Poll Shows Voters Back November Referendum

Poll Shows Voters Back November Referendum

A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows that a majority of New Jersey voters plan to support a November statewide referendum that calls for using 100 percent of the latest sales tax revenue increase for property tax relief.

According to the poll, released Monday, 66 percent of voters said they would vote “yes” on the ballot question, while 25 percent said they would oppose it.

Last year, New Jersey voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution that called for allocating half of the money raised by the sales tax increase to help decrease the state’s property tax burden, which averages about $6,330 per homeowner.

This year, the state will ask voters to use the other half of the 1-cent sales tax increase for the same purpose.

NJSBA on Governor’s Side Gov. Jon S. Corzine opposes the November ballot question, but his vote is not part of the process to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr., D-Camden, and Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, both support it. NJSBA opposes any plan to permanently divert all of last year’s 1-cent sales tax increase tax for property tax rebates.

“We need property tax relief, but we also believe that the state needs sufficient revenue to properly fund public schools,” Edwina M. Lee, NJSBA executive director, has said about the proposal, Assembly Concurrent Resolution 20. “It’s time to fix our broken system of school funding. This plan would make it hard to do that.”

Continuing to place the remaining sales tax revenues in the state budget would balance property tax relief with proper funding for education, Lee said, adding that property tax relief is a byproduct of adequate state aid to education.

Rutgers: School Funding is the Issue In January, a Rutgers-Newark report found that five consecutive years of frozen state aid caused the state’s rising property taxes.

“Had the state fully funded [aid to local school districts] during the past five years, it is quite possible that the furor over New Jersey’s excessively high and ever-escalating local property taxes might never have arisen,” according to the report issued by the university’s Institute on Education Law and Policy. In 2005-06 alone, school property taxes statewide could have been reduced by up to $846 million, according to the study.