Toms River and Lacey Township took advantage of the NJ legislature’s NEW bill and raised school taxes 9.9%. Depending on where you live, school taxes account for roughly
Going From 2% to 9.9%
In 2010, Chris Christie, with the help of the legislature, lowered the existing ceiling on annual property taxes as a means to control property tax growth by not allowing districts to raise taxes above 2% without taking it to the voters first. Even with this cap, New Jersey still has the highest property taxes in the nation.
The Funding Formula
In, addition to property taxes, schools get funding from the state according to the funding formula. For the past 5 years Tom’s River and Lacey Township had massive cuts in their state aid by this mysterious Funding Formula. There were several other districts with similar cuts and you have to wonder when those schools will raise the property taxes.
Does anyone really care?
I was told that hardly any property owners showed up to these BOE meetings to argue against the raise in taxes. In contrast, the NJEA was out in full force to support it. Maybe it’s because people have no idea how property tax works? Or maybe its because they really do not care how their government works. I’m not saying that people needed to come out in droves to prevent this tax increase but they didn’t even come out to question why this was happening. My guess is that everyone is clueless and will be quite shocked come tax time next year.