About 24 hours after declaring a Jersey City budget crisis to the tune of an over quarter billion dollar deficit, Mayor James Solomon announced that his salary will be just one dollar this year.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Yesterday, we delivered a report on the state of our city’s finances. The picture is even worse than we thought. We have tough decisions ahead, and I believe in leading by example. So I’m announcing today that I’m taking a one-dollar salary for 2026,” he said in a statement.
“I didn’t run for mayor for personal gain. I ran because I love this city and the people who make it work. And when times are tough, we lead from the front. That’s what Jersey City deserves. That’s what you’re going to get.”
The former two-term downtown councilman delivered an explosive 45-minute press conference that detailed significant budget woes, which he laid at the feet of his predecessor, Steven Fulop, which received robust news coverage.
Jersey City spokesman Nathaniel Styer said that Fulop’s salary last year was approximately $245,000 as a basis of comparison.
“On top of the incompetence was vanity. While the fiscal health of the city deteriorated, the former mayor continued to pursue vanity projects to burnish his credentials for higher office … The city has spent over $20M on consultants for [the Pompidou],” Solomon asserted yesterday.
Joined by the majority of Hudson County’s state delegation, including all three state senators, the new mayor attributed the budget hole to $667 million in one-shot revenues since 2019, squandering pandemic relief funds, and overpaying the city’s taxes, among many other things.
Fulop responded by saying that he would have introduced another budget with no tax increase this year if he was still mayor, as well as that Solomon voted for nearly every contract that came before the council despite voting no on the budgets themsevles.
Sincere move so far.
Director of public safety makes 200k. Why do we need that position anyway? Chief of police is enough.
Then, we have as many deputy chief of police as whole NYPD. 35000 cops vs 900. Each one has guaranteed half a million in extra sick days.
Fire them all, James.