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The town and people I work for have 8,867 properties. If you take the entire 2010 municipal police budget, $5,326,594.67 — which includes all salaries, overtime, pension payments and healthcare — and apply a little mathematics, a property owner here pays about $601 a year (or $1.64 a day) for police protection.
Let’s see …. What costs more than $1.64 a day?
The average cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts is $2. If you really want to splurge, you can get an average cup at Starbucks for $3.
The average homeowners insurance policy costs $1.70 a day. However, I suspect this will increase as cuts to staff of fire and police departments statewide continue.
The average cellphone bill is $73 a month, or $2.40 a day. If you have more than one phone or a family plan, that increases drastically — so the average family of four with cell phones, depending on features, pays about $6 a day.
Cable bills, with all the extras, can hit $6 a day, as well.
The average per capita income tax bill in New Jersey is $4,814, or $13.18 per day, according to TaxFoundation.org.
However, as we have been learning, not all the money you send to Trenton makes it back to your community. Yet a full 100% of our $1.64 a day for police protection stays RIGHT HERE.
“I don’t use the police. Why should I pay?” you might ask.
Indeed, there’s a lot going on out there that our taxes pay for that we don’t get to use or agree with. Many of us will never set foot in the White House or the Governor’s Mansion. I will never drive a tank or fly a fighter jet. I probably won’t skipper a battleship or engineer a locomotive or take a journey on Air Force One.
As for police, you may never have a use for their services, but it is nice knowing they are there if needed and that you and your loved ones have that kind of protection if necessary.
You might say “I don’t care.” But what if you’re being mugged or having chest pains or hear someone rattling the doorknob downstairs and the nearest officer is 10 minutes away or more? What if the only available officers are all tied up on calls?
I read recently that Camden had a 19% rise in violent crime since half the police force was laid off. How long do you think numbers like that will affect your community, as more police statewide are being laid off?
Say you decide as a community to do what Camden did. You then are paying 82 cents a day for HALF the protection you had before.
The pension system is paid by the town, along with the individual officer, so there is no real savings there. So why the push to demonize police and firefighters as “me first”?
It appears our governor likes the spotlight. It appears he likes the controversy. And it appears he wants to move on in politics.
Funny, but it’s “me first” when it comes to HIS future.
So far, his call for reducing salaries equates to a father telling his family it needs to drastically reduce household expenses by eliminating a son’s $2 a week allowance. There is no real savings, yet there will be real consequences.
Using the numbers of a “prestigious” town right next to mine: 32% of the municipal budget goes to police salaries, pension, healthcare, and overtime. The grand total in raw numbers is $768 a year — or about $2 a day for police protection (It is actually lower in half the communities when using an average).
According to city-data.com, the average median household income in Morris County is $96,787 a year, or around $46 dollars an hour. Assuming Jan. 1 falls on a Saturday, the average household in Morris County will have paid its police department’s tax burden sometime before noon Wednesday, Jan. 5!
Compare this to the overall average “tax-free” date, April 25, according to the NJ Treasury Department.
The average municipal police salary in New Jersey is roughly $90,000 a year. Multiply this by pension payments (average: $7,650 annually), plus 1.5% for healthcare as of right now. That comes to an additional $1,350 a year toward our pension and $9,000 in healthcare payments — $24 a day, on average, for the officers ourselves.
Going even further, some police, like me, pay into Social Security at what is now an average of $5,850 a year — or an additional $16 a day.
That brings the total for MY future to $40 a day.
Here’s where the figures meet:
Having police pay 30% of their healthcare costs will lower the burden on property taxes 6 cents a day. At the same time, it will increase the cost to the officer by $14 a day.
I understand the jealousy and frustration factor, especially for those who are out of work. But our governor is playing on this frustration and fear. When you actually look at the raw numbers, there are no real savings!
Reducing public employees’ wages to that of 20 years ago, taking away their pensions and benefits may make some people feel better. But when the dust settles, there will be no real savings, just disappointment. By then, our governor may already be on his next “adventure.”
Regionalization? Mergers? Look no further than northwestern New Jersey. The State Police have been stuck patrolling this area for years. Ask them what it’s like to have to cover hundreds of square miles at a time. Ask them how frustrating it can be for dedicated officers to fulfill their tasks efficiently.
We can eliminate police departments altogether, but that’s no cure, either. Stillwater eliminated its department in 2009, then residents watched their property tax bills increase by $200.
We need to find a bigger stream of revenue that we all have to pay. And I see only one way: the sales tax.
It’s the only way to get everyone to “share the sacrifice” and pay “their fair share.” Whether it is used fund the system completely or to offset property tax hikes, it still needs to be done. Yet we’ve heard none of this from our governor. Only “me first.”
Some say a sales tax will destroy business and industry in New Jersey. With a 2% increase in the sales tax, and a corresponding drop in property taxes, the average homeowner in Morris will save more than $445 a month, or just over $5,000 a year. You’d have to spend $250,000 a year before you start to lose money under a 2% sales-tax hike.
Reducing property taxes and replacing them with a sales tax has one other advantage: Property values will increase!
Hey, if it doesn’t work, we can always go back to the broken way.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM’s policy not to publish stories without bylines. But rules can be broken at times, depending on circumstances. Knowing of this officer, I feel comfortable publishing this..... Jerry DeMarco]
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