{"id":2924,"date":"2019-03-18T20:14:34","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T00:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=2924"},"modified":"2019-03-19T11:41:11","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T15:41:11","slug":"murphy-signs-rain-tax-into-law-but-its-unlikely-to-affect-ocean-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2019\/03\/murphy-signs-rain-tax-into-law-but-its-unlikely-to-affect-ocean-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Murphy Signs ‘Rain Tax’ Into Law, But It’s Unlikely to Affect Ocean County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Water<\/a>

Water flows into Barnegat Bay from a pump at Lyman Avenue in Mantoloking. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a controversial bill derided as a \u201crain tax\u201d into law Monday, but Ocean County officials said they doubt an effort to form new government agencies that would impose the tax will find support here.<\/p>\n

While it makes for entertaining headlines, calling the measure a \u201crain tax\u201d is a bit of a misnomer. The law, most significantly, is not a blanket tax on New Jersey residents. Instead, it allows municipalities or counties to set up stormwater management authorities \u2013 similar to municipal utilities authorities \u2013 to levy a property tax based on the amount of impervious surface one\u2019s property takes up, such as driveways, patios and roofs. In other words, for the tax to affect someone, their local or county elected officials would have to approve the creation of such an authority to actually levy the tax. The authorities, in turn, would tax residents within their jurisdictions and direct the money toward improving and building stormwater management infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I\u2019m not in favor of it,\u201d Ocean County Freeholder Director Virginia Haines told Shorebeat. \u201cIf we do this tax, we have to set up a whole other board and from whatever we charge, we send so much from the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haines said the entire board hasn\u2019t discussed the tax, but she doubts it would gain traction. When the bill was previously vetoed by \u00a0former Gov. Chris Christie, the freeholder board had publicly opposed the legislation and called on Christie to reject it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I understand, in the past, they were not in favor of doing it,\u201d said Haines, a former member of the state Assembly.<\/p>\n

Proponents say New Jersey counties and municipalities should have a way to raise money to improve the environment and stunt the amount of runoff that makes its way into waterways. Those against the bill argue that New Jersey\u2019s highest-in-the-nation property taxes are already having a negative effect on the economy and the creation of new authorities would likely lead to more patronage jobs and contracts for politically-connected engineering and construction firms.<\/p>\n

Freeholder Joseph Vicari also said he could not envision the board approving a new taxing entity.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now in Ocean County, we don\u2019t need another tax,\u201d said Vicari. \u201cIf there is an issue, we can take care of it, but this is not the right time with Governor Murphy raising taxes $1.5 billion. They raised the gasoline tax, they raised the Parkway tolls, and people can no longer afford more taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting down to people being able to put food on the table,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Vicari doubted his fellow freeholders would support such a measure, and said the county already dedicates funding to the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always done our part as far as the environment,\u201d said Vicari. \u201cWe preserved 60 percent of the land in Ocean County, we have a very aggressive program as far as cleaning storm drains and recycling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both counties and towns would be able to create the authorities under the law. Locally, Brick Mayor John Ducey has announced publicly he would not be in favor of creating one in his town.<\/p>\n

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

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a controversial bill derided as a \u201crain tax\u201d into law Monday, but Ocean County officials said they doubt an effort to form new government agencies that would impose the tax will find support here. While it makes for entertaining headlines, calling the measure a \u201crain tax\u201d is a bit of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[813,11],"class_list":["post-2924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-ocean-county-news","tag-rain-tax","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-10-at-1.18.32-AM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}