Massachusetts' law shows implications of N.J. Gov. Christie's proposed property tax cap
WINTHROP, Mass. — The Mallios family spent about $1,400 over the last four years for their son Dino to play basketball. It wasn’t for equipment, training or elite private camps. They forked over the cash just so he could play on his high school team.
FILE PHOTO
Buy this photo
In New Jersey, critics of Christie’s plan contend it would cause too much pain without more state aid to towns and schools.
There would be no school teams at all in this town just northeast of Boston, tucked between a greyhound racetrack and the airport, if not for a private foundation that came to the rescue after voters in 2004 killed public school sports by refusing to raise taxes more than 2.5 percent.
The vote was taken under Massachusetts’ 30-year-old "Proposition 2½" law, which Gov. Chris Christie is using as the model for his plan to tame New Jersey’s sky-high property taxes. The law bans local governments from hiking property tax collections by more than 2.5 percent without getting voter permission, with very few exceptions.
With school sports a favorite target of local voter wrath, charging athletes — a concept cropping up in New Jersey — is the rule rather than the exception in Massachusetts. For parents in Winthrop, it means $425 per sport, up to $2,175 per family.
"It was a high fee to pay, but in order to keep my kids in the community, and I felt they were getting a great education here, I did what I had to do to pay it," said Elaine Mallios, Dino’s mother. Her son, a soft-spoken star guard, won a basketball scholarship to a good college. "All I know is I wanted to keep them in my town, my community and have that small-town atmosphere."
Three decades after Massachusetts enacted its cap, property taxes are, by New Jersey standards, low: $4,250 for the average single dwelling last year. They rank 20th in the nation as a percentage of home value in 2008, according to the
Engaging dissidence
Sunday, June 13, 2010
BY ARTHUR WEINER
THE RECORD
Whose voices are being unheard? Is there room for alternative, even critical voices?
Rabbi Arthur Weiner is the spiritual leader of the Jewish Community Center of Paramus.
WITH THE world once again embroiled in angry debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jews throughout the world gathered in their synagogues yesterday and read the story of Korach, who led a failed rebellion against Moses and Aaron.
Korach, our tradition teaches us, criticized and rebelled for the purpose of personal gain and power. An ancient source contrasts his behavior with that of Hillel and Shammai, great teachers and scholars who lived before the destruction of the Second Temple. They argued passionately over Jewish law and practice, yet did not let their often contentious debates destroy their bonds or deny the legitimacy of their opponent's positions.
The lesson that our sages derived from this is simple, yet important: Any controversy that is for heaven's sake is destined to be of lasting worth, but any not for heaven's sake is not destined to be of lasting worth. Which controversy was for
N.J. bill targets special interest groups
Sunday, June 13, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY JUNE 13, 2010, 11:54 AM
WIRE SERVICE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON — Legislation that would require special interest groups to publicly disclose information about their contributors and expenditures will be considered this week by a New Jersey Assembly panel.
Proponents say the measure would create more transparency surrounding "secretive groups" that involve themselves in state campaigns and policy discussions but refuse to detail their funding sources.
The bill (A-2595) would apply to groups — organized under certain sections of the Internal Revenue Service code — that engage in influencing elections or providing political information and also raise or spend at least $2,100.
These groups would have to report their contributor and expenditure information to the state's Election Law Enforcement Commission if the bill becomes law.
They also would have to identify themselves in communications they pay for that provide political information or tries to influence elections. And political
"Anchor babies" isn't a very endearing term, but in Arizona those are the words being used to tag children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. While not new, the term is increasingly part of the local vernacular because the primary authors of the nation's toughest and most controversial immigration law are targeting these tots — the legal weights that anchor many undocumented aliens in the U.S. — for their next move.
Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of
By Margaret Dooley-Sammuli
(Top Photo: Zara Tzanev for The Boston Globe/Below: Photos By Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff)
