The 94th Annual New Jersey League of Municipalities Convention

The 94th Annual League of Municipalities Convention was, for many, an opportunity to attend parties, but for me it was an opportunity to attend several of the educational seminars to collect information that might be helpful to me as a Plainfield elected official. I attended a total of seven seminars over a three-day period. I arrived in Atlantic City at about 3:15 in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 17th and headed straight to a seminar on "Division of Pensions and Benefits Update on Retirement Planning and Employee Benefits and Services" from 3:45 - 5:15 pm.

On Wednesday, November 18th, day two of the convention, I attended the following four seminars: "Forensic Techniques for Detecting Internal and External Fraud in a Municipal Environment" from 9:00 - 10:40 am; "Local Government and the Non-Profit Sector - Separate Worlds or Effective Partners?" from 10:45 am - 12:00 noon; "Performance Measurement Benchmarking - Do They Work?" from 2:00 - 3:40 pm and "Budgeting in 2010 - Learning from the 2009 Experience - What Works from the Short Term and Long Term Perspective" from 3:45 - 5:15 pm.

On day three, Wednesday, November 19th, I attended the following two seminars: "State and Cooperative Purchasing Program - Where Are We Today? - Where Will We Be Tomorrow?" from 9:00 - 10:40 am; and, "The Open Public Records Act In 2009" which ran from 10:45 - 12:00 noon rounded out my educational experience at the convention. After these, off I went to the League luncheon, for all delegates, where Governor-elect Chris Christie and outgoing Governor John Corzine spoke to delegates about the state of the State, the challenges we face and the need for bi-partisan cooperation.

All in all, I found the convention to be enormously beneficial. Elected officials and municipal employees who availed themselves of the information presented by the various speakers should be better informed and more aware of the challenges and crises facing their municipalities. We must all be willing to make the hard choices, make the necessary sacrifices and follow the lead of those municipalities that have already put austerity measures in place to cope with the very harsh economic times in an effort to minimize the impact of ever-rising property taxes.

What should be clear to all of us is that we cannot continue do what we have always done. We must change the way government delivers services to the people and we must explore opportunities for driving down the costs for those services. Later this week, I will share with you some of my "takeaways" from the seminars as well as some of the things I intend to champion in the coming year.

Regards, Adrian

Reporting on the 93rd Annual NJLM Convention

I was very intrigued by some of the seminars given at this year’s New Jersey League of Municipalities convention, which I attended in my capacity as Chief Financial Officer for the Borough of Roselle. The seminars dealing with financial issues and “greening” New Jersey were of particular interest to me, but in this post I will focus on things financial.

Oftentimes, governmental entities and non-profit organizations, e.g., hospitals and churches, seem to take the view that any property they own is exempt from taxes. Municipalities have for years given into this unlawful ownership theory, thus foregoing tax revenues to which the municipalities may be entitled. But one of the things made very clear in the seminar titled “Property tax exemption in New Jersey, issues and answers,” is the fact that tax exemption is not based on ownership but is based on use. So, properties owned by non-profits, school districts, and other governmental entities can be taxed depending on the uses to which they are put. There are four basic theories that determine whether or not a property is exempt from taxation, regardless of ownership: 1) Tax Base Theory, 2) Benefit Theory, 3) Sovereign Theory and 4) Community Theory.*

This seminar also touched on the different types of programs and incentives municipalities can use in an effort to spur economic development, i.e., Redevelopment Area Bonds or "RABs" (also known as Tax Increment Financing or "TIF"), Redevelopment Allocation Districts, and five-year tax abatements, an incentive program I discussed during my recent campaign for the city council.

Another seminar of note was the one sponsored by the State Comptroller that dealt with the need for Accountability, Transparency and Efficiency in government. This topic was one of the themes of my recent campaign. Matthew Boxer, the State Comptroller, is proposing that municipalities rotate auditing firms every 10 years. His office is currently working on developing a template that municipalities would be required to use in soliciting quotes for auditing firms. I asked the Comptroller if his office had any plans to try and identify those responsible for the disappearance of billions of dollars in school construction funds. He responding by saying that his office was looking forward, not backward, and that it would be up to the State Attorney General’s office to pursue the matter of the disappearance of school construction dollars. Given the recent court ruling regarding the Abbott funding formula, I believe it is imperative that the AG follow up on this.

All in all, the convention was very informative and packed with several interesting seminars. It was a worthwhile learning experience.

Regards,
Adrian

*NOTE: I will discuss these theories and how they impact the municipalities I serve in more detail in a future post.