Hoboken's Budget Crisis: The Transparency We Deserve

For years, Hoboken residents have been kept in the dark about our city's true financial condition. While our elected officials have presented balanced budgets and celebrated new spending, the reality hidden beneath the surface tells a very different story—one of structural deficits, mounting obligations, and a looming fiscal disaster that threatens our community's future

A structural deficit occurs when a city creates recurring expenses but the revenue to support these expenses are not recurring. For example, when Hoboken received COVID grants, the Mayor and the City Council used those funds to hire additional employees. Once the grant money was exhausted, Hoboken had no resources to pay for salaries for these additional employees. The city then has no choice but to raise taxes.

The warning signs have been there all along, buried in technical budget documents that no resident has the time to dig up and analyze. Year after year, our city has spent more than it has taken in through sustainable revenue sources, papering over the gaps with one-time fixes, borrowing, and accounting maneuvers that push problems into the future. This isn't creative budgeting—it's fiscal irresponsibility.

Now, finally, we're hearing the truth. Hoboken's outgoing business administrator has publicly acknowledged what many of us have suspected: our city is standing at the edge of a financial cliff. The structural deficits that have been accumulating for years have brought us to a breaking point where dramatic tax increases—his recommendation is a 25% increase this year alone—may be necessary to avoid financial catastrophe.

The consequences of this approach are now becoming clear. Property taxes have risen dramatically— 8.5% last year alone —and residents are being told to brace for much more. Meanwhile, the spending commitments already made by current leadership will require tax increases of approximately 74% over the next eight years, according to city projections. These aren't abstract numbers—they represent real families being priced out of the community they love.

Many council members seem surprised by news of a crisis they helped create. How is it possible that council members who vote on budgets every year claim to be unaware of the long-term fiscal trajectory they've endorsed? Either they haven't been paying attention to the financial implications of their votes, or they've chosen to keep residents uninformed about the true cost of their spending decisions.

The lack of transparency around our structural deficits represents a fundamental breach of trust between government and citizens. Residents deserve to know not just what the city plans to spend this year, but whether that spending is sustainable over time.They deserve honest projections about future tax obligations, not rosy scenarios that ignore mounting liabilities. They deserve budget presentations that clearly distinguish between one-time revenues and ongoing expenses, so they can understand whether their city is living within its means. I have sent a letter to the city council requesting it provide the year-over-year magnitude and source of our structural deficit for the last eight years.

Other municipalities facing similar challenges have found ways to communicate honestly with residents about difficult fiscal realities. Hoboken's leadership has chosen a different path—one that prioritizes political convenience over fiscal honesty. Moving forward, Hoboken needs budget transparency that matches the magnitude of our fiscal challenges. It means providing multi-year financial projections that help residents understand the long-term implications of current spending decisions.

Most importantly, it means electing leaders who will prioritize fiscal honesty over political expediency. The current crisis didn't happen overnight—it's the result of years of decisions made without adequate public scrutiny or transparent communication about their long-term costs.

We deserve leaders who will level with us about difficult financial realities and work collaboratively toward sustainable solutions. We deserve a government that treats transparency not as a political liability, but as a fundamental obligation to the citizens it serves.

The edge of the cliff is not where any city wants to find itself. But transparency about how we got here and honest conversation about where we go next—is the first step toward pulling back from the brink and building a more fiscally sustainable future for Hoboken.

Dini Ajmani is a candidate for Mayor of Hoboken and formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Treasury and Assistant Treasurer fro the State of New Jersey