“The reason Newark, Camden, and Paterson NJ all laid off so many employees is BECAUSE we have property taxes; their residents hadn’t been paying for their services for decades, with “state aid” (our money) picking up the tab.”
There’s some sort of formula here in NJ that counties use to divert a portion of local property taxes from so called “affluent” towns to so called “poorer” ones. Our mayor once claimed that as the reason why property taxes were kept so high in my town, to make up the difference. Of course that doesn’t mean the poor towns spend their extra money wisely.
You are probably referring to the county portion of your property tax bill; while taxes in my town have stabilized, the county and school portion keep climbing.