we can wait.
Furthermore, I agree the quotes coming from the Township Manager, Mayor, Councilor Lewis are greatly disturbing…as is the silence from the swing vote Councilors.
Let’s cut core services 15%, non-core/non-revenue producing depts 30%-50%, revenue producing depts raise fees by 20% or cut 20%, eliminate ALL perks (e.g. cars), institute a promotion freeze on top of a hiring freeze, sell some town government buildings (Public Safety, Town Hall, DPW) and distribute newly shrunk departments to existing space, outsource the Finance Department & Municipal Court, combine the Chiefs into one Public Safety Chief, have Town government closed for 2 days a week, move all Township meetings to the daytime or have them conducted at the HS which is open Monday nights anyway, etc, etc.
When someone in the future figures out how to cost-effectively reinstate some of these services, fine, add them back then. Local government has no choice but to get leaner going forward.
I guess this is what we deserve for voting for “transparency” instead of fiscal discipline.
ipsofacto, you should email CCM your ideas as to how you would do things better than they are. In the meantime, make sure you thank them if your taxes aren’t increased as much as the Council wants.
D&C – They’re reading this now and I’m sure any of the ideas posted here could be used freely now to advocate specific cuts instead of at the next election.
All due respect, ipso, those percentages seem completely arbitrary. Is there some analysis to go along with them?
Thats right jerseygurl, You can’t make this stuff up! Thus my Baristanet “handle”.
And, ipsofacto, there is a citizen’ budget committee called, the Operating Budget Advisory Committee (OBAC) that has been trying to work with the Town Manager and Town Council since its inception in December to make recommendations on how to cut costs, streamline operations, etc. OBAC is comprised of nine citizens, representing all wards in Montclair and these citizens were appointed by the Town Council. From what I have read in the Montclair Times, members of CCM are on the OBAC committee. I believe that OBAC just delivered a report to the Town Manager and the Town Council with their suggestions.
However, neither the Town Manager nor the Town Council, said anything about this report at Tuesday night’s meeting. Instead, the Town Manager brought in a consultant who seemed to know more about Montclair than the manager does.
If that is not a slap in the face to OBAC, CCM and the citizens of montclair, then I don’t know what is.
Frankly, I don’t know how OBAC was able to come up with suggestions for cutting costs, when there is so little public information on the town’s finances and operations available.
How about an org chart on the web site for starters!
The Town says “nothing can be done”, but nobody can challenge them, because there is no information available to analyze.
Yes, my percentages are arbitrary starting point based on the breakdown of 2010 budget allocations and areas of concern cited by the Township Manager. I didn’t get too bogged down in the math because I read the Township Manager told us not to.
These groups are all well and good and I appreciate any pubic light they can shed – of which there has been little. If the CCM wants to analyze data, I suggest they look at overtime. It says a lot when you look at it closely. For instance, why is the township making agreements with the County to snowplow for them. Our overtime labor cost rates are well above market. In addition, it is capital intensive because it destroys our equipment at an accelerated rate. Specialty services like clearing snow should always be contracted out. The County is smart enough to do this.
Then we a double whammy with overtime wages paid in calculating pension and benefits.
Save the time doing math and just eliminate overtime.
Just heard a rumor today that the Park St project is being fueled by the fact that the Sienna building has a major flooding issue and in order to correct it, the sewer project on S Park has to be done. What taxpayer in Montclair would want to foot the bill for the sewer project? so they are disguising it under the S.Park project! Cary? Is someone being duped? Who owns the Sienna and who would really be the ones to profit from this project?
cantmakethisstuffup,
First, thanks for educating me on OBAC. Didn’t know that. Therefore, am I to understand that OBAC, as as an advisory committee formed by Council, reports only to the Township Council. So, in defense of the Manager, it is not his place to discuss any work product or report?
Second, I missed this connection with CCM members being on the OBAC and the original Bnet story that started this thread. Specifically, the quote above “This is not a fiscally responsible or financially prudent budget! Our leadership needs to take a hard look at our municipal operations and make the tough decisions that need to be made.” So, did the CCM members miss all the OBAC meetings or did Bnet take the quote out of context?
Dear Montclairgirl,
Good grief! The flooding problem was solved at Sienna before they even started building it. They had to.
Our water/sewer utility has a prioritized list of projects and one of those projects is replacing a very ancient infrastructure below South Park. If you remember, we had a break not too long ago that was expensive to fix and quite disrupting.
We also are anticipating building on the “Haynes Parking Garage” in the near future. Plans have been submitted. That project would need a sewer upgrade and when that is done THE DEVELOPER will pay a sewer connection fee. These fees will more than pay for our sewer work. As an example, Montclair State is paying $2.6MM, above and beyond the cost of replacing sewer pipes to service their new dorms.
There’s a lot of complex, expensive, issues on the table right now, including a 7% Municipal Tax increase. Flooding is not an issue we have to worry about right now.
There is so much good stuff here I hardly know where to start. Ipso, you make great points, as do you cantmakethis.
On the day after we approved the 2010 budget I asked the manager for FIVE committees to study different aspects of the towns finances and operation. I wanted to duplicate what the BOE had done. He said “no.” No one on the Council backed me up.
Like the BOE committees analysis or not they worked hard, but in addition to having smart people on their committees that had cheerleaders — both the school business administrator, as well as the President of the BOE supported the Committee’s work and worded alongside with them. The Business Administrator freely gave them data and cooperated.
CCM was and is an “independent” group who has some members also on the town sponsored group, OBAC. They are struggling with limited data. They have a tough job ahead of them but they will make a difference. I read their report and they are trying to do “big” things.
Cary Africk