Jersey City residents will wait another week after city leaders postponed a vote on a temporary 20% property tax increase until July 1.
Mayor James Solomon proposed the temporary increase last week, saying it is needed to help close a $255 million budget deficit.
The City Council had been scheduled to vote on Wednesday night, but Solomon pulled the measure from the agenda hours before the meeting after mounting public opposition. Members will instead consider it at a special meeting on July 1.
Solomon told reporters at the start of Wednesday’s City Council meeting that he’s directed his administration to identify additional cuts to city services and to try to rewrite the resolution to reduce the tax hike.
“ We postponed the vote today based on what I heard from residents,” Solomon said. “They said, ‘You're moving a little too fast, too quick, that we understand there's a crisis, but can you do more to spread it out? What are your other options to cut, even if those cuts are for essential city services?’ So I took those two real comments to heart.”
Solomon will host a community meeting on Sunday evening at the City Hall Annex to hear more public feedback ahead of the special meeting.
City Council President Denise Ridley said she appreciated the delay.
“I've heard from residents across every ward that this increase, as proposed, moves too fast for too many household budgets," Ridley said in a statement. "Postponing this vote gives us additional time to look line by line at where we can cut back on spending and to hear directly from the people who will feel this the most.”
City leaders have asked for $150 million in state aid to help navigate the crisis. Negotiations over how much state aid Jersey City will receive remain ongoing as state leaders finalize New Jersey's budget in Trenton.
Jersey City residents have seen their tax rates go up 40% over the last five years under former Mayor Steven Fulop, whom Solomon has accused of severe fiscal mismanagement.
Solomon and city officials have repeatedly blamed Jersey City’s budget crisis on Fulop, who now leads the nonprofit Partnership for New York City after a failed run for New Jersey governor last year.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill and top state lawmakers announced Tuesday that they’d reached a spending deal, but the announcement provided no details on what Jersey City may get from it, and the budget bill still has not been introduced. State leaders must enact the new budget before July 1 to avoid a state government shutdown.
“ We're having to contemplate massive tax increases, serious service cuts, and those only deepen on both sides if we don't get the support that we're asking for,” Solomon said Wednesday night.
The mayor said there’s no formal arrangement with state leaders that makes state aid contingent on local tax hikes.
“ I think the core though, which is important, is Trenton has made clear to Jersey City that if they are putting real aid and support in the form of loans and additional aid, that we need to be doing our part,” Solomon said. “So Trenton understands that, we understand that.”
City leaders have sought to find savings by switching health care providers and canceling the long-touted Pompidou development. The Via Jersey City microtransit service is facing cutbacks or outright elimination.
The city has also launched audits of existing tax incentive deals and has moved to step up enforcement of traffic violations and code violations as part of efforts to raise new revenues.
Solomon has warned city residents that, despite the delay on Wednesday, tax hikes and further cuts to city services are inevitable.
“We will feel these cuts,” Solomon said in a prepared statement. “The size and scope of the City’s fiscal emergency means we are facing very real tradeoffs.”
Jersey City leaders have delayed adopting a new budget until there is clarity on how much state aid will be sent. Solomon has said he plans to give his budget proposal to the City Council on July 15.
The mayor has scheduled four town halls about the proposed tax increase and the budget crisis at different locations around the city in the coming weeks.
Solomon told reporters he does not expect taxes to rise more than 20% in the city’s next budget, but that depends on what comes out of the State House.
“ We're not going to go higher than the number that's introduced for the third quarter. We will be clear that the third quarter number either stays the same or it goes down through the continued work of cuts and budget changes,” Solomon said. “It will not go up except, and this is the exception, except if the state aid does not come in.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
