total spending, as adopted Aug 26 — up about $130M (+17%) over 2025
+19.1%
municipal tax levy: $384.97M → $458.57M as amended (the “15.15%” is the rate; the levy itself rises more) math ↓
$120M
one-time state aid — $105M is a loan, now repaid in 15 yearly payments (2028–2042) at 2.75%
$1 in $7
of all revenue is one-time money (14.2%, up from 10.2%) — the one-shot habit grew math ↓
92% less
rainy-day surplus: $27.9M → $2.2M; capital improvements: $0.00
63%
of the budget got no public hearing of its own details ↓
Structural figures from the introduced budget, Res. 26-226 ↗ — the legal document. Adopted Aug 26, 8–0–1. Amendments cut the levy ~$1.4M; the structural picture below is unchanged. What happens now ↓
Built from official public records · every figure links to its source
Jersey City's budget crisis isn't bad luck. It's a machine that runs on one-time money.
The city spent $677.4 million of one-time money on everyday bills — its own report says so. Now the money's gone, your taxes are going up about 15.15%, and the hole is still there.
These are lawful budgeting practices. This project describes a structural problem — not wrongdoing by any person, official, or company. Statements that a practice is “unsustainable” are opinion; the figures are the government's own. Read the disclaimer ↗
If you read nothing else, read this. Every line links to an official source.
● LIVE STATUS — updated October 7, 2026
The budget is adopted. The fight now is over how to fill 2027. The Council adopted the 2026 budget on Aug 26 (8-0-1): $886,416,892.79, municipal tax rate up about 15.15%, roughly $597 a year for the average home. The finance director has projected a 2027 deficit in excess of $50 million. New since September 27:
Trenton said no to two fixes (Sept 28). Gov. Sherrill vetoed two bills the Legislature passed in June to help Jersey City. One (S-4513) would have let the city move its voter-approved open-space levy — $1,217,109 in 2026 — into the general budget for 2027. The other (S-4514) would have created a new 5% tax on car rentals in Jersey City and changed how some motor-vehicle fees are shared. On the first, the governor wrote: “The will of the City’s voters should not be set aside.” On the second: “Going forward, sustainable revenue growth and structural reforms must be a priority.” The city said it was disappointed. Veto message, S-4513 ↗ · Veto message, S-4514 ↗ · Hudson County View ↗
On the Oct 7 agenda: an “accelerated tax sale.” A tax sale sells liens on unpaid property taxes to investors: the city gets the cash now, and the owner owes the lienholder instead, with interest. Resolution 26-620 would hold that sale before the end of 2026, which the city says helps it collect taxes “in the year in which it was levied.” It drew a heated debate at the Oct 5 caucus. We will post the vote. Oct 7 agenda, item 10.5 ↗ · Jersey City Times ↗
The 2025 audit (Sept 23). The Council certified the audit and approved a Corrective Action Plan, both 9-0: 17 findings, 2 material weaknesses, no fixed-asset inventory since 2014, and payments to vendors above the amounts the Council authorized. The audit ↗ · Res. 26-581 ↗
Also Sept 23: two 30-year PILOTs for Canal Crossing (508 homes, 102 affordable) passed with no votes against; 10% of PILOT payments may now go to a schools capital account; a change to the 5-year tax-abatement program failed 3-6, and the program stays lapsed until the Council acts. Votes ↓
The loan (Sept 10). The $105M state loan is repaid in 15 yearly payments, 2028–2042 ($23.1 million in interest), and the state must approve every city budget from 2027 through 2031. Res. 26-537 ↗ · Jersey City Times (deficit) ↗
What happened? Jersey City is broke. The budget sprang a $255 million leak — 28% of the whole thing — and City Hall reached for your wallet: a 20% tax hike, haggled down to 15.5% — about $612 more a year for the average homeowner — only after Trenton tossed a lifeline that's mostly a loan. School taxes had already quadrupled. Hudson County View ↗
How did Jersey City go broke?
Trenton pulled the school money. Trenton's 2018 “S2” law cut Jersey City's school aid from $410M to $130M a year — and school taxes more than quadrupled to fill the hole. See the numbers
City Hall paid everyday bills with one-time cash. It sold land, borrowed, and drained savings — about $677.4M (2019–2025) — to cover costs that come back every year. That money is gone; the bills aren't. City's own report ↗
The music stopped in 2026. The gap hit $255M — answered with a 15.5% tax hike and a $120M state package, $105M of which is a loan. The July budget memo puts the recurring structural shortfall at about $90M. City announcement ↗
And the biggest bills never get a hearing. All thirteen city departments together are $329,336,529 — 37% of the budget. The other 63% — health insurance ($170M), debt service ($89.2M), pensions and statutory costs ($94.7M), and $60.6M of prior-year bills being financed instead of paid — has no public hearing of its own. City budget appendix ↗(figures the city's; the arithmetic ours)
🛋️🪑🖼️🛏️📺🪞
2019: the city budget, fully furnished…
You got the bill: total taxes roughly doubled — and nothing yet stops a rerun, under this administration or the next.
How do we prevent it from happening again?
The fix — two rules the council can pass right now
1. Truth in budgeting: if the money won't come back next year, it can't pay bills that will.
2. Open checkbook: every payment, every authority, every tax deal — published, searchable, updated monthly.
Steal these lines — every one is the government's own number:
“The city's own report admits it burned $677.4 million of one-time money on ongoing bills — and calls the hole structural.”
“$105 million of the $120M state ‘rescue’ is a loan we have to pay back.”
“Trenton cut our school aid by two-thirds — so school taxes quadrupled.”
That's the whole story. Everything below is the receipts.
What happens now — and what we're watching
The budget is adopted. The structural problem it was supposed to solve is not.
The 2026 budget closed a $255M gap with a tax increase and a rescue package. But the rescue was itself one-time money, and $105 million of it is a loan that has to be paid back. By the city's own July budget memo, a recurring structural shortfall of roughly $90 million remains for 2027 — and the cushions used this year are gone: surplus down to $2.2M, capital improvements at $0.00.
So the same question returns next spring, with fewer options. This site now exists to make that visible before it becomes an emergency again.
✅ Correction: the adopted budget is on the city’s website. Our Sept 11 and Sept 12 updates said the adopted 2026 budget was not on the city’s budget page. It is posted on the city’s Municipal Financial Reports page, including the plain-language “user-friendly” version that N.J.S.A. 40A:4-10 calls for. We had checked only the Budget sub-page. The user-friendly file is dated September 9, so it was most likely already posted when we said it was not. We regret the error. Adopted budget, user-friendly version ↗ · Municipal Financial Reports page ↗
🔍 Watching now: the audit’s deadlines. The Corrective Action Plan assigns a person and a completion date to each finding. The finance director told the Council most will be done by the end of 2026; three will roll into 2027, two of them because they need money in next year’s budget. Proposals from outside firms to inventory the city’s fixed assets were due in early October; as of the Oct 7 agenda, no contract for that work had come before the Council. We will track each date here.Corrective Action Plan (Res. 26-581) ↗ · City release on the audit ↗
The five things we will track, every week
What
Why it matters
1. The 2027 gap
~$90M recurring shortfall per the July memo, with surplus and property sales exhausted. Update: Jersey City Times reports the finance director projected a 2027 deficit “in excess of $50 million” at the Sept 8 caucus (basis not published; not directly comparable to the July figure). The mayor, Aug 27: “There will be an increase next year.” HCV ↗ The 2027 budget will be the first that must win state Local Finance Board approval. New: the audit’s corrective plan names known 2027 costs — two fixes that need money in next year’s budget, and another installment on a multi-year IRS payroll-tax overpayment ($1,240,000 was in the 2026 proposed budget). Res. 26-581 ↗Sept 28: the governor vetoed two bills meant to help close the gap — a one-year shift of the open-space levy ($1.2M in 2026) and a new car-rental tax. S-4513 ↗ · S-4514 ↗
2. The $105M loan
Mostly answered Sept 10: 15 payments due each Sept 30, 2028–2042; first $9,887,500, last $7,192,500; $128.1M repaid in total. Res. 26-537, Schedule A ↗Still unanswered as of Oct 7: whether repayment counts inside or outside the levy cap.
3. The PILOT audit
Ordered by executive order Jan 21, 2026, covering 100+ abatements, with a July 1 completion goal. No findings published as of Oct 7. Five council members objected in writing that they had never seen it. New: the state-approved Fiscal Recovery Plan must include “PILOT renegotiations.” Meanwhile, on Sept 23, the Council adopted two new 30-year PILOTs (Canal Crossing).
4. One-time money in the next budget
We publish the same structural-balance test every year. 2026 relied on $1 of every $7 in one-time revenue — up from $1 in $10. The adopted budget (Res. 26-536) is now public; we will re-run the test on adopted figures. See the math ↓
5. Whether the rules change
A structural-balance rule and an open checkbook remain unintroduced. Council President Ridley, Aug 26, on a new Council Finance Committee: “You will see legislation on that.” HCV ↗ Not introduced as of Oct 7. Meanwhile the state’s loan terms now require structural balance by 2042 — imposed from Trenton rather than written here. The 2025 audit points the same way: it found payments to vendors above the amounts the Council authorized. The promised fix is internal (a checklist confirming Council approval before payment), not a public record residents can check. The two reforms ↓
How each member voted
Taken from the vote record printed on each resolution. No member voted no on either.
Earlier votes were unanimous: the budget and the state-aid agreement were introduced 9-0 at the July 15 meeting, and the amendments that trimmed the rate to 15.15% passed 9-0 at the Aug 19 meeting. HCV, July ↗ · HCV, August ↗
Sept 23: the audit certification and the Corrective Action Plan passed 9-0, as did the law sharing PILOT revenue with schools. The two Canal Crossing PILOTs passed with no votes against. The change to the 5-year abatement program failed 3-6 on first reading. Res. 26-580 ↗ · Res. 26-581 ↗ · Ord. 26-080 ↗
Where the city already publishes data — and where it stops. Jersey City runs an open-data portal with roughly 1,500 datasets. It has no vendor-payment dataset, its PILOT data stops at 2018, and its abatement dashboard stops at 2016. The ask was never “build a portal.” It is: refresh the one the city already pays for, and make the refresh mandatory. data.jerseycitynj.gov ↗
The Council met Wednesday, October 7; we will post the results. Next: caucus Monday, October 19 at 4 p.m. and regular meeting Wednesday, October 21 at 6 p.m.; then Nov 9 and Thursday Nov 12, Nov 23 and 25, and Dec 7 and 9 (Clerk’s schedule ↗). The state’s next quarterly budget report is due October 15. Agendas post at the council portal ↗; the City Clerk is (201) 547-5150. This page is updated weekly. Corrections: our Sept 1 update listed the Sept 10 meeting as a Wednesday; it was held Thursday, Sept 10. Our Sept 11 and 12 updates said the adopted budget was not on the city’s website; it was (see above).
Do one thing — 60 seconds, from your phone
The 2026 vote is over. The 2027 budget starts being written now — that is when it is still cheap to change.
📞 Ask the question still unanswered. The revised loan terms settle when repayment starts (2028) and how much ($9.9M the first year). They do not say whether those payments count inside or outside the levy cap — which decides how much room is left for everything else. Tap, and ask:
“Will repayment of the $105 million state loan count inside or outside the levy cap?”
✉ Email your council member — the letter is already written. The 2026 budget is adopted; the two reforms are not. Tap your ward, add your name, hit send. A letter from a real resident outweighs anything we could send.
Revenue side of the introduced budget, rebuilt line-by-line from the legal document (Res. 26-226 ↗). Every column below adds up to the penny — check us.
Revenue
2025
2026
Change
Your taxes (municipal levy, incl. reserve)
$384,974,613
$459,953,660
+$74.98M
Transitional Aid — one-time; $105M of it a loan (2.75%, repaid 2028–2042)
$0
$120,000,000
+$120.0M
Surplus drawn (rainy-day fund)
$27,929,353
$2,238,433
−$25.69M
Property sales (Bayfront)
$33,136,809
$3,250,000
−$29.89M
PILOT & in-lieu agreements (150 line items)
$93,884,924
$82,844,633
−$11.04M
Recurring state aid (Energy Receipts etc.)
$65,156,648
$65,149,000
−$7,648
Everything else (fees, grants, delinquents…)
$150,591,203
$153,110,868
+$2.52M
Total revenues
$755,673,550
$886,546,594
+$130.87M
The structural-balance test, applied to the city's own numbers
Count the money that won't come back next year — the aid package, the surplus draw, the property sales: 2025 had $77.0M of one-time revenue (10.2%). The 2026 budget has $125.5M (14.2%). The budget presented as ending the one-shot era relies on more one-time money than last year's — $1 of every $7 — because the rescue itself is a one-shot, and $105M of it must be paid back.
Which revenues count as “one-time” is our classification, made conservatively (grants and the $33M MUA transfer counted as recurring). Every input figure is verbatim from the statutory form. This table is exactly what a structural-balance ordinance would require the CFO to publish each year — no one should have to rebuild it from a 98-page PDF.
Taxes up 77%. State aid flat.
Every dollar of budget growth since 2014 landed on local property taxpayers. Source: NJ DCA User-Friendly Budget (Jersey City = muni 0906). The 2026 point is an estimate — the city's revised 15% increase is projected to raise ~$60M.
Municipal tax levyState aid
This chart is the municipal levy only — the school side of the same bill grew even faster. See the other half of your bill.
The other half of your bill: schools
The chart above shows the city levy. The school levy on the same tax bill more than quadrupled over the same years — driven by a state law. Sources: NJ DOE State Aid Summaries · JCPS budget documents · Civic Parent · district funding charts for every NJ district: Education Law Center. This section was added after a policy analyst flagged the gap — corrections welcome.
What happened. In July 2018 the state enacted “S2” (P.L.2018, c.67), phasing out hold-harmless school aid over seven years. Jersey City's annual K–12 state aid fell from $410M (2017–18) to $130M (2025–26) — a $281M-a-year, 68% cut, and the 2025–26 cut was the largest dollar cut of any NJ district. School boards replaced the lost aid with local taxes: the school levy rose from $124M to $534M — 4.3× in seven years. That is the other engine of your tax bill.
Update, September 2026: the Jersey City Board of Education voted 9-0 to ask the state to review its school funding formula. By the district’s own figures, state aid exceeded $400 million in 2017–18 against a local levy of about $117 million; today the levy exceeds $530 million and state aid is about $125 million. Hudson County View ↗
Why the state cut. New Jersey's aid formula is wealth-equalized: aid covers the gap between what a district's budget should cost and its “local fair share” — which is indexed to property wealth and income. Jersey City's equalized property value grew from ~$34B (2018) to ~$49B (2023), so its expected local share soared. Meanwhile the city had long taxed itself lightly for schools: in 2018 the school levy was $124M against a $398M fair share, and the average JC school tax was $1,559 vs. $4,610 statewide (court record). The district sued over the cuts; in February 2025 the Appellate Division sided with the state (unpublished), finding the cuts tracked Jersey City's own under-taxation as its wealth grew.
The PILOT connection. This interacts with the tax abatements described below: under the long-term exemption law, PILOT payments historically split 95% city / 5% county / 0% schools, and abated value doesn't count in the ratable base — the State Comptroller warned in 2010 that this lets a city “hide its true wealth from the school district and the state.” By 2023, PILOT properties paid the city ~$103M while avoiding ~$256M in ordinary taxation. A 2018 companion law also let Jersey City levy a 1% employer payroll tax dedicated to schools (~$65–86M/yr since 2019).
What it did to bills. In 2022 alone the school levy rose $116M and the city levy $112M — the total levy jumped from $636M to $852M, and the bill on a $462K-assessed home rose $2,219 in one year, to $9,626. The school share of a JC tax dollar went from 24% (2018) to 42% (2022) — still below the NJ average of 53%. By 2025–26 the local levy funds over 60% of the schools budget, vs. 17% in 2018.
Read carefully: the school levy is a separate line on the same tax bill — don't add it to the 77% municipal chart above (a JC bill = municipal + school + county). Statewide, S2's seven-year phase-in ended in FY2025 with the formula fully funded for the first time. Two readings of this data are both fair: “the state cut Jersey City's schools” and “Jersey City under-taxed for schools for years while its wealth grew.” The figures support both — which is why every one links to its source.
The same six one-shots, every year
Non-recurring money spent on recurring costs — so the gap returns bigger. The city's own report itemizes it.
Year
What happened
Source
2013+
The start of the “emergency note” habit — the city has issued >$200M in emergency notes for operating costs since 2013.
$255M gap (28% of budget) → $886.5M budget introduced 9–0 on July 15 with a 15.5% tax hike + $120M state package ($105M a loan) → the July budget memo puts the recurring structural shortfall at about $90M. Adoption vote not yet confirmed ↓
The largest verified items sit off the operating budget — in footnotes, authorities, or future years. Each links to an official source.
What the budget leaves out. Two things the $886.5M budget the council votes on does not show on its face: (1) the city's authorities — water/sewer, redevelopment, housing — keep their own budgets and their own debt entirely off the municipal budget; and (2) the budget shows only this year's cash payment toward pensions and retiree health ($94,697,439 in pensions and statutory costs), never the long-term obligation behind it — that appears only in the footnotes of an audit. [2026 budget appendix]The liability totals below are drawn from the CY2020 audit — the most recent one posted — and we have not re-verified them against a newer audit. Treat them as dated. That a resident cannot easily check a current figure is itself the argument for an open checkbook.
Item
Amount
Say it
Source
Read carefully: do not add these figures together — several overlap, and debt/liabilities (stocks) are not the same as annual costs (flows). The retiree-health and pension figures are from the city's most recent full audit (CY2020) and may be out of date. Details and honesty guards: see the city's own Financial Emergency Report and the source linked in each row above.
The clearest example: borrowing from the water authority
Under a 2023 40-year franchise renewal, the Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority paid City Hall $53.1 million in cash in FY2024 — nearly triple 2023 — and issued $35 million in new bonds to fund it. The city is financing day-to-day operations with the water authority's debt, which residents repay through scheduled 7%-then-5%/year water and sewer rate increases. Counting the authorities, roughly $673M in city-guaranteed debt and ~$189M/year in spending sit outside the budget the council votes on.
A large share of what Jersey City spends and owes sits OFF the budget you vote on.
The ~$774M municipal budget (2024, per the NJ DCA User-Friendly Budget) does not include these separate public entities — each with its own budget and its own debt:
Jersey City Board of Education — the school district's separate budget and its own school tax (on your tax bill, not the municipal budget).
Hudson County — county government and the county tax (on your bill, separate).
Jersey City Housing Authority — public housing, separately (federally) funded.
In fairness: the Incinerator Authority (JCIA) was dissolved in 2016 and parking is now a municipal division — both are inside today's municipal budget.
Where the money goes
A sample of the city's larger contracts and vendor payments (2020–2026). Every name and amount here was individually confirmed against its source resolution — not auto-parsed. Click any row to open the official document.
These are ordinary vendors the City pays for goods and services — their inclusion implies nothing improper about them. Amounts are the contract “not-to-exceed” or claim figure stated in the resolution; recurring contracts show the largest single award. This is a sample of larger payments, not a complete list.
Paid to
Amount
For
Type
Year(s)
Source
River North Transit, LLC
$7,451,210
on-demand bus services (contract extension/amendment) · recurring, 2 contracts
architectural services for the Community Recreational Center project (feasibility studies, conceptual design, community meetings, schematic master plan, cost estimate) · recurring, 2 contracts
Every off-budget, authority, PILOT, special-emergency, and deferred-charge resolution the city adopted, 2019–2026. Search, sort, and click each row through to the official source PDF.
Read before quoting: amounts are the stated figure on each authorizing resolution; many are refundings/rollovers of the same debt — do not sum them. Use this to see scale and to reach the official source document.
Year
Res #
Amount ▼
Category
Context
Source
Looking for who the city pays? This project does not publish a vendor list — auto-parsed names can be wrong, and we won't risk misattributing them. Go straight to the official record instead: each resolution above links to its source PDF (payee, amount, purpose), you can browse the city council resolution portal, or request the full vendor check register from the City via OPRA.
Jersey City has been here before. It is worth remembering how long it lasted.
In October 1989, the State of New Jersey took control of the Jersey City public schools — the first state takeover of a school district in the country. Local control was not fully restored until 2022. Thirty-three years. A child who started kindergarten under state control could have had their own child graduate before it ended. New Jersey Monitor ↗
State oversight is not a hypothetical here, and it is not a partisan question. It works — the district was rated high-performing on its way out, and Atlantic City's finances stabilized under state control after 2016. But it works the way an amputation works: it stops the bleeding, and you do not get the limb back for a generation. Decisions move to someone residents cannot vote out.
And it has already started on the municipal side. The $120M state package came with a state fiscal monitor. Before the council voted 9–0 to apply in February, the then-Business Administrator told them the monitor “would have override power over everything in the city: They could veto everything.” Hudson County View ↗Update, Sept 10: the revised loan terms extend it — every city budget from 2027 through 2031 now needs the state Local Finance Board’s approval, under a state-approved recovery plan. Res. 26-537 ↗
So the question was never takeover or no takeover. It is how far, and for how long — and whether the rules that end the cycle are written here or imposed from Trenton.
The alternative to binding ourselves is being bound by someone else.
That is the whole argument for the two reforms below. Self-imposed discipline is the only version where residents keep the vote.
The fix — mostly enactable by ordinance now
Rules that stop the cycle — most enactable by city ordinance now.
1. Structural-balance rule
One-time money can never fund recurring costs.
2. Rolling 4-year plan
Expose the out-year cliff a one-year patch hides.
3. Whole-city budget
One document that includes every authority's full budget & debt — water/sewer, redevelopment, housing — plus the pension and retiree-health holes, on one page. Nothing off-book.
4. Deferred-charge limits
Stop pushing foreseeable costs into future years.
5. Rainy-day floor
A minimum reserve that can't be raided to zero.
6. PILOT fair share
Mandatory school/county share; caps, sunsets, a public dashboard.
7. Open checkbook
Publish every transaction — vendor, amount, account, and purpose — in a public, searchable, downloadable format, updated monthly, so any resident can follow the money without filing a records request.
What you can do
The 2026 budget is being decided right now — presented July 13, introduced July 15, adopted in early August. This is the window to be heard.
Get the findings
New findings and budget-hearing alerts, by email — no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
First, see what it means for you. Check your own bill on the city's 2026 Estimated Tax Calculator — then put your number in your comment. Your bill is more persuasive than any statistic.
1
Speak at the hearing
The strongest voice is on the record. Sign up to give public comment (2nd & 4th Wed, 6 PM).
Find or double-check your ward on the city's official map
The authoritative source, maintained by Jersey City. Find your block, then pick that ward above.
Five questions worth asking
Taxes are up 77% since 2014 while state aid stayed flat — what's the plan to stop filling every gap with property taxes?
The city's own report says we used $677.4M of one-time money in 2019–2025. What one-time revenue is in the 2026 budget, and what happens when it runs out?
$105M of the “$120M state package” is a loan — how and when do we repay it?
Will you support a rule that one-time money can't fund recurring costs?
Will you support publishing every city transaction in a public, searchable “open checkbook”?
Copy-paste message to the council
Dear Council Member{{REP}},
I am a Jersey City resident{{WARD}}. I'm concerned the city keeps closing budget gaps with one-time money. By the city's own Financial Emergency Report, we used about $677.4 million of it from 2019 to 2025, and $105 million of this year's $120 million state package is a loan, not aid.
I'm asking you to: (1) support a structural-balance rule so one-time money can't fund recurring costs; and (2) publish every city transaction in a public, searchable "open checkbook."
Where do you stand? Thank you.
[Your name]
Spread it — this is how more people find out
The fastest way to reach people is to share one finding. Every share reaches further than one post from us.
Your council: Denise Ridley (Ward A, President) · Joel Brooks (B) · Thomas Zuppa Jr. (C) · Jake Ephros (D) · Eleana Little (E) · Frank Gilmore (F) · at-large: Mamta Singh, Michael Griffin, Rolando Lavarro Jr.
Don't trust us — check the sources
Every figure is the city's or state's own number. Go straight to the primary documents.
How this was built, and every primary document behind it.
Trend and budget figures come from the NJ DCA User-Friendly Budget database (Jersey City = municipality 0906). The off-budget and emergency items were compiled from the City of Jersey City's own published council resolutions (2019–2026), each linked to its source PDF. The structural-deficit, one-shot, and deferred-charge figures are the city's own numbers from the documents below. Vendor/recipient names are intentionally not published (auto-parsed names can be inaccurate).
Some liability figures (retiree health, pensions) are measured as of the city's most recent full audit (CY2020) and may be out of date; the 2026 chart point is a labeled estimate. See the full disclaimer.