Ever since New Jersey's two percent property tax cap took effect a few years ago, a growing number of Garden State municipalities have been looking for creative new ways to generate badly needed revenue by implementing so-called "user fees."

Senate President Steve Sweeney
Kevin McArdle, Townsquare Media
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These fees include charging for the use of athletic facilities and fields by their residents, trash collection and other things normally covered by taxes.

State Senate President Steve Sweeney is pushing legislation that would put an end to these fees.

"When you hear things like this it's very disturbing, we really as a government have to start looking to our neighbors to try to find way where we can cut costs rather than just go to the taxpayer each time," said State Senate President Steve Sweeney.

He said the mindset of town officials can change, and cited the example of Wildwood, where local leaders were going to impose beach fees, but then reconsidered, and decided to try to work with neighboring communities and share services to save money.

"We collect plenty of money in taxes," said Sweeney. "The money is not spent wisely cause we have too much government.  For some reason people think it's easy to charge a fee, rather than deal with the issue, and we've got to stop charging fees - a fee is a tax."

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