Jersey City council adopts 2026 budget amendment

The bill came due for Jersey City taxpayers. The City Council adopted Resolution 26-536, the CY 2026 municipal budget as amended, after a long round of member statements about taxes, services, and what the city could still preserve. The final plan includes a 15.15 tax increase. Sean J. Gallagher announced the result: the resolution passed with one abstention from Michael O. Griffin.

Several councilmembers framed the vote as a choice between a painful increase and sharper service losses. Joel A. Brooks said the budget would not solve every problem, including torn streets or abusive landlords, but would keep public safety staffing in place, support the right-to-counsel program, and restore provisional workers. Jake Ephros called the increase existential for families and said the council had made targeted changes, including trimming police overtime, expanding mental health crisis response, and restoring lower-paid positions in community care, recreation, senior affairs, health clinics, and affordable housing. Eleana Little said the amendment process brought the increase down from 15.5 to 15.15 and pointed to changes that shifted police overtime funds, added support for right-to-counsel, restored a senior bus driver, and added park maintenance resources.

Other members focused on what comes next. Thomas Zuppa Jr. said the city must avoid putting residents through another burden in 2027. Frank E. Gilmore called for benchmarks, deadlines, public reporting, and independent verification. Mamta Singh said no one was celebrating the vote. Rolando R. Lavarro Jr. said the council needed to stay engaged with state partners while restoring direct service programs and jobs. Denise Ridley said work on the 2027 budget starts immediately, including a council finance committee and new rules on surplus, deferrals, and special emergency notes.

The budget changed again before the final vote. The City Council approved additional amendments to the 2026 municipal budget after review by the state budget examiner, with changes tied to a 2019 tax overpayment receivable and other line-item adjustments.

Council members said the revisions did not change the overall budget total. Instead, they updated how certain items were accounted for inside the spending plan. Sean J. Gallagher read the amendment resolutions into the record before the council moved them forward.

That matters because the final budget vote rested on a document that had already been revised more than once. By the time the council took up Resolution 26-536, members were voting on an amended version shaped by state review and local negotiations over where money should go, even as the total size of the budget stayed the same.