Assembly Speaker Prieto announces full funding of Meadowlands Tax Sharing Program

According to Assembly Speaker Prieto, the Meadowlands Tax Sharing Program will be fully funded for the first time.

New Jersey’s most recent partisan budget crisis finally came to an end Monday as Republican Gov. Chris Christie vetoed Democratic tax hikes on the wealthy and on corporations, instead signing a smaller fiscal 2015 budget that slashes the state’s full pension contribution.

Included in the $32.5 billion spending plan is $7.3 million in direct property tax relief for several Hudson and Bergen county municipalities.

The property tax relief is a result of the state fully funding their annual contribution into the Meadowlands Tax Sharing Program, something Assembly Speaker Prieto has spent many years advocating for.

“The tax sharing program has been an unfair burden on many municipalities for far too long and I am proud to see the state budget remove this unnecessary expense and provide direct property tax relief to residents,” said Prieto.

According to The Record, tax sharing initially was devised in the early 1970s as a way to share the costs and rewards of regional zoning in the Meadowlands District. Towns that were designated for development share a portion of the revenue they collect from new ratables with neighbors who were marked for landfills and protected marshlands.

Under the new budget deal, 100% of the tax sharing payments will be assumed by the state.

In recent years the Meadowlands Tax Sharing Program has been criticized by “sending towns” – which include Secaucus, North Bergen, South Hackensack, Moonachie, Lyndhurst, Little Ferry and Carlstadt – as being “unfair” to taxpayers in those municipalities.

The “receiving towns” – Kearny, Jersey City, Rutherford, Ridgefield, North Arlington and East Rutherford – will now be compensated by the state.