{"id":15836,"date":"2020-01-14T02:39:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T07:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=15836"},"modified":"2020-01-14T02:39:30","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T07:39:30","slug":"murphy-vetoes-bill-that-would-allow-brick-boe-to-exceed-tax-hike-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2020\/01\/murphy-vetoes-bill-that-would-allow-brick-boe-to-exceed-tax-hike-cap\/","title":{"rendered":"Murphy Vetoes Bill That Would Allow Brick BOE to Exceed Tax Hike Cap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Toms<\/a>

Toms River, Brick and students from 70 other districts across New Jersey attend a rally in Trenton over school funding cuts, March 5, 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

What some saw as a fix for an underfunded school district was seen by others as the proverbial straw that would break the camel\u2019s back: the ability to raise property taxes above the state\u2019s 2 percent cap to compensate for Trenton\u2019s $23 million funding cut for Brick schools.<\/p>\n

Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday vetoed legislation that would have allowed the Board of Education to raise taxes above the cap, saying the legislature should consider raising the state\u2019s so-called \u201cmillionaires\u2019 tax\u201d instead. Under a previous bill signed into law by Murphy known as S-2, Brick is losing $23 million in funding for its schools over a seven year period, and will already be forced to raise taxes to the 2 percent limit every year. But even with the maximum tax increases, the difference in funding will not be made up. The district, next year, will remove some Advanced Placement courses and likely lay off teachers for the second year in a row. There are also potential cuts to sports and extracurriculars, the imposition of a \u201cpay to play\u201d system and school closings.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore middle-class property taxpayers have to again take it on the chin, we should be asking our wealthiest residents to pay their fair share through a millionaire\u2019s tax,\u201d said Murphy.<\/p>\n

New Jersey has imposed a \u201cmillionaires\u2019 tax\u201d since 2004. It began as a tax of 8.97 percent and rose by 2009 to 10.75 percent as a levy against all incomes over $1 million. The rate has since dropped back to its original amount, but Murphy has long lobbied for increases back to 10.75 percent. The legislature, however, has been reticent to directly raise income taxes in what is already the highest-taxed state in the nation.<\/p>\n

Murphy, in a statement released Monday, did not signal relief for districts like Brick, instead doubling down on his support for S-2\u2019s funding cuts by calling the measure a \u201cplan to correct years of inequitable funding of New Jersey\u2019s schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brick, the state\u2019s funding formula holds, does not pay enough in property taxes to support its school system. That very formula, however, is kept secret by the state under the reasoning that it is \u201cproprietary,\u201d and is the subject of a lawsuit that would make it public.<\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly believe that issues as important to New Jersey residents as property taxes and education funding warrant more deliberation than this bill was given,\u201d said Murphy, who criticized its \u201cfast track\u201d from the legislature to his desk in 11 days. \u201cState-level decision-makers should not delay difficult funding decisions until the end of the legislative session and fast track what amounts to a tax increase on the middle class without first exhausting all other options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brick\u2019s next Board of Education meeting is set for this Thursday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m. in the Professional Development Center adjacent to the central board office on Hendrickson Avenue.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What some saw as a fix for an underfunded school district was seen by others as the proverbial straw that would break the camel\u2019s back: the ability to raise property taxes above the state\u2019s 2 percent cap to compensate for Trenton\u2019s $23 million funding cut for Brick schools. Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday vetoed legislation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[24,1028,3922,2118],"class_list":["post-15836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-school-funding-formula","tag-tax-cap","tag-tax-increase"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/sos_rally_trenton_0305_122.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-47q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}