Elected officials in the West Hudson town recently voted to take the state agency to court over its cut of a 3 percent hotel room surcharge divided among six of the the Meadowlands district's 14 member municipalities.
KEARNY -- There's a new front in the war between Kearny and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.
Elected officials in the West Hudson town recently voted to take the state agency to court over its cut of a 3 percent hotel room surcharge divided among six of the the Meadowlands district's 14 member municipalities.
Kearny officials have filed a lawsuit, charging that a change in the formula used to calculate each municipality's portion of the surcharge violates a state statute. The new formula shorts Kearny more than $200,000, they say.
The town and the NJSEA already have been duking it out for months over control of the Keegan Landfill in Kearny, with the state agency seeking to extend a contract to dump construction debris at the site against the town's wishes.
The hotel room surcharge replaced a tax-sharing plan used for decades by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission -- and its predecessor, the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission -- to compensate some towns in the district that were restricted from developing properties within the Meadowlands.
Under the formula, municipalities that had developed properties within the district contributed money to compensate towns that were restricted from developing similar plots of land. The formula was based on the three prior years of ratable increases in each town, according to Kearny Mayor Al Santos.
The NJSEA absorbed the NJMC last year and tweaked the formula slightly. The new formula bases payment percentages on two prior years of ratable increases plus the current year, according to Santos.
Kearny lost just $2,000 last year under the new formula, but faces a much heftier shortfall this year. Santos said last year's loss was so slight that the town "didn't even pick it up."
Officials only noticed the change in the formula this year when the loss jumped significantly, he added.
"We sent a letter to the sports authority thinking this could be solved amicably because it's such an obvious error," Santos said. "Much to our surprise, they didn't move on it."
NJSEA spokesman Brian Aberback said the agency would have "no comment on this legal matter."