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Gerardryan
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 11:14 am: | 
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Maplewood will not bear the entire school budget.
The tax burden for the school is split between the two towns. For the purposes of splitting the tax burden it is as if Maplewood and South Orange are one town. The each town's proportion of the total assessed valuation of both towns is each town's share of the total. |
Kathy
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 12:06 pm: |
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MTierney, Maplewood may have more public schools but South Orange has Seton Hall (which owns a lot more property than just its campus) and also a lot of group homes. More than 50% of the total land in SO is off the tax rolls for one reason or another.
With the school part of the property tax, as with the county portion, there are equalization formulas that factor out the effect of different bases for assessment. |
Mtierney
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 2:58 pm: |
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SHU's property is not included in our public school budget. It impacts, of course, on the village's budget insofar as police, fire. Both towns also have many religious places of worship off their tax roles. Mr. Ryan, can you tell us what the "proportion of the total assessed valuation of both towns is each town's share of the total" means? If Maplewood's assessed value has skyrocketed, how does that affect this proportion with regard to the "share of the total?" |
Tracks
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 5:14 pm: |
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There is a conversion factor so that South Oranges is assessed at 100% of value as was done in Maplewood in the past. Then the split is done. It is re-calculated every year. |
Gerardryan
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 10:27 pm: |
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They apply an "equalization ratio" to a town's total assessment whenever a town has to be compared with another town for the purpose of splitting up a tax burden. So for the schools South Orange's total assessment is divided by its equalization ratio, Maplewood's by its ratio, the numbers get summed. Maplewood's share is the equalzed value divided by the total. I *think* that the total only includes taxable properties but I am not 100% sure about that.
I don't know what the equalization ratio will be so I don't know what number to plug into the calculation. People on this board are speculating as to what the number will be, but that is just speculation.
BTW this same equalization ratio process gets applied to every town in the county to figure out the share of the county tax. |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:04 am: |
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Jerry: What has the ratio been in recent years? |
Gerardryan
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:26 am: |
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I think Tucker posted a reference to it and to the calculations involved within the last 10 days or so: http://66.33.27.70/discus/messages/1/2120.html?980404807#POST21459
Maplewood's at about 32% and SO at about 80%. Those are 2001 numbers not including Maplewood's reval.
I don't have any paperwork from the tax board in front of me to confirm those numbers, but they look like the right ballpark.
I don't know what the ratio will turn out to be for Maplewood. |
Deadwhitemale
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 12:25 pm: |
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Kathy: I am suitably impressed with the breadth of your knowledge, such as explaining California'a educational crisis viewed from SO. And I thought it was already documented it had to do with the adoption of Whole Language, (later dropped like a Lewinsky cigar, in the late 90's), and, likewise, fuzzy math, (almost dropped).
Well, you must be right, for it makes so much PC sense.
But, why punish the homeowner who improves property?
If the local tax did not pay for "education," the problem would be lessened dramatically.
This school district refuses to do a thing about local tax burden issues.
Any ideas?
DWM |
Kathy
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 4:26 pm: |
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DWM, "Why punish the homeowner who improves property?" Because property taxes are based on the value of property. If you increase the value of your property, you increase your taxes. If you think that this isn't "fair", then you should be looking for some other way to finance education and local governments.
South Orange does give you a three-year abatement on the increase. Darned nice of them.
One problem with capping assessments at purchase price is a phenomenon similar to what NYC sees with rent control, namely that people who have lived in one place for awhile find that they can't afford to move. The small number of houses that change owners end up bearing a disproportionate share of the taxes.
There is an interesting article in today's NYTimes about the new system that Vermont has instituted, whereby property-rich towns have to raise more tax money than they need and pay it into a fund that is distributed to other towns with smaller tax bases. Of course the wealthy towns are not happy, and some have opted out of the system. I can't see New Jersey ever doing this, but it is a possibility to think about. |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2001 - 8:58 am: |
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Kathy,
A couple of days ago, there was a news report on a lawsuit in Texas in which wealthy towns were suing to END the property tax redistribution system already in place in Texas. Of course, Vermont isn't Texas, so maybe it will work there.
Why not fund education through a state income tax rather than instituting a property tax sharing plan? |
Dgm
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 - 2:07 pm: |
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Attention All,
Turn your view outside SO. Your taxes that have increased the most since 1997 are school taxes and county taxes, not SO taxes. Unfortunately, the State makes South Orange collect village,county, and school taxes with a margin to cover any deadbeats.
The State has an antidiluvian way of funding education. It gives nothing to any but the poorest districts (see the education specials in the Star Ledger in the last two weeks.) In New Jersey, your kid's education is on your back. Other States, like Michigan, California, New York,and Texas (practically all the large ones)have programs where the local taxes have been rolled back and the state, with its vast ability to tax and fund, steps in. You need education funding reform in NJ.
Second, your county taxes. Newark has not had a reval since 1961. Each time we reval, our county taxes get that much worse. Meanwhile the residents of the largest jurisdiction in the County are paying county taxes on values last reviewed before I was born. The rest of Essex needs to sue Newark to reval, bringing 40 years of new value to the county tax base.
Things need to change, but you have to hassle your County and State Reps. (Hell, in New Jersey they could be the same person)
Respectfully,
DGM |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 - 2:39 pm: |
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DGM, you raise a point that has been raised many times before -- the reval of Newark.
I'm under the impression that each town in Essex has a multiplier attached to it, by the county, so that each town pays its fair share. In Maplewood, where the average assessment is 4 times higher than in 1981, the county would have to eliminate the multiplier, and use only the tax rate.
I believe this is done so that all towns will pay their fair share, given that their revaluations are not all done at the same time. For example, a town that was revalued in 1991 might have a multiplier of 2, whereas a town revalued in 2001 shouldn't have any.
Who has the real story on this? Maybe Vic wants to comment further, and I heard Ed Galante say as much at the property card workshop. |
Tracks
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 - 5:06 pm: |
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I do know that the multiplier only works if all properties in a town go up the same amount. However if the new assesed value shows that the multiplier was too low considering the total new assessed value then it means that town has been under (or over) paying for many years. This is why Newark did not want to do their reval. They have been getting away with murder and their free ride is going to end (we hope).
If you have a town that has an area that brings up the values when a new project is built (i.e. NJPAC), the multiplier does not solve that problem.
The state should require that all revals in a county are done at the same time. That would end some of the BS that goes on now. It would certainly level the playing field for the various towns in one county. |
Dgm
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 - 5:22 pm: |
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njjosseph,
Still there is no way to know if the multiplier is sufficient to capture 40 years of incremental growth (or 24 if you use 1967 as a baseline) without a reval.
dgm |
Gerardryan
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 - 9:16 pm: |
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The "multiplier" you're discussing is the "equalization ratio". It is used whenever towns have to be combined in some way for the purposes of calculating a town's percentage of the total's assessed valuation for tax purposes.
So it's used with Maplewood and SO for figuring each town's share of the school taxes, and it's used for all towns in essex county for doing the same for the county taxes. |
Dgm
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2001 - 10:04 am: |
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Gerardryan,
You are stating the same fact again. Do you really think that the multiplier actually captures all incremental value in Newark since 1968 or whenever the trough in Newark's actual values occurred?
dgm |
Tracks
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2001 - 10:13 am: |
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There is no way the equalization ratio works 100%, but as with everything in the NJ property tax system, there are tons of inequities. The only hope is a complete overhaul of the system and that is very unlikely to happen anytime soon. |
Gerardryan
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2001 - 10:14 pm: |
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Dgm, I was answering njjoseph. Do I think that Newark's equalization ratio correctly captures Newark's true assessed value? Beats the heck out of me :-) I understand there's a lot of abated property in Newark which really complicates the equation. |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 10:59 am: |
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I have a feeling that Newark is paying more than it's fair share of taxes at this point. Although they are trying to turn it around, it hasn't yet risen to a comparable quality that I heard it had in the 60's.
If they had a reval, it would probably affect us, but it may cause an increase in our taxes, rather than a decrease. Newark should be reval'd, of course, but don't expect your tax burden to lessen because of it. |
Nilmiester
| | Posted on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 11:19 am: |
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Townie: What can we do to increase immigration? Where and how? |
Tracks
| | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2001 - 9:52 am: |
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There is no way that Newark is paying their fair share of taxes. That is why they faught the reval. They know they are going to have to come up with more money to the county which will reduce the burden on other towns in Essex.
It is about time they stopped being subsidized. |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2001 - 10:16 am: |
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Tracks, how do you know this? Can you point me to an article in the Star-Ledger or somewhere else that I can bone up on this? Thanks! |
Tracks
| | Posted on Friday, February 16, 2001 - 11:43 am: |
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There were several articles in the Star Ledger, but I would have to do a search. The connection here is too slow, so I will try from home over the weekend. |
Dgm
| | Posted on Monday, February 26, 2001 - 9:23 am: |
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An Additional Fact(s),
The Star Ledger reported (last week I think)that the average property value in Newark as $12,000, and the average taxes were about $2500-$2700. That is pretty low, on average, but averages don't fill out the entire story. A reval in Newark would probably save us all some money followed by one in Orange, which also has property values of the same magnitude and has been lagging in revals for over 30 years. |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Monday, February 26, 2001 - 9:37 am: |
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Dqm -- what would you estimate the current average property value to be? |
dj62882@cs.com
Citizen
Username: Dj62882
Post Number: 1
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 10:41 pm: |
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I am a resident student at Seton Hall University. I was unable to get parking through the school, but I desperately need to find a place to keep my car. I am a volunteer basketball coach for the Christian Youth Organization, at my home church in Tappan, NY. This commitment requires me to be there several nights a week and Saturdays. If you know of anyone willing to rent driveway or parking lot space within a mile or so from Seton Hall, please contact Don at 845-656-6985 or via email at DJ62882@cs.com, thank you very much.
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davec
Citizen
Username: Davec
Post Number: 46
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 18, 2002 - 10:47 am: |
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The NJ Transit lot is free in the evenings and weekends. Maybe you can park there and have someone pick you up/drop off |
ril
Citizen
Username: Ril
Post Number: 50
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 3:16 pm: |
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You can't park in the NJT lot overnight--they do ticket (to my dismay!). If you park in the SO lot you can call the police and get occasional dispensation to park overnight (say, if you miss the last train home). For the NJT lot there is no one to call. |
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