Christie unveils Fairness Formula website to help residents lower property taxes

TRENTON, NJ — On June 22 Gov. Chris Christie launched the Fairness Formula website, www.nj.gov/taxrelief, encouraging people to take simple online action to help lower their nation-high property taxes. The governor announced his proposal to ensure equal funding for all New Jersey students and to provide hundreds and thousands of dollars in annual property tax savings for the vast majority of families throughout the state, according to a release from the governor’s office.

“For far too long, New Jersey residents have been so overburdened by property taxes, their families have been divided as grandparents and college graduates are forced to live in affordable states,” Christie said in the release. “The biggest driver of New Jersey’s nation-high property taxes is the ineffective and unfair state school funding formula. Today, we should all come together to finally lower property taxes and save students from being trapped (by) failing schools.”

This interactive website contains five tabbed sections: Inequity in NJ Schools; The Fairness Formula; NJ Property Tax By the Numbers; Your Property Taxes, a tool which provides residents with their maximum potential property tax savings; and Join the Movement, a call to action for New Jerseyans to help lower their property taxes.

Christie’s Fairness Formula is an equal per-pupil funding plan that would provide tax fairness for all residents and better public education for every New Jersey student, according to Christie. Under the formula, the state would reportedly provide equal funding, meaning each public school district would receive $6,599 per enrolled student, while continuing aid for special needs students.

Graduation rates prove that educational success cannot be bought with excessive spending by a select few chronically failing school districts, which have received billions more in state taxpayer dollars over the past three decades than hundreds of successful school districts. The statewide graduation rate is 90 percent, with 27 of the 31 Abbott districts falling below that average.

The current school funding formula allows failing school districts to spend as much as $33,699 per pupil in tax dollars, while high-performing school districts spend less than half of that per student.

With this new formula, 75 percent of all New Jersey districts would get more state aid than they do today.

According to the governor, the average household tax savings under the Fairness Formula are as follows: $387 in Belleville, $1,431 in Bloomfield, $2,130 in Caldwell, $2,118 in Cedar Grove, $2,458 in Essex Fells, $1,422 in Fairfield, $4,506 in Glen Ridge, $3,044 in Livingston, $3,164 in Maplewood, $3,985 in Millburn, $3,339 in Montclair, $2,699 in North Caldwell, $1,850 in Nutley, $1,376 in Roseland, $3,764 in South Orange, $2,236 in Verona, $2,054 in West Caldwell and $2,228 in West Orange.

For towns that are not listed the Fairness Formula may not result in a decrease of property taxes.

  Chris Christie, SFRA