How about this for a headline instead:
NJ Towns and their Public Schools are in general, just wasteful, bloated bureaucracies, with generous wages for big staffs and automatic wage and pension increases from public sector unionized contracts. Visit a town hall, city hall or county office. Most of the time, unfortunately, employees are unresponsive, rude and lazy. Most jobs that are handled by three that can be done by one. The paperwork and reporting requirements make efficiency impossible. Here we have the largest newspaper in the State essentially reprinting a government press release with supporting quotes. The Star-Ledger has always been the press agency tool of the State and local government agencies and should be ashamed. m/r
How N.J. towns' countless tax appeal settlements are costing the state billions | NJ.com
By Stephen Stirling and Sarah Portlock/The Star-Ledger 3-28-12
Swamped with a near-record number of tax appeals, New Jersey municipalities are choosing to settle more than ever rather than fight them, costing the state billions of dollars in lost tax base and wreaking havoc on local budgets, a Star-Ledger analysis has found.
With more than 87,000 homeowners and businesses filing appeals last year, settling has become the most cost-effective means of limiting the damage to municipalities, where in many cases properties were last assessed before the housing market crashed. Still, last year, municipalities lost more than $3.8 billion in their tax base because of reduced assessments, more than double the total from 2008.
The findings are the result of an analysis of more than 20 years of data from the state Treasury Department’s Division of Taxation.
As the April 2 deadline for property owners to file tax appeals fast approaches, administrators and finance directors across the state say the flood of appeals hasn’t abated.
"We’ve seen people at the counter continuously," said East Brunswick Finance Director L. Mason Neely. "Have you seen any major change in the housing market? Until we do, this is something we’re going to have to deal with." ...
..."Essentially, some towns were getting hit with appeals that were so bad that they didn’t have cash to refund them," said Wharton Administrator Jon Rheinhardt. "It puts them in a situation where their financial position is weakened and that can take a long time to get out of."-More of this government biased article at the link-
There is no mention of what really needs to be done, spend less, cut their fat, always increasing budgets!
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