BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – The City of Newark has been handing over a daily fine to a division of the New Jersey Department of Community Service since July 1 – and will continue to do so until it introduces its 2025 Calendar Year Municipal Budget.
Newark – as of July 10 by “Local Talk” estimate – has racked up $175 it owes the DCA’s Division of Local Government Services. That $25 daily fine may be a literal drop in Newark’s 2024 $968.15 million bucket – but the DLGS is imposing the fine on principal.
The state division can be compared to being the driver of a herd of cattle or sheep in the Old West.
Instead of getting livestock to the stock yards in a timely manner, the DLGS wants the 565 municipalities, 585 public school districts and other public agencies to have their calendar or fiscal year budgets introduced, heard in public and ratified on or before June 30. June 30 is the state’s deadline for its own fiscal year budget.
Getting the local budgets earlier makes it easier for the DCA to fold those figures into the state budget. The lack of such fiscal information causes the state to make estimates in its own expenses – and in what aid it returns to the municipalities.
Six of the 12 “Local Talk” municipalities have completed their homework and handed their finished budgets to the state. Most have ended their process in April or May, with Maplewood being the latest on June 10.
The other half – Newark, Irvington, East Orange, Orange and Bloomfield – have not completed the course. Almost all have held departmental budget hearings but have not held a final public hearing and vote yet.
The DLGS is particularly annoyed with Newark because the Ras Baraka Administration has not introduced its CY2025 budget — which would normally be done around March 10. The division, in its June 6 letter to City Hall, said, “While some delay is understandable, the failure to introduce the budget within the authorized time frame compromises the municipality’s fiscal integrity. Accordingly, you are directed to introduce your budget no later than June 30.”
One reporter who tried to find the source of the budget delay was met with diverse reasons from city officials. One administrator said that some $7 million in federal funds were frozen or clawed back.
Another said that Essex County is late on informing the city what their tax figures will look like. Municipalities, as collecting agencies for the county and school districts, lists these amounts on quarterly property tax bills.
The Municipal Council’s July 2 meeting came and went without a municipal budget introduction. Newark’s elders did make nine temporary emergency appropriations of specific programs, from paying 15 police officers on violent crime duty to bolstering the workforce initiative program.
The council authorized the Tax Department to issue estimated Third Quarter property tax bills for July and August.
There has been no announcement as of press time of the council holding a special July meeting to introduce the budget.
