Have you been following the news about NJ state budget cuts and Trenton city tax increases? Are you wondering what it all means, and how it could have gotten so bad? You’re not alone.

Why not join the Committee to Fix Trenton’s Budget and help us do something about it!

We are a group of Trenton residents who are working to understand the City’s budget in depth: how it spends money, and where it gets its revenues. We intend to recommend policies to the next administration of the City of Trenton, and the new state administration, that will help Trenton continue to develop, and ultimately lower our real estate taxes and reduce our dependency on the State budget. It’s not something that can happen overnight, but it CAN HAPPEN.

Joining is easy. Any registered voter residing in the City of Trenton who is not currently a candidate for office may join. Just agree to leave politics as usual outside the door and work towards a better Trenton.

A first step is to click the “Register” link in the sidebar. This will add you to our newsletter email list, and make sure that you hear about all of our upcoming activities.

Moody’s is downgrading our debt which means it will be harder and more expensive to borrow.  They cite our continued dependence on State Aid as a reason.  

Voters need to understand that its the politicians THEY elect who have made the bad decisions over the years that got us in to this mess.  These are serious issues that will lead either higher taxes, lower quality of life or both.   

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/05/post_97.html

This article was posted by activist Jim Carlucci who recognized a good thing when he saw it.  Hopefully our candidates are paying attention as concerned citizens should pester Council and the new Admin until Trenton is Managed by the Numbers.

Basically, Baltimore and New Orleans (two very down in the dumps cities) are taking steps to improve their operations and therefore reduce cost while improving services.  Trentonians have been asking for this kind of transparency for years as a way to better manage the city. 

This article from New Orleans lays out the concept and the benefit of data anaylsis pretty well.

N.O. plans to govern by the numbers

Here is a copy of the strongly worded letter from the State’s Dept. of Community Affairs ordering our city council to pass a budget.  The letter was sent in April.

The Fix Trenton’s Budget committee’s first project is complete.  We published the results of our budget scorecard.

Please see our results page and perhaps download the answers and scoring rationale to get more in depth.

Results

Trentonians woke up to the news that the state has mandated a 22% increase in our property tax.  Our city officials failed to pass a budget on their own.  This will be devastating to many Trentonians and painful for all.

It didn’t have to happen this way.

• Every budget for the last 8 years could have done better at revitalizing our city.  Neither the admin nor council knew what to do.
• We could have had a budget process that would enable priority setting.  Instead the admin gave and council took a process that rammed budget after budget down our throats.
• We could have prepared better for need for a vote on the Water Works deal.  Instead the admin, thought it knew best

The Fix Trenton’s Budget committee knows that while the 22% increase is bad, next year’s possible 80% increase will be worse.  Look for a emails from us later in the week providing results or our candidate budget survey.  We’ll score the candidates best able to deal with the terrible choices and prudent improvements that will have to be made to save our city.

State dictates a 22 percent tax increase – Trenton Times

The committee worked pretty hard to pull together a budget survey that would both represent a point of view and allow candidates to express theirs.   The survey went out on tax day, April 15 and the candidates have until the 22nd to respond.

Responses are already coming in (it’s a quick multiple choice format).

The useful think about multiple choice is that in addition to relaying the individual answers to voters, we’ll actually be able to score the replies and produce overall preferences for candidates based on their understanding and positions regarding revitalization and the budget.

If you’re one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of people who in the committee members personal networks, neighborhood associations and email lists (including the hundreds of Reinvent Trenton readers), you’ll get the results well in time to influence your vote on May 11.

A citizen’s group made of a diverse group of activists and businesspeople in Trenton has formed to make recommendations on the way forward for Trenton’s financial stability. We call ourselves The Committee to Fix Trenton’s Budget.

Our purpose is threefold

1. To define an open budget process for the City’s government.
2. To establish a rational set of policies to govern the relationship between the City and State government, that will enable the city to develop economically and ultimately reduce its dependence on State funding.
3. To educate Trenton citizens and politicians about the City’s budget, and to encourage the adoption of budget and taxation policies that will help the City move forward.

We recognize that a dramatic, sudden and unexpected decrease in the level of state funding to Trenton’s municipal and school budgets may cause irreversible harm to Trenton’s ability to maintain a civil society. However, we believe that protest without a rational plan to accomplish the State’s broad goal of reducing its level of funding to municipalities is equally irresponsible. We call on Trenton’s future leaders to work with us to craft a plan that will significantly reduce our dependence on aid while providing a coherent formula by which the state can pay its fair share of funding for city services commensurate with the value and acreage of property it occupies in the Capitol City.

We as residents and political leaders owe it to our NJ neighbors and to our own dignity as citizens to provide a timetable and a strategic plan by which Trenton can become a healthy city and a vibrant engine for our regional economy.

To that end, we recommend that rather than open protest in the streets, Trenton’s current political leadership engage the city’s legislative team and representatives from the Governor’s office in a negotiation for stop gap measures both from the state and from the city to begin to process of meaningful revitalization. The Committee to Fix Trenton’s Budget stands ready to provide citizen input and technical assistance in this endeavor.

Second, we request that the city administration work with our group to provide necessary input to conduct data driven analysis to develop budget policy going forward.

Finally, we recommend that candidates for the 2010 Trenton elections make commitments to support the tenets of budget reform as outlined by the citizen’s group. We ask that candidates work with us to develop a deeper understanding of the measures needed to end our dependence on aid and to not just cut costs but rather to revitalize Trenton to a level which we can all enjoy and be proud of.

The group’s recommendations are currently outlined on our web site and will include deeper specification and analysis in the weeks ahead.


Mayor's Address on the State budget cuts (66)