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NJ State Policy Lab – Influences in Differences in NJ Municipal Tax Rates

September 12, 2022

Today’s NJSPL Report analyzes various factors that affect municipal tax rates, including age dependency ratios, private school enrollment, and population density.

Gavin Rozzi Revolutionizes OPRA Requests in NJ with Website

August 4, 2022

Bloustein Adjunct Professor and RUCI Lab Research Computing Specialist Gavin Rozzi Revolutionizes OPRA Requests in New Jersey with a Website called OPRA Machine. “I tried to get basic records — copies of checks and financial records — for investigative pieces. But...

Ocean county no longer among the oldest in NJ

August 3, 2022

New affordable housing in Ocean county is attracting a younger crowd. More retirees are electing to stay in their homes rather than move to the 55+ communities that drove up the median age in the southern part of the state. Dean Emeritus James W. Hughes discusses the...

How strong is the US economy? Depends on which party you ask

July 30, 2022

The jobless rate is at a record low of 3.6%, but consumer prices are up 9.1% as of June 2022. Are we officially in a recession? That depends on who you ask. “It suggests, overall, the economy is weakening, it’s certainly losing steam, where there are storm clouds not...

NJ Government Records has Nearly Two-year backlog

July 29, 2022

Bloustein Professor and Local Govt. Research Center Assistant Director Marc Pfeiffer weighs in on the nearly two year backlog at https://nj.gov/grc/. “The law was written with an appreciation for the technology at the time, for the procedures at the time,” Pfeiffer...

N.J. is increasing diversity.

July 28, 2022

New Jersey is one of the most diverse states in the nation, and year after year it has only gotten more so. “The suburbs are far more diverse today than they were 25 years ago,” said James Hughes, a professor and a former dean of Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of...

NJ about to subtract one of its tiniest towns in rare merger

October 11, 2021

The borough of Pine Valley in Camden County has already voted to consolidate into Pine Hill. The disappearing town has 21 residents – barely one for each hole on the main course at Pine Valley Golf Club, one of the top golf courses in the world and the borough’s...

Report calls for change as town center microgrids run into roadblocks

August 5, 2021

Town center, or TC microgrid, projects in the Northeast have foundered in the face of regulatory, statutory and technical challenges, according to a report written for the New Jersey Bureau of Public Utilities (NJBPU). “Town center microgrids are one conceptual...

Could this study finally help NJ cut property taxes?

January 23, 2021

State lawmakers want to hire Rutgers University researchers to study efficiency and scaling in the delivery of local government services – but first have to narrow their ambitions, which are bigger than their wallet. With an election-year eye on reducing property...

Small NJ city at center of corruption probe as ex-lawmaker charged

July 10, 2020

"Elected officials should really watch who are they are appointing to positions, where they can appoint political patronage jobs. They really need to know who they are appointing because when it goes bad it brings down a lot of people," said Marc Pfeiffer,...