Posts Tagged ‘taxes’

In normal times, in normal cities, budget prioritization isn’t really a big deal.  Political factions will scream and yell for their interests to be accommodated.  In a complicated dance of political give and take eventually budgets get done.  

For the most part, even if budget items don’t yield their promised results no one really cares because the basics were covered.  The trash still got picked up, schools didn’t close, the police responded to calls and property taxes are still a fraction of the cost of home ownership. Read the rest of this entry »

The theme for last night’s City Council Special Session on the budget was, “The mess we’re in isn’t my fault”.

The administration officially proposed a budget that raises property taxes by almost 20% which would make Trenton’s rate by far the highest in NJ.

The Mayor spoke first.  Let me summarize. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was originally published in the August 2008 edition of the Trenton Downtowner – D. Dodson

Trentonians pay for only 14% of the cost of running the city. If our external funders get tired of it, we’re in big trouble.

It isn’t clear how a city goes bankrupt. Technically bankruptcy occurs when an entity can’t pay its debt obligations. But a city can raise taxes and cut city services to the bone well before bankruptcy. In this case, the city simply ceases to be livable (e.g. Camden) Read the rest of this entry »