The Hoboken City Council approved an ordinance that allows an over $500,000 allocation of payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) revenue for their four public school entities at last night’s meeting.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“I firmly believe that a community has no greater responsibility than supporting and protecting our children and Hoboken’s four public school district’s play an enormous role in educating minds, caring for the whole mind – academically, emotionally, and developmentally – keeping children safe and healthy,” Hoboken Charter Schools Trustee Lauren Calmas said during public comment.
” … Today’s vote shows that you share the views of Hoboken’s school team leaders: That we all must invest in our schools so that every student can succeed.”
She also thanked the city council, the board of education, Elysian Charter School, and Hoboken Dual Language Charter School for their efforts to make this come to fruition, which took roughly four years.
Hoboken Dual Language Charter School Board President Nicole Cammarota expressed that she was thrilled that the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) from 770 Jackson St. and the LCOR project could be equitably distributed to all of the city’s public schools.
” … It is incredible what we’ve accomplished working together and we hope that this is the beginning of more great work that we all do together,” she said, thanking everyone from the education sector who made this possible, as well as Mayor Ravi Bhalla and Business Administrator Jason Freeman, and the council.
” … And as Lauren showed, there are a lot of kids in this room, and I hope what they see tonight is that we can all accomplish great things when we put aside some of our differences, work together, and work together for a greater good.”
Hoboken BOE President Ailene McGuirk said she and her colleagues were hopeful the aforementioned measure before the council would pass unanimously, as it did on first reading.
“It’s essential that our community support our public schools, students, and teachers. Through this multi-year process, the representatives from the charter schools and the board of education have worked together to get us to where we are today,” she explained.
” … This is a really important day in Hoboken’s history. This vote shows the community that you, our city’s council and our city’s administration, acknowledge that your decisions – in this case decisions related to development – impact public schools, the children that attend them, and the taxpayers who fund them.”
She added that for the Hoboken Public Schools, enrollment has gone up from approximately 3,500 students to 3,760 in one year, which outpaces the demographic study the BOE did a few years ago.
McGuirk also mentioned that the Hoboken BOE has the top performing public school district in Hudson County, which she referred to as “big progress,” later condemning “the small faction” that bad mouths the public schools and/or attempts to create conflicts between the BOE and public schools.
Prior to the vote, Councilwoman-at-Large Emily Jabbour called for the council to establish an education subcommittee so that issues such as this one would not linger for an extended period of time.
1st Ward Councilman Paul Presinzano noted that other PILOTs could be on the way, to which he vowed that the schools would received a portion of those revenues as well.
The measure passed unanimously (9-0), which Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who unveiled the proposal in August, applauded in a statement.
“I am pleased that the City Council unanimously approved my administration’s proposal to provide much-needed funding for our local schools. This landmark agreement is yet another first for Hoboken, as it is the first of its kind school trust fund in the state, and another innovative mechanism that we are using to support our children,” he said.
“I want to offer my sincere thanks to Business Administrator Jason Freeman for bringing together stakeholders from our schools and getting this proposal to the finish line, the
leadership from our public schools, and my colleagues on the city council. It is especially gratifying to see a vision I had as a councilman now realized as mayor, and I am eager to see this funding put to good use.”
Hoboken schools may or may not be a top performers despite the very high cost to taxpayers in comparison to low standard of others in Hudson County but they are still not good.
Every parent knows that and is one of the reasons they move out of Hoboken or if they can afford it send their children to other schools
Plenty of parents of all income, educational and professional backgrounds are choosing Hoboken schools.
These parents are themselves often well educated and from high performance districts.
IF Hoboken schools are what you ALLEGE Why on earth would they send their children ?
Parents with 300 dollar rents to 3 million dollar homes aren’t idiots or using kids as lab rats.