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WOW, I have to say that I am shocked at how much lower many of your taxes are than mine.
We had a re-assessment this year, our cost went up but not by much because we live in new construction.
I guess you do need to stay clear of Robbinsville!
One of the shocking facts, I learned about Paterson (I was a resident in the Hillcrest section for 53 years before moving to NC) was how expensive the school system had become and how little is covered by the property taxes Paterson residents pay. The school system costs more than $570,000,000 and taxes by the residents for the schools cover a little more than $70,000,000. The rest is paid for by Abbott School District money. In most suburban school districts (an example would be Ridgewood) nearly all of school costs are paid for locally by property taxes (in Ridgewood 88%). If Paterson had to pay its own school costs by its own taxpayers, the property taxes on a house in Paterson would be in the range of $40,000 or so. I don't understand how this happened. When I went to school there in the late 50's and 60's (School 27 and JFK HS.), I doubt that the state had to pony up such exorbitant sums, if any, in those days. The test scores of the schools back then were probably fairly comparable to the outlying suburbs. When I took the SAT in 1968-1969, if you didn't get at least 1200 (out of 1600) or so, you were suicidal. Now, when I look at the SAT scores for my old HS, they seem downright pathetic. I suspect with the new school funding plan the Governor is proposing, that the usual increases in education funding for the Abbott districts will not happen. I like the system in NC, where the county runs the schools and every student is allocated an equal amount of money. You can also attend a school in another town if you don't like the one your child is in ( you have to pay the tranportation costs to the school tho'). This seems like a much fairer system, but with NJ home rule in place that will probably never happen! I guess for NJ cities in general the new mantra will be "I'm not paying more taxes so if some "child gets left behind" -too bad so sad! But if that becomes the case, NJ better start saving for more jails which make the expenses of a school system seem cheap!
Absolutely! The Abbott ruling was the most outrageous court decision in NJ history. The NJ supreme court has no right legislating school funding. There are many aspects of Corzine's school funding bill that I don't like, but limiting the Abbott funding is a great thing. If we have learned ANYTHING, it is that throwing money at the problem doesn't fix it.
BTW. Someone I work with lives in Paterson. He recently told me that pre-k is free in Paterson. 8 Hrs a day, 5 days a week. I am shocked that the tax payers have to pay for pre K for all the citizens of Paterson! My friend can certainly afford to pay for his own kids preschool. Why should the rest of us have to pay for HIS kids?
Absolutely! The Abbott ruling was the most outrageous court decision in NJ history. The NJ supreme court has no right legislating school funding. There are many aspects of Corzine's school funding bill that I don't like, but limiting the Abbott funding is a great thing. If we have learned ANYTHING, it is that throwing money at the problem doesn't fix it.
BTW. Someone I work with lives in Paterson. He recently told me that pre-k is free in Paterson. 8 Hrs a day, 5 days a week. I am shocked that the tax payers have to pay for pre K for all the citizens of Paterson! My friend can certainly afford to pay for his own kids preschool. Why should the rest of us have to pay for HIS kids?
I grew up in a time when pre-K was unknown. I agree with you that if Paterson's kids get free pre-K then so should everybody else's. It also costs almost $2k more in funding to send a kid to Eastside HS in Paterson vs Ridgewood HS. Of course, Ridgewood doesn't need to have six police cruisers standing by, when school gets out! Spending that extra $2K gets you what - higher dropout rates and embarrassing test scores. Even with state control, the school systems of the large NJ cities are an unmitigated disaster! Abbott hasn't done a damn thing to improve education. Then consider all the wasted money that was spent supposedly "refurbishing" schools that disappeared into someone's pocket.
My taxes on a three bedroom 1 bath 45x112 Cape Cod in Paterson - $5100
My taxes on a four bedroom 3000 sq ft 2.5 bath 71x165 Colonial in NC - $2300
Good!! We need the votes. If you settle in northern NJ, Sussex and Warren Counties are Repub strongholds. Not sure about Morris County.
Big issue is the clout the urban poitical machines have over sucking money out of the suburbs with no accounting for it once they get it.
morris county is solidly red.
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OMG!
