Sagging revenue and a bevy of looming funding needs in the coming fiscal year threaten to pull New Jersey’s $8.1 billion surplus below a threshold...
News
West New York police earn high salaries, even more than Jersey City cops
“Public safety employees are generally the highest compensated primarily because they have collective bargaining rights and binding arbitration,” said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of Rutgers University’s Bloustein Local, the local government research unit at the Center for Urban Policy Research.
NJCCRC to Host Webinar 1/23/24 to Introduce Newest Data-Visualization and Mapping Tools
New Jersey residents and planners alike have a new set of decision-support tools to help prepare their communities for climate change, thanks to a suite of data-visualization and mapping tools developed at Rutgers University’s New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center.
Bar part-time officials from full-time perks, incoming N.J. lawmaker says
“That doesn’t excuse individuals who have consciously abused the system,” said Pfeiffer, now a professor at Rutgers University. “But there are probably any number of cases where elected officials can spend 30, 35 hours a week in their job as an unpaid or low-paid elected official.”
While most towns have gone back to in-person meetings, Lakewood remains virtual
Pfeiffer said holding meetings online also risks technical problems, as well as online infiltration: “You should carefully consider the risks of meeting disruptions and make sure you balance the interests of people.”
N.J. town catching heat for plan to ban abortion clinics, tattoo parlors
A municipality in Union County has attracted some controversy on social media for a proposed ordinance prohibiting abortion clinics, tattoo shops, massage parlors and animal hospitals, among other businesses.
Marc Pfeiffer Uses Claude AI to Help Write Article: AI in Local Government, Helpful or Harmful?
For local governments, chatbots create exciting opportunities to improve customer service, automate tasks and cut costs. Marc Pfeiffer, Assistant Director of Bloustein Local, Center for Urban Policy Research, uses Claude AI to help write two articles on how to best incorporate this new technology.
Pfeiffer – TECH UPDATES: What Municipal CAOs Need to Know, Part 1: Tech Fitness and Cyber Hygiene
There are two basic elements of technology that every municipality must have. Most places already do this, but it doesn’t hurt to highlight them....
Lakewood schools borrowed millions from New Jersey and still can’t pay its bills
The Lakewood School District in New Jersey is facing severe financial distress, having borrowed $165 million since 2014 and now seeking an...
American Dream lawsuits are stacking up. Here’s why — and how they compare to other malls
The American Dream entertainment complex has faced an onslaught of 82 lawsuits since 2018, encompassing issues such as unpaid construction bills,...
Recent Products
Special Issue Collection: Risk Communication during Crises and Chronic Exposures
Karen Lowrie co-edited a special issue for the journal Risk Analysis, supported by the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation, that includes about 30 articles on the topic of effective methods for communicating risk during hazardous events and...
Annual Report on the Economic Impact of the Federal Historic Tax Credits for Fiscal Year 2021
The Federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC) is a Federal income tax credit that promotes the rehabilitation of income-producing historic properties. This study examines the economic impacts of the HTC (a 20% credit since 1986) by analyzing the economic consequences of the...
Transition Plan for the Return of Local Control to Jersey City Public Schools, Third Annual Report
This report is the third and potentially final report of the Department of Education’s (department) Comprehensive Accountability Office (CAO) concerning the final phase of the transition of the Jersey City Public Schools (district) from being a state supervised school...
Behaving or not? Explaining energy conservation via identity, values, and awareness in U.S. suburban homes
In this study, we compare electricity consumption of the suburban households with similar socio-economic, demographic, and geographic profiles to assess possible roles of social-psychological and behavioral factors. We examine the extent to which these factors...