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<\/a>By John Heinis\/Hudson County View<\/p>\n\u201cAt Wednesday\u2019s meeting with city union leadership, the administration told union members that Council\u2019s opposition to a 15% third quarter tax increase \u2014 opposed by Council members Ridley, Gilmore, Lavarro, Griffin, and Zuppa \u2014 would result in layoffs. That\u2019s not accurate, and union members deserve better than being misled about what\u2019s actually on the table,\u201d the five council members said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were also encouraged to show up at the next council meeting and demand a vote on the increase, even though no such item is on the agenda. Written talking points circulated to union heads placed the blame on council members for asking basic budget questions. This administration should be embarrassed by that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While last week started on a high note for the city of Jersey City, securing $120 million<\/a> in state aid \u2013 a $15 million grant and a $105 million loan \u2013 it didn\u2019t end on one.<\/p>\n Just two days later, the governing body unanimously voted down<\/a> (0-9) a 15 percent rate hike on the third quarter tax bills proposed by Mayor James Solomon, which came after he pulled a 20 percent proposal<\/a> the week prior, both as HCV first reported.<\/p>\n Now, the governing body is clearly drawing a line in the sand when it comes to the budget introduction, which they felt was necessary before approving any sort of tax increase for residents.<\/p>\n \u201cNow the administration appears to be moving toward layoffs before the public or the council has seen the proposed budget, the terms of the State loan, the results of a PILOT audit, or the list of new hires since January 15, 2026 that Council requested,\u201d Ridley, Lavarro, Griffin, Zuppa, and Gilmore continued.<\/p>\n \u201cPinning a potential layoff on the council doesn\u2019t hold up, either \u2014 the council has no authority over hiring or firing within the administration. So here\u2019s where we stand: Do better. This Council doesn\u2019t scare easily. We\u2019re willing to work with an administration that keeps its campaign promises and shows up for residents.\u201d<\/p>\n They concluded that they are simply seeking complete information before voting on a tax increase, whether that is 15 percent or not.<\/p>\n Ridley, the council president, ran on Solomon\u2019s ticket from day one, as did Griffin and Lavarro. Gilmore and Solomon traded endorsement early in last year\u2019s campaign, while Zuppa got endorsed by the then-Ward E Councilman in the December runoff.<\/p>\n City spokesman Nathaniel Styer confirmed that the city was laying off 31 provisional employees, something he said would not have happened if the 20 percent rate hike had been passed, reiterating that Solomon had said a 15 percent tax rate would cause\u00a0layoffs.<\/p>\n \u201cLayoffs were always our very last option to solve this crisis. Balancing the budget requires a combination of raising revenue and cutting expenses, and after cutting over $55 million in expenses, we are out of areas to trim without impacting staff. Our original proposal of a 20% city tax rate increase was intentionally designed to protect jobs and core city services,\u201d he explained on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe City Council made it clear that a tax increase of that amount was unacceptable and asked us to find more savings and efficiencies. Laying off these 31 provisional employees is a difficult, significant step towards achieving those additional reductions in spending. This should underline the fact that there is no way to further lower the proposed tax rate without more layoffs and deeper cuts to city operations.\u201d<\/p>\n An email forwarded to HCV shows that Jersey City Inter-Governmental Affairs Senior Advisor Stuart Thomas, who managed Solomon\u2019s mayoral campaign, notified the City Council of the layoffs today 12:35 p.m.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was not a decision made lightly. The affected employees have served the City, and the administration is committed to proceeding respectfully and in full compliance with all applicable rules and procedures. Affected employees are being notified directly today,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Jersey City budget expected to be introduced at Monday\u2019s City Council caucus, a battle has erupted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[66463,98,100,99,44353,51706,13338,66464,11005,111832,9,24,63,111833,65914],"class_list":["post-292928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-2026-jersey-city-budget","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-denise-ridley","tag-frank-gilmore","tag-james-solomon","tag-jersey-city-budget-deficit","tag-jersey-city-council","tag-michael-griffin","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-rolando-lavarro","tag-tom-zuppa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}