Just months after attacking Jersey City’s budget process in a widely publicized Op-ed piece, Ward E Councilman James Solomon will offer a four-point plan to “combat tax increases and wasteful spending.”
“Jersey City’s 2022 budget was unacceptable. Jersey City residents faced harsh new tax increases, and it may get worse” said Solomon in a press release yesterday.
In his Op-ed Solomon predicted that the city would be facing a $70 million budget deficit for 2023. The 2022 deficit, he said, had only been closed with $70 million of federal money from the American Rescue Plan.
Even with that money, according to Solomon, cuts had to be made across departments ranging from Parking Enforcement to City Planning.
“For too long,” Solomon wrote yesterday “we’ve allowed developers to get away with not paying their fair share while working families shoulder the burden. Meanwhile, incompetence —from late audits to unmonitored overtime—has only ballooned.”
Solomon says he will roll out his plan this month. It includes introducing an ordinance to cut wasteful overtime spending and strengthen oversight, a “Millionaire’s Land Tax,” a new tax on developers every time they flip land, and a plan “to audit every contract at the county, municipal, and school governments” to ensure they do not contain illegal “boat” or “going-away” payments that allow the “politically-connected” to receive “payments ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.”