The Hoboken City Council voted 6-3 to approve a $162,763,583.84 budget with an 11.5 percent tax increase at last night’s special virtual meeting, which was the same tally they introduced the municipal spending plan by last week.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“What I want to say today is the budget you’re gonna vote on is really a missed opportunity. A crisis that could have been a catalyst to make big changes is getting wasted today,” Dini Ajmani, a mayoral candidate last year, said during public comment.
“I just don’t know how useful it is to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic because that’s what’s happening today. What you’re doing today repeats every year, you know this. Every year the mayor suggests a tax increase, the council wants to show that it cares for lower taxes so it starts an exercise of projecting higher revenue, projecting lower spending, take more from the surplus, take more from the parking [utility].”
She added that all nine council members will blame issues such as debt service and employee benefits for rising costs, but she didn’t believe the approved budget would address those issues at all.
“If you can’t be bold, make room for someone else who will,” Ajmani concluded, expressing further concerns that the actual financial issues were not being seriously addressed.
The governing body approved a preliminary $152,128,410.25 municipal spending plan in April with an 18.9 percent tax increase before introducing a $161,250,498.68 budget with an 11.5 tax hike last week, both as HCV first reported.
While the final budget went up about $1.5 million in eight days, the changes were not substantive enough to warrant another reintroduction.
“To me, this battles lost, but there’s still a war to win. And I use that just as an example, I think Hoboken residents are going to pay an 11.5 percent increase because it has the votes tonight. I’m gonna vote no because I can’t support that burden on the people who already work hard to live here,” declared 1st Ward Councilman Paul Presinzano.
“And I think tonight, you’ll hear some of you, my colleagues, call this a victory because they’ve negotiated the lowest possible rate and I absolutely disagree. Our job isn’t to negotiate the smallest tax increase, our job is to solve the problems that created it and I think Dini said it best in the beginning. Those are two very different things.”
Councilman at-Large Joe Quintero agreed with Presinzano on the point that certain things are being pushed off until next year, but added that no one is calling their current situation a win, it’s simply a compromise and a best-case scenario given the circumstances.
“We also said none of us are really happy with this, including the administration, right? So it was a compromise, it’s a compromise because … and I read [2nd Ward] Councilwoman [Tiffanie] Fisher’s newsletter, and I would actually recommend – I wouldn’t do this normally – take a look at it,” he said.
“I think she had a pretty good analysis as to where we got with this, which was, some of the proposals, the structural cuts, some of those deep things – which are conceptually good ideas to look at – were just not feasible this year.”
Presinzano and 3rd Ward Councilman Mike Russo rolled out budget amendments last month that they said could get the tax increase down to just a hair under three percent, but Mayor Emily Jabbour and the rest of the council largely dismissed them, as HCV first reported.
During his remarks, Russo expressed great dissatisfaction with the a double digit tax hike, claiming that both the mayor and majority of his colleagues refused to make the hard decisions they were elected to do.
“We could have made decisions about reducing salaries for directors. The same directors that, by the way, were part of the [Ravi] Bhalla administration that this administration now wants to point to for putting us in the situation we’re in,” he exclaimed.
“As a matter of fact, this administration brought back some of those directors. We know, factually, that the mayor immediately emailed [former Business Administrator] Jason Freeman to have a conversation with him about the budget once Councilman Presinzano and I submitted our amendments. We know that.”
He added that Jabbour reached out to council members to conduct strategy sessions about the budget, indicating that she did not contract himself, Presinzano, Fisher, or 6th Ward Councilwoman Diane Imus.
” … This budget keeps making the same mistakes that we’ve been making for years: Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and not Councilman Paul. We continue to take more surplus to make ourselves feel better, but shrinking the city’s margins and making next year’s budget even harder,” expressed 5th Ward Councilman Phil Cohen.
“It may make us feel better, but making our lives worse. There’s no question we’re being more responsible this year than last year, but this budget still does not do enough to set us up for future success and address built in rising costs, including our contractual obligations to public safety, which make up more than two thirds of our personnel expenses for the city.”
Fisher echoed what Quintero said as that the current proposal is a compromise focused on making the city run more efficiently going forward, whether that be through cuts, healthcare provider changes, or making changes to their union contracts.
Council President Ruben Ramos stated that he was glad the budgeting process was completed in June this year, as opposed to July or August in prior years, and also made a commitment to get budget proceeding for next year under way as quickly as possible.
The budget was approved 6-3, with Presinzano, Russo, and Cohen voting no.
How about Council making sacrifices too? There is absolutely NO reason for PART TIME Council Members to receive medical benefits. No other part time employees receive medical benefits. Another cost savings measure that wasn’t entertained. Let’s just play the blame game on the past Administration and this Administration. Give it a break already!
The “fault” lies squarely on Mayor Bhalla and to a lesser extent on the Councilmembers who went along with the program of profligate spending covered up with budget gimmicks.
Over 8 years, all the hard work done by the Zimmer Administration and the then City Council to right the City’s fiscal ship was squandered.
Sound fiscal management requires saying no to spending that you’re not willing to raise taxes to pay for. If you say yes to spending you need to also say yes to raising taxes sufficiently to pay for it. During the 8 years of the Bhalla Administration nobody – Mayor or Council – was willing to either say no to spending or to say yes to the necessary tax increases.
This Administration so far has been a breath of fresh air. Councilman Cohen is certainly right that this tax increase just kicks part of the can down the road – but there is something to be said for spreading the pain out over a few years while making the structural changes needed to put the spending side of the equation back on a sustainable path.
And who created Ravi Bhalla?
Rather than Endorse Reformers like Jen, Tiffany or Doyle – Zimmer chose someone who supposedly would ” deal with” pending lawsuits, settlements and embarrassing water contracts
It’s fair to critique the eight years of Bhalla after Zimmer had done an excellent job on taxes and spending.
Who backed Ravi in the City Council for much if not most of the ridiculous spending and inflated mayor’s office salaries?
It was Emily Jabbour who rubber-stamped all of it. She was never the answer with that track record. The Bhalla council crew put Hoboken into a terrible hole and they all backed a 20% tax increase Emily put up in her first budget.
Once again, it was left to the last vestiges of the Reform Movement to try and reverse some of the disaster. Dawn and Stanislaw returned to Hoboken to back Emily and support the Trojan Horse campaign of Dini ensuring Reform would never unite behind Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher. Complete the transitioning and take your lumps, LindaLou. It’s largely your fault.
Firstly, Paul Presinzano following anything Mike Russo advises on healthcare must be a joke
Can you say ” Lost Blue Cross Blue Shield”** at his PT practice? ** see past reports on Russo claiming 1mil owed to BCBS due to COVID losses.
Then Russo voted on a police contract that would make Elon Musk want to become a cop here.
Free Busses, Free Lunches, Affordable Housing expansions on the waterfront, more pickle ball courts, less schools, less housing…LESS TAX REVENUE
Now they are surprised there is no money?
Mikey Russo fashions himself as a financial whiz, when he joined the city council 20 plus years ago takes were around 60 million lower
He’s either stupid, thinks we are stupider, ineffective or all of that?
https://hudsoncountyview.com/hoboken-3rd-ward-councilman-russo-files-for-over-2m-bankruptcy-court-records-show/
He lists $197,765 as the unsecured portion of the claim. As for the unsecured claims, the vast majority come from Blue Cross Blue Shield in the form of $1,050,000 in business debt – Russo, the chair of council’s finance subcommittee, worked as a physical therapist by trade.