Former Tax Assessor: Reval Idea Ill-Advised

To The Editor:
I am the former tax assessor in Middle Township, a township resident and, most importantly, a taxpayer. I write this letter to voice my opinion on Democrat Bill Sturm’s ill-advised call for a township-wide property tax reevaluation.
Anyone who thinks a new district-wide revaluation is easy as a snap of the fingertips doesn’t understand the reval process or the cost of a reval and its impact on taxpayers.
First of all, typically it’s the county that orders a town to conduct a reval, and it does that only when recent sales indicate that properties are selling for more or less than their current assessments by at least 15 percent. The State 2011 Equalized Valuations indicated Middle Township’s ratio was 107.2 percent. The newly-released 2012 Equalized Valuations indicate that Middle actually dropped to 106.9 percent. That is well within an acceptable range.
The cost of a reval is enormous, and must come out of township coffers. The last time the county ordered a reval was in 2005. It took two years to complete and it cost over $1.1 million. Middle Township has 11,879 line items, the third highest in the county. In a full reval, each of those properties must be inspected. If the township were to conduct a reval today, it could cost around $1 million if a new tax map were required (and at least $600,000 if not), and it would not be completed until 2014.
There are wiser alternatives, and they don’t reach into the taxpayers’ pocket to the extent of a full reval. For one, any property owners who feel their assessments are off by more than 10 percent should make an appointment to consult with the assessor, and/or file an appeal with the County Tax Board. If the assessor agrees that a change of assessment is appropriate the adjustment can be made for the following year without further activity. There also are steps an assessor can take in house to update values over a period of years – and our assessor and her staff have the talent for that task.
As in many other areas in municipal government, when your desire to deal with property assessments is politically motivated, you may end up taking the hardest and costliest route. To simply call for a property by property reval may make for a good sound byte, but this is a complex issue with far reaching consequences for our residents.
A little common sense is required here. If we pay for a full scale reval, we drop property values across the board. The result would be to raise the tax rate to make up the difference. We’d end up right back where we started, except now we would have to charge the taxpayers up to a million dollars for the new reevaluation.
JOE RAVITZ
Court House