Craig Coughlin's traveling StayNJ rebate show has many miles still to travel | Stile

The StayNJ property tax rebate, the loudly heralded deliverance for homeowning New Jersey seniors, doesn't exist yet and isn't scheduled to launch for another 2½ years.

Nonetheless, the program is featured in a new glossy brochure. It commands an equally glossy StayNJ website. And the program has a powerful pitchman who is making the rounds hawking it to the curious and the slightly confused.

"It's going to stay as long as people stay in New Jersey," said Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, in a StayNJ Town Hall last week at a senior center in Princeton.

Coughlin was answering questions from an online participant in the forum. The question came from a resident who was eager to know about the longevity of the promised rebate, which promises to cut senior property taxes up to 50% once and if — and that's a big "if" — it materializes by January 2026.

"It's a permanent plan," Coughlin said firmly, sparking a murmur of approval and surprise in the back row.

Conjuring the cure-alls of yore

Coughlin showed up with his entourage of aides and advisers, but he might as well have arrived alone in a horse-drawn wagon with a garish advertisement painted on its sides touting "C.J. Coughlin's Property Tax Tonic" in large, frontier-style lettering.

After all, the Woodbridge lawyer was selling an elixir to New Jersey's nagging heartache about its highest-in-the-nation property taxes. But Coughlin's attempt at a cure-all largely remains a concept sketched out in a public statute. Snake-oil salesmen of yore at least offered the eager and the gullible a liquid potion of some sort. Coughlin's StayNJ is still working out the recipe.

Of course, the Assembly speaker and his fellow Democrats who are hitting the trail this summer and fall can point to a law that was actually passed that formally outlined StayNJ. In Princeton, Coughlin was flanked by state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, D-Mercer, and Assemblyman Roy Freiman, D-Somerset, of the 16th Legislative District, one of the handful of possible tossup districts this fall.

And they can also use the town halls, like the one in Princeton, to promote a provision in the new law that boosted the size of last year's ANCHOR rebate to a maximum of $1,750 for seniors and $500 for renters. It was also an opportunity to explain how StayNJ will be made available to homeowners making as much as $500,000 and capped at a $6,500 reduction.

And like the traveling peddlers who came before him, Coughlin pulled at the heartstrings of his eager audience. The speaker explained to a mostly elderly audience that the StayNJ rebate could make the difference between moving to a low-cost state in the South and staying put in Jersey and closer to their grandkids.

"For those of us who are fortunate enough to have grandkids — and I have a 5-month-old little granddaughter and a 3-month-old little grandson — I know how important it is to be able to share their lives, and it's a joy every time we get to go over there and hold them, and that's all I really want to do," Coughlin said, sparking a few chuckles. "Everybody's not as lucky as I am. Some people have to make the decision about whether they're going to be able to stay here in New Jersey and pay private property taxes or move to someplace that is less expensive."

More Charlie Stile: NJ tax rebates are usually politically expendable. Can StayNJ be the exception? | Stile

'The numbers are just too big'

That sounds nice and homey. And the website featuring the back of a young, ecstatic grandchild with a hand raised skyward at the sight of her loving grandparents is enough to make you reach for the tissue box. Still, the truth is that there is little chance the benefit will ever see the light of day.

To begin with, it's unlikely that the Legislature will be able to muster the $1.3 billion price tag to cover the cost of the program.

Earlier this year, state treasury officials had to revise downward their revenue projections for the next fiscal year — a signal of leaner times to come. (Gov. Phil Murphy, the former Goldman Sachs honcho, was assured by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin during a recent lunch that things are looking brighter in the next couple of years. That’s comforting, I guess).

Pandemic aid that propped up New Jersey’s recovery is now drying up, and a group of bipartisan economists and budget experts recently warned that New Jersey is likely to face an enormous shortfall in revenues between fiscal years 2025 and 2028, ranging from $12.5 billion to $18.5 billion, according to the Steve Sweeney Center for Public Policy at Rowan University.

“Frankly, it doesn’t make any difference to me whether it’s $1.2 [billion] or $1.6," said Richard F. Keevey, a state budget official during the administrations of former Gov. Thomas H. Kean and the late Gov. Jim Florio, during a virtual press event last month, referring to the range of estimates for the projected cost of StayNJ. “The numbers are just too big to be handled without making substantial cuts in other programs or increasing taxes.”

More Charlie Stile: Craig Coughlin has a StayNJ windfall to sell to seniors. Will it ever pay off?

The StayNJ law establishes a commission to study how to consolidate the relief programs and simplify the offerings under one application. The program will award homeowners the largest benefit — a combination of the Senior Freeze and the new ANCHOR rebate, or the StayNJ benefit of a 50% cut.

Creating the new program is a massive administrative and political nightmare forced under a strict timeline under the new law. And the law included language that puts StayNJ on the chopping block if the state can't fulfill its obligations on school funding and pension payments or sock away a surplus of 12% — a challenge that will be hard to meet if the revenues continue to drop.

Coughlin later scoffed at suggestions that he was overselling the program by assuring the audience that it is permanent program. He argued that most state programs are vulnerable to the vagaries of the economy, unless they are constitutionally guaranteed.

"There is no end date for the program," he said. "The program is designed to last in perpetuity."

Questions — and skepticism

Yet, among the crowd in Princeton, there were questions about how the rebate program will work. And there was skepticism. One older man, speaking softly, didn't understand why the 50% cut would be offered to homeowners with incomes up to $500,000. He said the maximum $6,500 benefit isn't going to mean much to people making that kind of money.

What about reducing the eligibility to homeowners making $250,000 and increasing the size of the rebate, to, say, $8,000 — an amount that will make a material difference for more people?

Coughlin pushed back with his talking point. The idea is to signal to the upwardly mobile, those who could see themselves reaching into that bracket as they reach retirement age, that the state is taking steps to become more affordable. It's a "transformative" plan designed to reach an estimated 97% of senior homeowners with an inducement to stay.

"We're trying to capture as many people as we can,'' he said.

That's assuming that the check ever comes. Right now, Coughlin & Co. are obsessed with another number game: turnout in November. And with StayNJ, they seek to capture as many voters as they can. The "C.J. Coughlin Property Tax Tonic" wagon has many more miles to travel.

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com 

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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: StayNJ property-tax rebate: Craig Coughlin hits road to sell