STONE HARBOR – Administrator Joseph Clark and council member Ken Biddick made a presentation to the governing body on Sept. that further clarified what the reassessment process is, why it is needed and how it can help with the borough’s appropriations cap problem.

Stone Harbor, like many of the county’s municipalities, has a sizable gap between the assessed value of its real estate and the market value. The most recent data from the county tax board shows an imbalance in the borough, with aggregate assessed value sitting at 53% of the calculated true value of the borough’s properties.

This presents the borough with two problems. The distribution of its property tax burden is not reflecting the true value of the property, leaving some residents to pay more and some less than they should be paying toward the tax levy. The tax levy is distributed in ways that do not reflect a fair assessment of the borough’s properties.

The other difficulty the borough faces is that while new ratables do come on the books and allow for greater flexibility in budget appropriations, the new ratables are not coming on at full market value, limiting the benefit the borough gets from them in terms of the appropriations ceiling, which the state cap sets on municipal spending.

The presentation, available here, made clear the need to bring the assessment rolls into conformity with the true value of real estate. Until that happens, Biddick said, “the assessor does not feel comfortable adding new ratables onto the tax rolls at 100% of market value.” He said doing so when the town is at a true value ratio of only 53% would encourage challenges to the assessments.

Biddick said the town had “peaked,” adding, “We are not going to have the jumps in value that we have had.” That, he said, “buys us time” to get a reassessment done in a less volatile environment.

No formal plans for when a reassessment might begin were discussed.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.