http://www.collingswood.com/files/46...20Proposal.pdf

I liked a lot of what this mayor was saying. If you live in NJ, this is a good read about the impending budget cuts at the small town level.

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yeah, when i lived there they had the property tax bill broken out. about half went to the school district and the other half was split evenly between the county and the borough. My taxes were much lower back then but if i still owned that 3-bedroom row today, and only had to pay the Collingswood portion of the property tax, my tax bill would be about $1000. That's more than reasonable.

Not saying that there isn't a problem or that it shouldn't be fixed but in my time i've lived in 5 other states and visited lots more and have found that you usually get what you pay for. Other states with high levels of service might have lower property taxes but they pay for it somewhere else - sales tax, income tax, corporate tax, etc.

There's just no comparing the quality of life or level of services in NJ to that in, say, North Carolina, where a let of 'fed up taxpayers' wind up moving.

By comparison, in North Carolina, the crime is outrageous, the schools are terrible, rural and urban poverty is intense, social services are dismal, and outside of places like Charlotte and Raleigh transit is non-existent and municipal/county services move at a snails pace and corruption and cronyism are endemic.