In a letter to the editor, Hoboken resident Robert Greene explains why he is dissatisfied with the rollout of the Mile Square City’s municipal budget.
Dear Editor,
Approximately zero people enjoy paying taxes, but the Hoboken budget rollout has amazingly registered below subterranean expectations.
Extraordinary – one could laugh at the ineptitude, but given the current fiscal perils, laughter may cost a fee. Life, Death, Taxes; three constants of existence.
Some historical perspective: in 2018, the budget was $118mm, in 2026 the Jabbour Administration initially proposed $161mm. $40 million of new spending in 8 years is a preposterous amount.
Government provides services, which primarily entails people (there are exceptions like public safety), but unlike say, a toy company, there’s no factory, no inventory, no supply chain. The budget is mostly salary and benefits.
Since 2018, with about the same number of employees, (~650 with variance), we’re paying $40 million more. Readers can draw the inference here.
Everything is “essential,” City Hall is “transparent” standing athwart any potential interruption in “core services.”
“We listened to residents and worked collaboratively with the City Council, to make difficult but necessary decisions that reduce the deficit while easing the burden on taxpayers and maintaining the core services the community depends on” – Mayor Emily Jabbour.
There are structural issues, but, it’s not their fault:
“On the expense side, the bulk of our increases are driven by costs that are beyond our control…” Business Administrator Jennifer Gonzalez.
In fact – it’s you, the taxpayer, causing the problem:
“Revenue is not keeping pace with expenses, and the single largest source of revenue is the levy…” – Business Administrator Jennifer Gonzalez.
They want more money, and there is no public land left to sell so we’re all going to have to work harder to keep pace with City Hall’s voracious spending.
If a private company needed a 15-20% adjustment to cash flow (in line with proposed tax increases), it would enter Chapter 11. The management team would be fired, and the company restructured or sold.
But Hoboken didn’t have a shuttered factory, didn’t have a population exodus; the local economy is thriving.
We have companies investing millions, development everywhere, families are settling in permanently, and structural features that most cities could dream of.
With these massive, inherited advantages…Hoboken gets a freshly manufactured budget crisis served with warmed over pablum: Its inflation / the other administration did it / we can’t cut anything its mandatory / even if we could, everything is essential / we can cut some things but they don’t add up to much so why try.
Accountability 101, I guess.
So Hoboken gets a (sorta) hiring freeze.
This portends a ridiculous lack of self awareness; City Hall has never been a paragon of fiscal restraint. The nine-page budget survey was illuminating.
To wit:
A few years ago, Hoboken voted down the most expensive high school proposal in US history. Remember the Union Dry Dock fiasco (that’s a whole separate letter)?
We see the tens of thousands of dollars worth of bollards buried in snowp iles (nobody thought it snowed in winter?). The pet projects that seem to spring up all over town unannounced. The botched rollout of the CLEAR program.
Free haircuts for the homeless. Trips to Atlantic City. I could go on – not an exhaustive list but I am getting exhausted.
Now City Hall has found budget religion and doing the “difficult and necessary” work, which apparently includes:
• Hiring a social media manager (The re-named “Division of Public Engagement” – $330k budget)
• A new Social Services Director’s office ($121k)
• $508k in vehicle leasing – up from $385k
• Preserving both the Recreation and Cultural Affairs Office AND the Cultural Affairs Office ($1.1mm and $300k, respectively)
For the tax enthusiasts out there, we have both an Office of the Tax Assessor ($700k) and another $400,000 devoted to Tax Collections. (If +$1mm devoted to bill collections is a little light for your taste, maybe form a Tax Constabulary?)
Based on my deep dive analysis of the 2026 Proposal, and drawing from advanced degrees in economics, finance and accounting, I have concluded the mayor is trying to fix the budget as earnestly as OJ Simpson tried to find the real culprits.
How do we take seriously City Hall’s rhetoric about necessity when in the middle of a fiscal crisis they demand $300k to produce B-rated Tik Tok videos?
The same group who got Hoboken into this mess with sustained profligacy and lack of budgeting now means business. They even rolled out the powerpoint presentations and breakout sessions. It may be opportune to mention a leopard and its spots.
Put another way, if you’re excited about paying an extra $300-$500 a month in property taxes this year, wait until the sequel in 2027.
Who needs to save for college with a diploma from the 9th ranked Public High School in Hudson County (With a 52% Math proficiency rating, you’ve got better than even odds…).
We live in a unique community with unique requirements. Its urban, quite small, a median household income of $180,579, with median home values approaching $1mm, and 83% of people are college graduates (vs $80k, $332k and 36%, respectively in the US).
City Hall isn’t exactly robbing Little Sisters of the Poor. That said, our livelihoods, our homes are not a collective piggy bank for political aspirants.
Nor should our hard earned money serve as in-kind political contributions to career opportunists supposedly elected to represent our interests.
To live here is to accept the imperfections of City Life, because the trade-offs are potentially incredible. In return for the already staggering amount of taxes we now, and are projected to pay, an upgrade from the current state of our streets would be nice.
Ideal if we didn’t find any more frozen dead homeless men in playgrounds. Or hospitalized nannies attacked by known felons. Or be terrorized by often intoxicated eBikers.
Your mileage may vary on each, but there exists a palpable sense of disarray and perception of municipal indifference which begs the question – where is the money going? We see the cost every month. What are we paying for?
And that’s the rub – 60,000 people invested in a community and willing to contribute, and here is the operative phrase: provided that the value is evident. The current status quo is underwhelming, and City Hall is demanding significantly more for the same.
There are no cuts – only taxing and spending are going up. Commence the second guessing. Anytime a mural or a crosswalk gets painted, every time someone jumps out of a black SUV, every ribbon cutting – it’s all going under a microscope.
Every resident suddenly thousands of dollars poorer will ask “This? This is all we got?” That may not be fair, but neither the Mayor, nor City Council seem to grasp this fundamental point: when you continue to demand (with the full force of the law) more money, commensurate value needs to be provided in return.
The Hoboken Budget needs adult oversight. This is no way to run a railroad, with already stratospheric taxes, underwhelming results and a seeming indifference to quality of life.
While it did take years to get to this point, it is the same cast of characters reciting the same lines claiming they can fix it. I have well founded doubts. We can and should demand better. We’re already paying for it.
Robert Greene
Hoboken resident
Sources:
www.hobokennj.gov/docs/march-28-2018-introduction-to-cy-2018-budget
www.hobokennj.gov/resources/government-finances – 2026 Municipal Data Sheet-https://hudsoncountyview.com/hoboken-city-council-introduces-152m-budget-with-nearly-19-tax-increase
US News and World Report: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/newjersey/districts/hoboken-public-school-district/hoboken-junior-senior-high-school-12584
Census.gov