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I think someone posted an article up yesterday that mentioned that Philadelphia police commissioner made 186k last year managing a force of 6000 for a population of 1.4 million. The police chief for Manchester looked like he's managing 10 and population of 41k for over 210k. How does that work again? New Jersey is corrupted to the core including all the high paying politician, police, teachers, etc etc. How about doing some mergers/acquisition between towns that are simply wasting money on excess resources and lay off some government workers/just simply give out salary cuts to the ones that doesn't deserve it. It makes me think why I even went to college when I can join the force and earn twice as much with a high school degree along with job safety and some ridiculous benefits.
Before this thread also gets closed, I will make my point
This topic has been discussed numerous times (within just this month) and I have seen it get diverted to other talk by some posters who wont acknowledge a problem, instead hijack the topic,
the problem is crystal clear and solution is obvious.
high property tax, why it is high ? average town spends 60% of the tax on education, 20% goes to county and 20% to town services which includes cops salary
so naturally the way to fix this is by reducing the biggest chunk which is school budget, how to accomplish this ?
- double class size and fire half of the teachers. Who has set the class size to be 10, why not it be 20, 30 ? China and India are doing fine churning out engineers and scientist
with 50-60 class sizes. Parent involvement is what makes the difference and not the class size. Get out of "Horsepower" mode, class size of 10 is not guaranteed to give you
brilliant student. I would rather have fired teachers and cops leave the state instead of other residents who cant make ends meet paying property taxes
- convert schools to summer camp during summer months so teachers wont have extended vacation and schools will get more revenue
- within a school district have just one superintendent and team of managers take care of all the schools instead of having separate management for each school
If all other states can teach a child with fractions of cost then what is different for New Jersey. Please if you are serious about making difference and reduce property tax don't argue with "watermelon" who cant even give proper analogy. Just spread the word out, educate people and long term things will start getting better automatically.
What makes NJ so desirable for people that they want to live here is that we have the best schools in the nation. While there may be ways to improve efficiency and cut some waste, it certainly is not going to amount to eliminating HALF of all teachers and all the other idiotic things you suggest.
Your recommendations amount to curing a headache by chopping off the head.
Furthermore, all your recommendations are based on your pure opinion. For example, your assertion that class sizes are set at 10 is stupid and wrong,
In a state full of some of the richest people in the country, who bilked and swindled this country into near economic ruin . . . some people want to play class war with cops and teachers who make $60k a year? AYFKM?
If they were such great jobs with lavish over-compensation then why aren't people busting down the door to be teachers and cops?
My cousin is a 4th year teacher in a wealthy, Monmouth Co. school district. I can tell you that neither she nor any of her peers make $60k per year. Her salary won't qualify her for a mortgage in the town she works in - or in any of the towns around there. She'd love to hear how she's overpaid and underworked.
most of us are missing the point, LEAVING ALL OTHER ARGUMENTS ASIDE,
if i am paying $10000 per year with $6000 going to school district.
How can I lower $10000 ? Pay less to school district, as simple as that. I dont care if other profession are making ten times of what teachers are making, I simply want to pay less property tax and only way that can happen is by lower school budget and that can only happen by firing teachers.
What makes NJ so desirable for people that they want to live here is that we have the best schools in the nation. While there may be ways to improve efficiency and cut some waste, it certainly is not going to amount to eliminating HALF of all teachers and all the other idiotic things you suggest.
Your recommendations amount to curing a headache by chopping off the head.
Furthermore, all your recommendations are based on your pure opinion. For example, your assertion that class sizes are set at 10 is stupid and wrong,
atleast I am suggesting some workaround , can you please provide some insight how you want to tackle high property tax leaving all other argument aside ?
most of us are missing the point, LEAVING ALL OTHER ARGUMENTS ASIDE,
if i am paying $10000 per year with $6000 going to school district.
How can I lower $10000 ? Pay less to school district, as simple as that. I dont care if other profession are making ten times of what teachers are making, I simply want to pay less property tax and only way that can happen is by lower school budget and that can only happen by firing teachers.
The point is that of the $6000 going to the school, you're not going to get away with cutting it too much before the quality of the school suffers. When the school's quality goes down, it directly affects home values and it indirectly affects the town and state. Maybe taxes can be lowered a little, but not by much. Not 50%, but maybe 5%, MAYBE 10%.
What you don't understand is that this is not strictly about numbers. It's about opinions. Some people think the schools will be "good enough" after firing half the teachers, some think they will go down the toilet if you do that. Neither side has perfect, hard data that unquestionably confirms or denies their respective views. The end result is that people seem to prefer to err on the side of overspending and even wasting money and keeping school quality at the top rather than err on the side of spending less in taxes and dealing with the consequences of poor schools (lower home values, less educated populace, lower wages, less high-paying jobs, etc.).
The short-sighted people who want to save $1000 or so in taxes don't want to look at long-term effects. Those of us who see the big picture realize that short-term savings isn't worth the long-term costs.
atleast I am suggesting some workaround , can you please provide some insight how you want to tackle high property tax leaving all other argument aside ?
Well, the way I'd want to handle it won't sit well with the majority of people complaining about taxes...
What I'd like to do is get the Federal government to stop taking almost half of the tax money we send them and then spending it on other states. When they do that, they leave our state in a lurch. We now have to fund the infrastructure and services that those $$$ would have helped pay for. So where does our state get that money? We pay it ourselves. State income tax and property tax.
Proportionately, other states' schools are not spending much less (if less at all) than our schools. The difference is that those states save money on funding their schools because they are getting a windfall from the Federal goveernment (who is getting the money from us in NJ and a few other wealthy states) and they are willing to sacrifice quality to save a few more bucks. The result is that they deal with the consequences - largely ignorant population which relies on lower-paying jobs and blue collar work that hangs its hopes on certain companies and industries so that when they hit hard times the entire town, county, or state also hits hard times. Overall they have lower-paying jobs, less opportunities, and more problems with crime, drugs, teen pregnancies, welfare, etc.
You can't expect to get the horsepower of a Ferrari by budgeting for the fuel consumption of a Hyundai econobox. If you want high power, you need lots of expensive fuel. If you want low power, you can spend less on fuel. NJ is like a Ferrari; the costs are high and the output is high. There are other states like us, and there are other states where costs are low and output is low.
But suggesting that we can cut back on the input and maintain a high output is irrational. We can fine tune it and eliminate some waste and save some money as taxpayers, but it will be a nominal savings, not a huge one.
Anyway, we will never see the Federal government refrain from redistribution of wealth from states like NJ to states like Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, etc. Ironically, the ones who will never let that happen are the very Republicans from those states who will do anything to protect the system that redistributes wealth from wealthy blue states to their poor red states. It's ironic because they are the ones who whine and cry about "redistribution of wealth" being "communist" and "marxist" when all the while they themselves are benefiting from it and protecting it.
The point is that of the $6000 going to the school, you're not going to get away with cutting it too much before the quality of the school suffers. When the school's quality goes down, it directly affects home values and it indirectly affects the town and state. Maybe taxes can be lowered a little, but not by much. Not 50%, but maybe 5%, MAYBE 10%.
What you don't understand is that this is not strictly about numbers. It's about opinions. Some people think the schools will be "good enough" after firing half the teachers, some think they will go down the toilet if you do that. Neither side has perfect, hard data that unquestionably confirms or denies their respective views. The end result is that people seem to prefer to err on the side of overspending and even wasting money and keeping school quality at the top rather than err on the side of spending less in taxes and dealing with the consequences of poor schools (lower home values, less educated populace, lower wages, less high-paying jobs, etc.).
The short-sighted people who want to save $1000 or so in taxes don't want to look at long-term effects. Those of us who see the big picture realize that short-term savings isn't worth the long-term costs.
I dont want to get into discussion and hijack the real topic but in short if whole world including 49 US states can have "decent" school system with partial cost of what it incurs in NJ, something has to be done about NJ school districts. It has nothing to do if a banker is making 7 figures or Corzine sucks, the topic is to lower property tax and to do that we have to lower school budget and for that we have to cut down teacher strength. If NY schools is spending $X (assuming that $4X is not funded by federal govt as you are claiming) per pupil and have "decent" school districts then why NJ is spending $5X to have perceptive "excellent" school districts.
I dont want to get into discussion and hijack the real topic but in short if whole world including 49 US states can have "decent" school system with partial cost of what it incurs in NJ, something has to be done about NJ school districts. It has nothing to do if a banker is making 7 figures or Corzine sucks, the topic is to lower property tax and to do that we have to lower school budget and for that we have to cut down teacher strength. If NY schools is spending $X (assuming that $4X is not funded by federal govt as you are claiming) per pupil and have "decent" school districts then why NJ is spending $5X to have perceptive "excellent" school districts.
But then you kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Let's say a NJ town - Ridgemont Lakes - has a top notch school system.
Median home price is $600,000.
Property Tax on a $600,000 home is $8000.
Ridgemont Lakes' residents want to cut property taxes, so they elect officials who cut the schools' staff by 50% and reduce other school-related spending by 50%.
Property Taxes go down from $8000 to $5000, and residents are happy.
Over the next 5 years, however, school quality goes down. The school goes from being top notch to being average. Along with this comes the problems of a more average school - less security, more bullying and other negative incidents. People who would have loved to live in Ridgemont Lakes years ago now would not consider moving there because of the school system.
Home values decrease; the median home value is now $500,000.
Since homes are now assessed at a lower value, the town doesn't collect $5000 on average, they collect $4500 on average. That's $500 per property which they do not now have. That is money for the town's infrastructure and services. What do they do now? They look to cut services or they must raise property taxes.
First they cut services. Instead of garbage pickup twice a week they now have it once a week. Prospective homebuyers hear this and now Ridgemont Lakes is even less desirable to live in. Fewer homebuyers select Ridgemont Lakes and median home price drops to $450,000.
Now that homes are assessed at a lower cost on average, the property tax revenue decreases again. Average tax goes from $4500 down to $4250. This time, though, instead of cutting services, the town decides to raise taxes. They raise it to $4700 average. Now residents are paying more taxes with less services and lower home values.
The only way to make Ridgemont Lakes' home values rise is to invest in the town, to make it more desirable.
Had they not messed with the school, they would not have initiated the chain reaction that led to lower home values and lower tax revenues for services other than the school.
The short-sighted people who want to save $1000 or so in taxes don't want to look at long-term effects. Those of us who see the big picture realize that short-term savings isn't worth the long-term costs.
Of course, because anyone who has come to a different conclusion than you must not be looking at the big picture and the long-term effects.
Because it's not possible they might have thought it through themselves, after all they disagree with you!
Many smaller towns have eliminated their local police forces (like mine, Hainesport) and went with state police and seem quite happy with the savings and service.
That works in tiny towns. Try it in a larger town, and you'll see state income taxes skyrocket.
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