Senator Kevin O’Toole called on the State Auditor to immediately begin a performance audit of the Extraordinary Aid Program – a property tax relief program that is clearly being mismanaged.
The purpose of the Extraordinary Aid Program, run by the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), is to allow municipalities experiencing extraordinary financial problems not of their own making to compete for a share of approximately $25 million to mitigate property tax increases.
The following facts prove the Extraordinary Aid program is poorly run at best, and manipulated at worst:
- DCA has no regulations establishing standards for which applications will be approved and how much funding will be awarded.
- DCA refuses to make available any ranking sheets or scoring sheets explaining the weighting of competing applications, despite a request under the Open Public Records Act.
- Nine applicants received grants in the most recent round of awards even though property taxes on the average home in those towns was less than $4,000.
- Eleven applicants received no grants even though property taxes on the average home in those towns were more than $8,000.
- Several applicants received grants even though their applications did not document any revenue losses or expenses beyond their control other than the same types of revenue losses and expenses being faced by every town in the State.
- Applicants responsibly making full pension payments and engaging in difficult layoffs and furloughs are not receiving aid while towns that irresponsibly skip pension payments and refuse to accept layoffs or furloughs of even nonunionized workers are receiving grants.
Last year, the State Auditor conducted a performance review of a similar property tax relief program – the Special Municipal Aid Program and found it to have been politicized and grossly mismanaged. That performance audit has resulted in bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senators Phil Haines of Burlington County and Ron Rice of Newark to reform to the program.
“A property tax relief program that is supposed to help address the highest-in-the-nation property taxes is being mismanaged or manipulated,” said Senator O’Toole. “The State Auditor’s past audit of a similarly mismanaged property tax relief program resulted in bipartisan efforts at reform and hopefully that catalyst can be repeated.”
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September 23, 2009 - Senator Cardinale Calls for Investigation into Extraordinary Aid Program
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January 5, 2010
