Municipal Budgets 2021 (2) Tax Rankings

How much does each municipality in Union County charge their taxpayers for the services they provide?

Other blogs in this series will compare costs by types of service, debt, insurance, and pensions. This one calculates the amount raised by taxation for 2021 divided by population which is an imperfect measurement since owners of commercial properties pay taxes (substantial in cases like our costliest municipality) but are not counted in population figures. They also do not have children to educate or entertain and on account of the jobs they provide are often a boon for their municipalities.

Advertisement

Municipal Budgets 2021 (1) Websites and Who Pays the Most and Least

That is the question we look to answer in this series.

All but two municipalities in Union County have their 2021 budgets online so this is a good time for comparisons.

We start off with links to the websites where those budgets are uploaded. On Monday we will put up a a ranking of taxes paid per capita by municipality based on these budgets and the latest census data. Future blogs will compare debt levels, number of employees, payroll, and pension and health insurance costs.

Largest Tax Increase in Recorded History

Though the records I was able to find only go back to 2014 but it was still a shock in a state that is supposed to have a cap on property tax increases to see a 4.8% increase in my property taxes in one year and a 20% increase since 2014.

The tenement project pushed by campaign donors set me off but this tax bill sealed it. An EDDM to 3,024 households was dropped off at the Kenilworth Post Office today.