Trenton Picks Up Momentum

UPDATE BELOW:

As Lauren Ira wrote last week, nothing seems to be slowing Trenton’s momentum. However, we seem to be careening and accelerating in the in the wrong direction.

The papers are talking this morning about another proposed property tax hike being put forward by the Mack Administration to help close the budget shortfall in the current fiscal year ending June 30. As Meir Rinde’s story in the Times this morning explains, the latest announced proposed increase of 43 cents is in addition to the 30-cent increase sought by Mayor Mack in January.  This will bring the cumulative increase to be imposed on us poor taxpayers to a whopping 73 cents in one year.

If this development has a bit of deja vu about it, that’s because it does. At the time of the announcement of the last increase in early January 8, I speculated then – based on numbers crunched by the good citizens of the Fix Trenton’s Budget Committee – that the 30-cent increase put forth then was not going to be enough to close the budget gap.

At that time, six weeks ago, the FTB Committee was estimating the real budget gap would require a tax increase of 77 cents. With yesterday’s announcement, the increases proposed by Tony Mack total 73 cents. The 4-cent difference I figure is due to the efficiencies – namely the St. Scholastica’s Day Massacre Layoffs announced last Thursday (hey! the mayor wanted to avoid “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” headlines, but he couldn’t avoid harshing St. Scholastica’s mellow!) – that the Administration was able to work out.

So, if FTB – working with the same data the City has available to it, came up with the accurate numbers back at the beginning of the year, why did we go through this two-stage tax increase ballet? I don’t know. But, this is what I had to say back then, on January 9:

FTB’s calculation is that a tax rate of $4.10 is required to balance this year’s budget, an increase of 77-cents, without any more massive layoffs or other significant expense cuts. This increase would generate in the neighborhood of $15.2 Million. Given our realities, this number seems more accurate to me, even though it was calculated before the news a few days ago about the inaccurate layoff numbers; if there are more people on the payroll than planned for at this point, we are even further in the hole to pay for them than FTB calculated.

Make no mistake, this would be a huge increase, far higher than the 55-cent increase imposed at the end of the last fiscal year. A 77-cent rise would be retroactive to last July 1, so the tax bills from the city from now until June would need to reflect the higher amounts not billed from the first months of the year. Remember the huge bills you got this past Spring? This would be worse. The bottom line is that an increase of this size, while something to avoid at all costs, seems more realistic than the 30-cent increase proposed by the Administration.

As I said yesterday [Jan.8], I still don’t get why the Administration would present such unrealistically low numbers at this point. The Mayor and his colleagues do no one any favors, least of all the poor taxpayers of the City, by trying to present this kind of increase now if they possess anything like the same numbers that FTB is looking at, which lead to the inescapable conclusion that if a 30-cent increase is approved by Council now, another big increase will come down on us in the Spring.

So, here we are. It’s not even Spring yet, but the rest of the tax increase that I and Fix Trenton’s Budget saw coming in January is here. Pro-rating this latest big increase will mean another whopper 4th-Quarter bill for taxpayers.

Terrific.

One other aspect to this announcement is worrisome to me. To be frank, I don’t know if I can trust the City’s numbers. The announcements of the city’s financial position at any given point in time over the last several months has been a constantly moving target, without any hard and fast actual budget numbers to date or projections going forward to base them on. We’ve had a series of Acting Business Administrators working with the numbers. As capable as the current team under the current Acting BA Elaine Adams may be, they are working under very adverse circumstances and poor leadership from the second floor of City Hall.

And now, we see a report from LA Parker in today’s Trentonian that the current state of affairs may be scaring away recently-confirmed BA Sam Hutchinson from assuming his new job. I suppose a hearty, bubbling stew of abysmal municipal finances simmering along with a swirl of rumored legal hi-jinks may not be quite as much of a draw as I had been figuring.

Surely, the lack of professional continuity in the Business office this year has not helped get a handle on things, despite the skill and dedication of the permanent employees in the office. We are now facing a very tough next four and a half months largely due, as in so many things, to the failures of the Mack Administration to anticipate our financial circumstances, acknowledge the advice and offers of assistance from citizens such as FTB, and to level with the citizens of this town months ago.

Happy 73 cents, everyone.

UPDATE: 12:30 PM

There is a press release on the City Website announcing the new tax increase, which was forwarded to me by Meir Rinde of the Times, who wrote today’s article. Thanks, Meir.

The city’s release clarifies a few things. Namely, the 43-cent increase announced today is not ON TOP of the previously-proposed 30-cent deal. It replaces it. The net increase from the rate in effect last June 30 will be 43 cents total, to $3,76 per $100 of valuation, if approved by Council as part of a full budget presentation from the Administration.

That helps clarify some things.

With some additional information in that release, I roughed out some estimates of where the city’s budget position looks like heading toward June 30.  I think we are closer to a balanced budget, but still have some way to go. It would be nice to see a real budget document to vet these numbers, and not just a release, but this helps for now.