A neighbor pointed out that Trenton has the highest effective tax rate in Mercer County and another neighbor blamed Governor Christie for it while also suggesting that Princetonians shouldn’t complain about their taxes because Trenton’s tax rate is so much higher.  Rather than tie up the neighborhood e-group I thought I’d comment further on Reinvent Trenton.

Trenton has had the highest effective tax rate in the entire State of NJ (not just Mercer County) for a long time.   Trenton’s rate is 4.753% and Princeton’s is 2.031%.
Mercer County Tax Rates by municipality

Despite any partisan claim that this is somehow the current Governor’s fault, we’ve had the highest rate since as long as I’ve been tracking it which goes back to Corzine and McGreevy.   If one wants to assign blame, we’ve had Democratic Mayors for the 24 years it took for our tax rate to climb to where it is.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget what the situation would be if we weren’t an Abbott school district (that’s what you are if you’re so destitute that you can’t pay for education), our tax rate would be double than what it is now.   The State pays for our public schools.

However, The comparison to Princeton is correct.   People are generally oblivious to their tax “rate” and instead focus mistakenly on absolute value of the tax bill.   It’s our tax rate (in some cases higher than mortgage interest) that scares away new investment.

We do not have a cost problem.

Our costs are comparable to similar cities.  Politicians like to suggest to citizens that they are cutting costs but in a city like ours, that’s like cutting bone, a bad idea. Even our wasteful spending on parades and festivals is just a drop in the overall budget.

One notable exception is that Camden’s (a city with slightly lower median income than Trenton) policing costs are now much lower than Trenton’s and for what appears to be a superior level of service.  Camden’s solution was drastic and many people (mostly those in police unions) deride it.  Nonetheless regionalization (whether its union busting or not) should be considered.

While we can certainly be smarter about our spending, it’s not the big problem.

Our Big problem is revenue!

Hopefully everyone in Trenton is up to date on the drivers of our municipal and school budgets and the actual structural problems as they relate to State payments to Trenton (CMPTRA formulas, Energy Tax Receipt formulas, State PILOT payments, Transitional Aid and Abbott funding).   All of these sources measure in the millions.   Our immediate problem with the state is that the formulas are either incorrect, not being maintained or both.

Federal law prevents Municipal governments from taxing State governments.  That hasn’t prevented other state capitols in this country from being successful cities.  If one investigates some of those cities (“Fix Trenton’s Budget” did a few years ago) they find that NJ’s compensation package to Trenton is on par or better than most.  It’s what we’ve done with our limited resources that has caused the problem.

Trenton has been shortchanged on CMPTRA (includes taxes on business that the state collects on our behalf) and Energy Tax Receipts (state collects money from for energy companies on our behalf).   The previous administrations (Mack and Palmer) were asleep at the wheel on these issues.  We’ve forfeited millions of dollars (at last count over $20M as I recall).  Meanwhile the league of municipalities has spearheaded an effort to fix this.   Our current admin and council are somewhat more familiar with the subject and will hopefully lend Trenton’s weight to the effort to overhaul this payment system.

The fundamental problem revenue side of the equation.   Not one single policy has been enacted to drive investment in Trenton since I’ve lived until this week.  The “Vacant Property Registration Fee” measure is the first policy I know of in the last 14 years that seeks to stimulate an increase in our tax base.   The proposed property revaluation would be another and if we get our act together on use of the Abandoned Properties Act and Homesteading (buying City owned houses for $1) those will be 3 more.

We’ll continue to have the highest tax rate in the state until we straighten out our revenues.   Cutting costs is easy, anybody can do that and then not take blame for the results.  Fixing a city’s revenue picture takes imagination and thought.

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