Rallies, Outrage In Essex County Over NJ Health Care Hikes

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — If there’s one thing that can get people in Essex County out in the streets with outrage, it’s taxes and health care.

Based on a vote by the State Health Benefits Commission in September, some municipal governments in New Jersey will see an estimated 23 percent health insurance rate increase for their workers, while state employees will see about a 21 percent hike. And that means hardworking essential employees and overtaxed homeowners will be forced to pick up the slack, advocates say.

On Thursday, community leaders and residents rallied across the state to protest the recent health care insurance hikes that are expected to put the hurt on local public workers and property owners alike.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) was among them, holding a series of lunchtime rallies throughout New Jersey on Thursday, including a protest on University Avenue in Newark.

According to a statement from the CWA, the massive jump in premiums is going to slam county, municipal and school budgets. But it will also mean belt-tightening for the public employees who were praised as “heroes” during the coronavirus pandemic, the union said:

“Elected officials, labor leaders, workers and taxpayers are all joining together to highlight how these egregious health care premium hikes are completely unfair to the local government and county workers who showed up on the job throughout the COVID pandemic. They risked both their health and their family’s safety to provide vital services to the community. With the high cost of inflation and gas prices, these workers can’t afford a health care premium hike over 20%.”

Rally participants urged Gov. Phil Murphy and state Legislative leaders to provide $330 million needed to give “meaningful relief” to taxpayers, local and county governments and workers.

Other CWA rallies were held in Rochelle Park, Toms River and West New York.

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TAX HIKES FOR HOMEOWNERS

It’s not just public workers who will feel the pain from the rate hikes, officials say. Local taxpayers in towns across New Jersey will also be impacted – and it may cost them hundreds of dollars every year.

On Thursday, elected officials from Maplewood joined their peers at a rally in South Orange, uniting alongside union members, employees and school officials to decry the increases.

In a joint statement, South Orange and Maplewood leaders blasted the rate hikes, calling them “unprecedented, unexpected and irresponsible.”

South Orange Village President Sheena Collum and Maplewood Mayor Dean Dafis said that because of the 23 percent premium increases, the municipal property tax levy will increase by roughly 1.5 percent on health care.

“Between the towns and Essex County – in addition to our school district that is enrolled in the School Employees Health Benefits Plan where premiums are going up 16 percent – the average property taxpayer will see an increase north of $200/year on health care costs alone,” Collum said.

The alternative to a tax levy increase? Service cuts, deferring infrastructure investments and layoffs, she added.

Maplewood Mayor Dean Dafis urged people at the rally to contact Gov. Phil Murphy, State Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and other local legislators to intervene.

“A deal was cut with some state public unions to limit premium increases to 3 percent,” Dafis said. “Give us equal treatment. The Legislature needs to act immediately to provide financial relief to counties, towns, schools, and local public employees, and the governor needs to sign it.”

Thair Joshua, president of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education, read a resolution passed unanimously by the school board calling the rate increase “exorbitant,” especially at a time when there is record inflation.

Local public employees will also see less take-home pay, sharing in the cost of the premium increases – which will translate into thousands of dollars, officials said.

“Our members cannot afford this astronomical increase in health care premiums,” said Ken Greene, a senior dispatcher and chief steward for Teamsters Local 125.

Greene said that the union’s members are feeling the pinch of “economic uncertainty” every day, whether it’s at the gas pump or at the supermarket.

“Trenton cannot keep trying to get blood from a stone,” Greene urged.

Greene’s sentiment was echoed by other local union leaders in attendance, including the Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local 12, Superior Officers Association Local 12A and the Firemen’s Benevolent Association Local 25.

Fran Ehret, state director for the Communication Workers of America, was at Thursday’s rally in South Orange. And she repeated a cry that other Essex County leaders have been sounding over the past weeks: “everyone was sandbagged” about the hikes.

“The state has a $6 billion dollar surplus,” Ehret said. “They have COVID ARP money, and the state is about to get $600 million dollars when Horizon converts to a nonprofit mutual holding company, so it’s not a question of whether there is money to fix this problem.”

• See related article: NJ Gov. Signs Horizon Bill After Speedy Trip Through Legislature

ACROSS ESSEX COUNTY

After the commission’s vote, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said that New Jersey’s largest city is now is facing “astronomical” health insurance rate hikes for its city employees – which may end up getting passed on to local taxpayers.

Baraka released a statement blasting the rate increases, which the city had “neither control nor say” over. Read More: Newark Faces 'Astronomical' Health Insurance Hikes For City Workers

“At a time when health insurance companies are making record profits, plans to increase health care costs for New Jersey public employees are a betrayal of thousands of hardworking members of Newark’s municipal family, who are already being harshly impacted by rising costs of living,” Baraka said.

Baraka isn’t the only elected official in Essex County who says the rate hikes may end up putting the squeeze on local taxpayers.

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. – who touted a “zero percent property tax increase” earlier this year – said that the hikes are expected to cost the county about $21 million, a development that “doesn’t look good for the people of this county,” NJ.com reported earlier this month.

“How do you expect us to be able to put a budget together? It’s impossible,” DiVincenzo said. “The only thing I could do is raise taxes, lay off employees and find other ways to cut costs within the budget, and it’s going to be very difficult to do.”

Baraka and DiVincenzo, both Democrats, aren’t the only members of their party to question the rate hikes.

State Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, has supported the administration’s previous two budgets. When Gov. Phil Murphy signed the largest budget in state history last June, she said it was a spending plan “we should be proud of.”

• See related article: Massive NJ Budget Gets Mixed Reaction In Essex County

But the following month, Pintor Marin and other members of the Assembly Democratic Senior Leadership team put out a statement about the then-hypothetical rate hike, calling it a “major concern.”

“Particularly, it is unacceptable that increased costs of this magnitude are being contemplated without advising the Legislature of this decision,” the lawmakers wrote.

Pintor Marin said that she believes the Murphy administration was not answering questions truthfully during budget hearings and negotiations at a news conference on Wednesday, NJ.com reported.

“If we would have known what was coming ahead of time, the budget negotiations would have looked very differently,” the assemblywoman said. “I guess I’ll be a little more cautious going into budget season this year. We are always open and willing to negotiate, and I think it’s time for the administration to show that as well.”

Meanwhile, some Republican state lawmakers continue to criticize the Murphy administration over the rate hikes.

“The governor and his advisors have some explaining to do,” Sen. Michael Testa (R-1) said Thursday.

“These important indicators were hidden from the Legislature and the public during the budget process which resulted in the $50 billion budget signed by Murphy in late June,” Testa said. “Why would they sit on this devastating news, robbing local and county governments of the opportunity to plan for exploding costs as they crafted their budgets?”

PROPERTY TAXES IN ESSEX COUNTY

It's no secret that property taxes are one of the biggest gripes for people living in Essex County, which was one of four in New Jersey with the highest median bills in the entire nation, according to a recent study from The Tax Foundation.

Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran against Murphy for governor last year, made property taxes a major part of his campaign. Read More: Ciattarelli Reaches Out To 'High-Taxed' Essex County Homeowners

According to the most recent state statistics from 2021, here’s how much homeowners in each town and city in the county paid last year (click the pins to see the local statistics).

Some people have claimed that Essex County’s notoriously high property taxes may not be distributed equally, however.

If you take a look at a town’s “effective tax rate” – the amount of property tax paid relative to a home’s value – a much different story emerges, former Belleville Board of Education Michael Sheldon told Patch earlier this year.

Analyzing the data in a Patch article, Sheldon came up with a startling hypothesis: the wealthiest communities almost always had the lowest effective tax rates.

Adam Kraemer, the Republican candidate for county executive this November, told Patch that local property taxes are “regressive, inequitable, excessive and confiscatory.”

Think that just because you rent your home, you don’t have to care? Think again, Kraemer said.

“About 20 to 30 percent of the rent bill is a hidden tax,” he claimed. “Landlords need to devote about 20 to 30 percent of what they collect in rent to property tax, so they just do this by passing on the tax to tenants in higher rent.”

“These taxes harm us all in Essex County,” Kraemer added.

• See related article: Tax Gap In Essex County; Many Wealthier Towns Pay Lower Rates

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