JERSEY CITY – The administration of Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy is set to formally introduce Jersey City’s 2012 municipal budget to the City Council tonight, a $469,300,340 spending plan that the mayor says includes no tax increase. But in a heated exchange last night with Healy, Ward E City Councilman and 2013 mayoral candidate Steven Fulop challenged several of Healy’s assertions about the budget.

Healy gave a preliminary overview of the 2012 spending plan to the City Council at the governing body’s Tuesday evening caucus meeting.

“This is the second year in a row that the administration has developed a budget with no municipal tax increase,” Healy told the council members Tuesday.

“Last year we began the process of streamlining government and we continue with that difficult, but necessary, task this year,” said Healy.

Fulop challenged Healy’s assertion that the administration has kept taxes steady over the last two years.

“If you say something a million times it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true,” Fulop told the mayor at Tuesday’s caucus. “If you look at the budget, year over year, there has been a substantial tax increase when you look at the amount [of money] to be raised in taxes.”

Healy has said that such comparisons are not accurate because the city switched from a fiscal year to calendar year budget this year.

Fulop, a frequent critic of the administration, is set to oppose Healy for mayor in 2013. Healy announced his intention to seek a third mayoral term last week.

The budget will be introduced at the City Council meeting tonight, which begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 280 Grove Street. This meeting is open to the public.

A public hearing on the budget is currently scheduled for the City Council meeting of Wednesday, March 28 at 6 p.m.

For more on this story, keep watching hudsonreporter.com and pick up the print edition of the Jersey City Reporter. – E. Assata Wright

Keywords: Jersey City 2012 budget Jerramiah T. Healy Steven Fulop 2012 municipal budget