How this works.
Project Solomon reads the official Jersey City budget documents and explains them. It is built so that you can check every number it shows you.
Where the numbers come from
Every dollar figure is parsed from an official source and stored in a local database. The assistant reads those stored figures through query tools; it is never asked to recall or calculate a number itself. That separation is the point: AI is used for explanation, never for arithmetic.
Totals are read from the budget form's own subtotal rows rather than re-summed, so what you see matches the published document exactly.
Read the budgets yourself
Separate documents govern what Jersey City residents pay. Everything on this site is drawn from them.
- Jersey City CY2026 Municipal Budget (Introduced) — the municipal budget, adopted by the City Council, running January to December.
- Jersey City Public Schools User-Friendly Budget 2026-27 — the school district budget, adopted by the Board of Education, running July to June.
- Memorandum Regarding the 2026 Budget for the City of Jersey City — the administration's account of the budget gap and the tax increase. Figures stated only here, such as the size of the gap and the average tax bill, are attributed to it rather than presented as derived.
What to be careful about
- The CY2026 budget is introduced, not adopted. Council may still amend it.
- Data municipalities report to the state is self-reported and unaudited.
- Per-resident figures are averages, not tax bills. Most residents do not pay them directly.
- The city and school budgets run on different calendars, so their totals are shown side by side rather than added.
- AI explanations can be wrong or incomplete. The figures beside them are not.
AI coverage
The largest lines are explained ahead of time; the rest are explained the first time someone opens them, then cached.
About the Founder
David Saporta is a third-year distinguished Quantitative Social Science student at Stevens Institute of Technology and a lifelong Jersey City native. Saporta’s two biggest interests are civics/urban development and technology. From a young age, Saporta would frequently read Jersey Digs, catching up with the latest real estate development news in Jersey City and the surrounding area. In fact, in fifth grade, he wrote an article for his school’s newspaper about the rapid changes Jersey City experienced in the mid-2010s. Around that time, Saporta developed a second strong interest: technology, becoming a self-proclaimed “Apple enthusiast” by seventh grade. His tech enthusiasm ultimately persuaded him to pursue software development, with his keen eye for UX design developed after years of meticulously studying Apple’s software design paradigms in his free time. He attended the prestigious High Tech High School in Secaucus, where he majored in Computer Programming and began making websites and iOS apps on the side, but he began to feel something was lacking. He began to lose sight of his original interests in civics and urban development and felt the calling to use his skills in technology to exercise his original interest in civics.
So, Saporta decided to pursue a B.S. in Quantitative Social Science at Stevens Institute of Technology, a degree that combines programming and data analysis with concentrations in Political Science, Sociology, and Psychology. As a research assistant of esteemed Stevens Political Science Professor Lindsey Cormack, Saporta designed and built Project Madison, an AI-powered analysis tool for Congressional bills, aimed at civics classrooms across the US. Saporta is currently working on an internship to develop a similar tool to help local constituents find their civic boards. Project Solomon is Saporta’s first uncommissioned civic tech “passion project”, with the motivation to create it inspired by confusion and outrage from residents about the 2026 Jersey City Budget Deficit and property tax increase. Like his other projects, Saporta’s goal with Project Solomon is to make an easily accessible tool to distill the city’s current budget using the help of intuitive charts, prominent data figures, and AI. In addition to Project Solomon and his other “civic tech” projects, Saporta has co-developed two iOS apps, reaching over 200,000 downloads collectively on the App Store.
In his free time, Saporta can be found advocating for local issues. He is a member of Hudson County Complete Streets and has delivered two testimonies to the Port Authority about the importance of improving PATH service as well as participated in events organized by HCCS to raise awareness for the current issues facing PATH and NJ Transit. He can also be found traveling. Since 2024, Saporta has visited over 10 countries. Saporta is currently spending a semester as an exchange student at the University of Amsterdam, where he intends to study Amsterdam’s world-renowned urban planning and transit in depth, explore other European cities, and bring ideas back to Jersey City. When not working, advocating, or traveling, Saporta can be found walking around a neighborhood of Jersey City or NYC, visiting a skyscraper observatory, seeing a Broadway Show, catching a free outdoor movie night or concert, or watching one of his favorite urbanism creators on YouTube such as Not Just Bikes or CityNerd.