By Dr. Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul

In 2024, our first year in the State Assembly, we worked in a bipartisan fashion to get 28 of our bills signed into law to make New Jersey a safer, fairer and more affordable place for all residents. As we look ahead, we appreciate that there is still much to do.

The cost of renting, buying, or even staying in a home has grown beyond the means of too many lower-and middle-income families, especially young people and seniors. In an effort to help renters, we have sponsored legislation to prohibit the use and sale of software programs, also known as “algorithmic devices”, for setting rent prices or occupancy of residential dwelling units. 

When participating landlords share vast amounts of non-public competitively sensitive data, it artificially inflates rents and vacancy rates for rental housing. This practice has contributed to double-digit rent increases, distorted markets and threatens to destabilize rental housing markets nationwide, including in New Jersey. 

We also have introduced legislation to help veterans stay in their homes by authorizing proportional property tax exemptions for honorably discharged veterans having a service-connected permanent disability. Our bill extends eligibility to veterans suffering from mental illness and the benefits would extend to surviving spouses. We also have sponsored legislation to increase annual income limitation for seniors and disabled citizens' property tax deductions.

Another of our bills addresses the need for more volunteer first-responders by giving eligible volunteers a property tax exemption of up to 15 percent of their home’s assessed value. Our volunteer fire and first aid departments create significant cost savings for towns and their property taxpayers, as well as save lives and protect property. But volunteerism is down across the state and first aid squads and fire departments are having difficulty recruiting new members. The bill is sponsored in the state Senate by our Legislative District 11 partner, Senator Vin Gopal.

Making the state more affordable for working families is also a priority and we are continuing to push for passage of bills addressing their needs.

We sponsored legislation to help families with children in college meet their expenses. Our bill would prohibit public institutions of higher education from increasing resident undergraduate tuition by more than 2 percent over the prior academic year.

We also have sponsored legislation that ensures teachers and school employees are eligible for child care subsidies when they work summer programs that are less than 30 hours a week. This ensures that our teachers who work extended school year programs are able to access the affordable child care they need.

Another of our bills, which has been referred to the Assembly Aging and Human Services Committee, would increase the Medicaid income and resource threshold limit for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled (ABD) eligibility group from $15,060 per year to $20,783 per year for an individual. That’s the same as for individuals under 65 years old without disabilities. 

A final note on property tax relief: The state Division of Taxation has announced that information packets to apply for the Stay NJ property tax credit program will be available early this year. Stay NJ is property tax relief for all senior citizen homeowners and tenants making less than $500,000 per year. You can anticipate a combined application for all three state property tax relief programs (Senior Freeze, ANCHOR, and Stay NJ). 

You can learn more about Stay NJ at the Division of Taxation website, www.nj.gov/treasury/staynj/, or call our LD11 office at (732) 704-3808 and a member of the staff will assist you.

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