Something is very wrong with the reassessment. How competent, or incompetent was the company that did the work? Assessments are not absolute numbers. There is a certain amount of estimation involved. There should have been controls in place to prevent radical movement up or down. If the Town Council thinks there were a lot of appeals in the past few years wait until next year when everyone who had an unconscionable tax increase appeals. Thousands will appeal, I know I will. This reassessment did not solve a problem, it just created a new, and bigger one.

I get the feeling that no one on the town council cares if this tax increase forces you to sell your home. The attitude seems to be, if you can't afford to live in this glorious town then you'll just have to move. Is anyone looking into the possibility that the assessments are way off? Is anyone offering assistance to the people who have gotten 20%- 40% tax increases and are in financial distress? Montclair, the town with a heart...cold and hard.

Yes, the taxes are much too high and something needs to be done about it.

But for the first time in 4+ years it seems like the people in charge do care and are going to try and do something about it. This was the first town council meeting that I watched where it was well run, organized and had a purpose. They recognized that townspeople had valid concerns, but never shirked away from their responsibility to try and fix it even though they did not create the problem. They could have said "its not our fault it was the prior people" but they did not. I say lets give them a chance.

My only objection is that Bob Russo says that regionalization of services "has to happen because it is the only answer". Until we hear of any towns starting to band together with Montclair and as a result there is a real reduced overall cost, regionalization is only an academic idea that has not been proven to be viable in NJ.

When the reassessment letters went out in December 2011 a cover letter could have gone out explaining that a reduced assessment DID NOT mean reduced taxes unless you assessment went down approximately 20%.

The Town COULD HAVE put on the website a simple program for residents to calculate their new taxes based on the new assessment.

Analysis could have been presented.

But the Manager refused to do so, saying the numbers were "preliminary."

In the last assessment, by ASI, tools and analysis were made available.

Over 2,400 homes will now get tax increases greater than 10%. Close to 300 homes will get tax increases greater than $5,000.

For a town that AGONIZES over increasing pool fees by $5 I really don't understand how they can expect residents to come up with the $5,000 difference, or more, in just two tax payments.

But then again this is the same town that says a Luxury Assisted Living facility with rents of $10,000 a month will enable Montclair's senior citizens to "age in place."

The current council cannot do anything about the reassessment.

Interestingly enough though, back in the late '80s, enough citizens were angry enough to challenge the reassessment in Court. A group of citizens, called "Tax Us Fairly," sued the town. A jury trial was held, and the town LOST. The reassessment was tossed out.

True, that the current council can't do anything about the reassessment.. but they did seem to talk a lot about getting debt down, etc... issues that would hopefully impact taxes eventually.

The town council can not do anything about the reassessment but a lawsuit can. I guess that means the only recourse for people who think that the reassessment is not fair, equitable, and legal is to get together and sue the town. I am not an attorney so I do not know if we have grounds for a lawsuit but if there is an attorney out there who feels that we have a case I will join the group.

I have set up a Facebook group for anyone who is interested in taking constructive action to oppose this unfair reassessment and tax increase. https://www.facebook.com/TaxUsFairlyMontclair

Thanks Jacob.. will add to the article.

Someone should let Howard Platzman (the homeowner given the most quoted space above) know that he's totally miscalculated his 2012 property tax bill. It's not rising $4,000. It's going up $111. $9.25 a month. Something that Patch could have easily checked, using this resource http://wipp.edmundsassoc.com/Wipp0713/ or this one http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/prc6.cgi?menu=index&ms_user=glou&passwd=data&district=0801&mode=11

Actually, he got it wrong, but not as wrong as you've calculated.

Based on the first link you posted, his appeal brought his 2011 taxes down to $11012.30, then the reassessment gave him a 2012 tax of $13167.34, which is about a 20% increase.

I'd say a 20% increase is significant.

Right you are, Eric. I stand corrected. It's $110 over his prior-to-appeal-adjustment. So, he didn't get to enjoy the fruits of his appeal. Understandable frustration.

My increase comes to 15 percent. Now paying nearly 17k a year for a small property, and a modest house. So we have to come up with thousands of extra dollars a year - in a floundering economy, with stagnant wages when I can find work - even as the value of our home falls. This will drive many ordinary people out of Montclair. Sooner than later, I will be one of them.

Too bad the election wasn't held BEFORE these letters came out. Dire tactics are needed folks - that's why I supported Karen Turner. I am dubious if this new slate will go into austerity mode which is definitely needed. My family knew what this reassessment meant and we used that window to appeal. Can I tell you how CLUELESS the people who did this assessment were? They dropped our assessment by almost 100,000 dollars after we went down there with comps. Our tax bill is still going up, but I can only shudder to think what it would have been had we not taken that window of opportunity to appeal before the appraisers. And I think so many people who didn't understand, are now finally waking up. They are chasing out the 'diversity' in this town we all love and appreciate so much -- no one can afford to live here except the exceptionally rich. Shame on you Jerry Friend and the previous council members who allowed this fiasco to escalate.

The whole assessment system needs to be changed. The 2007 re-assessment took place at the top of the market resulting in 3 or 4 years of costly appeals as home market values dropped. When you hear that your neighbors have successfully appealed you realize you're now paying more than your fair share so you appeal which creates more inequities and increases the burden on those who have not appealed. A town wide re-assessment may adjust some inequities but it just perpetuates others and creates new ones. This assessment in particular was very badly done. As a realtor with 20 years experience in Montclair, I have a pretty good idea of property values and the people I met with were clueless. They gave me misinformation about the re-assessment process, did not want to take my comps and admitted that they pretty much just adjusted the old assessments by a percentage unless you had filed permits for improvements. I as lucky to get my new assessment down to a number that kept me at the old tax level instead of the $2000 increase I would have gotten. We need a new statewide system that takes into account fluctuating markets on an annual basis, then we need to adjust the existing inequities to lessen the cost of massive tax appeals and as someone said earlier we need to involve local realtors who know the market, not appraisers from outside the area who are just clueless number crunchers.

Unfortunately I have at least two neighbors who are preparing to put their homes on the market because of high taxes..

send comments to:
rjackson@montclairnjusa.org

TownshipManager@montclairnjusa.org

For all the people who had their taxes go up, I know your not but you should be happy because you were underpaying the last 5 years. For example, I saw some properties worth 150k being assessed for 600k!!! They were paying your property taxes since the last assessment.

This is a very unusual swing because the last property revaluation was done at the absolute peak of the housing bubble. The property valuation from 50 years ago would have done a better job of allocating the taxes.

Remember the tax revaluation only does one thing.....allocates the taxes between properties.

Property taxes have a huge impact on property values. Goldman Sachs says for a 1% change in operating expenses, there is a 1.2% change in property value the opposite way. SO, if your property taxes went from 30k to 36k (20%). Your property value just went down 22% overnight!!!! But it won't be immediate until a few years. In theory, it would be ideal to sell your house right now! But other people are already thinking/doing the same thing so the extra supply of higher priced houses just pushed the price down.

But if you are in South Side or an area where your taxes fell dramatically, your prices just jumped up a lot from the dumps.

Anyone who has seen what I've written about the reassessment, since the beginning of the year, knows that I have significant problems with it.

I tried to get the company to come in and explain in detail how the process worked but no one on the prior Council, other than Rich Murnick and I, were interested.

I tried to get analyses, but no one was interested.

Again, as I've said, a letter should have gone out in December, with the new assessments, explaining the process and offering taxpayers on-line tools to see the impact on their home.

And remember, the Council was misled for years by their being told there was some law that said there was a "15%" "hurdle" that had to be met before a reassessment could be done. I investigated, and found out this was not in fact true. At the time the County Assessor basically said there were a number of ways to assure reassessments are done regularly. They could, if the town wanted to, be done annually. Or we could do a portion of the town each year.

This current council is not to blame, nor is the recent budget increase responsible for the majority of the pain.

There are a number of ways debt can be reduced, by the way. The easiest way is to spend less than you pay back.

correction: Increase in property taxes by 20% = a decrease in property value by 24%.

Mr Schmoe: High taxes have already been suppressing sales for the past few years.
32 houses sold in Montclair in May 2011. 27 in May of 2012 (zillow) Not too many people are moving for a while.....

Here are the people to blame for this. The Montclair Tax Assessor, Marc Deshield and every Council member from the 2008 council except Cary Africk. I remember Africk trying to get his colleagues to focus but they would not. The staff and Council did not "desk top" adjust the assessments each year as the market moved downward to stop people from appealing. This cost the Township like $9 million in budget shortfalls overall - approximately $6 million of which I believe had to be made up in long term bonding. For those that did not appeal in this period between 07-12, you had to pick up the difference for those that did appeal and were more appropriately valued. Now, today, after a half-baked reassessment - some people are being socked for massive increases. We can argue over fairness for all those now paying more who were paying before less after appealing. That's not the point. The point is that the above parties did not do their jobs and all residents are now paying the price.

Every department needs to be researched and reorganized, Police, Fire, Water, Rec, Parks, Shad tree, Streets, Sanitation, Heath…. We have far too many township employees and that has to be reduced. Let’s not forget the white elephant in the room The BoE (schools). It is time to make changes and I believe people are willing to reduce services! It is Time!

Sorry "help me understand" that is not the direction that was chosen by the voters of Montclair. They voted in the people who specifically said that they would not reduce township staff. They said that they would solve the town's expense problem by trying to go after shared services with other towns and regionalization.

you have entered the Death Spiral .....taxes up every year, services down every year and property values going down with each tax increase

No wonder Joe D. needs that double dipping pension you all are paying for, he would never be able to afford these property taxes

how does it feel to be living the American Dream......not a single one of you "own" your houses.......WAKE UP PEOPLE as the Dream is now a Nightmare !!!!!!!!!

you are now just servants......your names and signatures just are the rights to collect debts......how does it feel ????????

the value of the town's properties dropped from $7 billion to $5 billion.

$2 Billion in home equity has vanished.........annnnnnd its gone !!

HI, I'm Joyce Goldman, Director of Constituent Services for Essex County. I just want to correct Mr. Mullen's advice to call Joe DiVincenzo (County Executive) or Chris Durkin (County Clerk) for information about appeals or other tax matters. Neither of them have any administrative responsibilities for this area. The Essex County Tax Board is a state appointed entity; the "Essex County" in it's title is a location, similar to the Essex County Courts, which are also State functions. Questions should be directed to the Board at 973-395-8525. By the way, Essex County has had the 2nd lowest tax increase of all 21 counties in the state for the past 9 years, and planning is now underway to keep administrative budgets flat for 2013.

If you are unhappy with your property taxes, feel free to let the Office of the Governor know about it:
http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/governor/govmail/govmail_1c_new.pl

A 2% cap was put in place but 1. It is still exceeded and 2. It is only affecting the growth of the already high taxes.

The state needs additional reform for high property taxes.

There should be a hard cap on property values..period! 1% for a primary residence and 2-3% for all other property.
See below:
http://www.ibj.com/indiana-voters-ok-property-tax-cap-amendment/PARAMS/article/23227

It's amazing that all tax-related correspondence from the board of ed, town and now county tell us how they are all doing such an amazing job in holding the line on taxes and yet our rate is 3.25%.

Look at any other town in Essex with a rate over 3% and you see all the rundown, poor towns that most with a choice in Montclair would avoid living in.

Here ya go! Tax rates were from last year. Montclair's real tax rate is somewhere around 2.93 if you figure our average assessment was at 90% of 3.252.

Town Effective tax rate 2011 2009 Household Value Minority
East Orange $3.33 $266,100.00 95%
Irvington $3.27 $229,089.00 93%
Orange $3.12 $268,488.00 91%
West Orange $3.12 $402,731.00 39%
Bloomfield $2.89 $353,915.00 34%
Glen Ridge $2.82 $571,665.00 10%
South Orange $2.79 $481,048.00 33%
Maplewood $2.76 $459,619.00 37%
Montclair $2.64 $583,100.00 32%
Nutley $2.62 $397,350.00 11%
Belleville $2.60 $310,289.00 42%
Verona $2.32 $445,878.00 7%
Caldwell $2.14 $439,637.00 7%
Newark $2.11 $288,500.00 84%
Livingston $2.04 $571,761.00 3%
West Caldwell $2.02 $521,855.00 5%
North Caldwell $1.89 $713,116.00 10%
Roseland $1.87 $562,536.00 7%
Cedar Grove $1.78 $477,877.00 7%
Millburn $1.72 $881,570.00 5%
Essex Fells $1.69 $905,881.00 3%
Fairfield $1.67 $560,230.00 6%

Extremely thorough.... thx

Stu, actually, don't forget our town broke out sewer a few years ago, so it's probably closer to 3%. And the next time there's an assessment if and when values go up, I'll be that 3.252 rate will stick.

Yup... forgot the sewer. I did some pivot charts in Excel that I'll eventually upload to the interwebs, but besides Glen Ridge (most likely due to their lack of ratables), Montclair stands out like a sore thumb. I included the percentage of minorities because I wanted to see if there truly was a cost to diversification, and there pretty much isn't. I hate the way people throw cost of diverication around. If I get the time, I'll upload them tonight.

If I were in the local council, I would spend a lot of time with Maplewood's leaders to find out how they are doing that much more with so much less.

Stu, not just Maplewood. Cedar Grove, Essex Fells, Fairfield, even Belleville. Montclair does stick out like a sore thumb. Considering that we have a large downtown area as well as several other smaller business districts.

Stuart,
In case you need the sewer billing numbers for the town starting in 2006 when I believe they were broken out, they are: '06, $4.081M, '07, $4.030M, '08, $4.255M, '09, $4.455M, '10, $4.538M. The '11 will be available when the '11 audit report is made available to the public. This is the sewer billings number from the footnote disclosure. Thanks for the detailed information above.

Not a problem. And thank you for the sewer data as well. After this year, Montclair will have taxed themselves into the close company of East Orange, Irvington, Orange
and West Orange, whose average household value is half of what Montclair's is. Yet these facts fall on deaf ears. San Bernardino is really not that far away for Montclair. I bailed and moved to Glen Ridge early last year to escape the potential bankruptcy. Though my tenants still live in Montclair and hopefully will continue to be able to afford the rent increases due to the tax increases. Though, will my renters want to live in a bankrupt town? Will they be willing to pay the escalated rents when the state forces austerity on Montclair? What will this do to the schools?

I wonder if the new council reads Patch? This was such a boneheaded move. I often wonder if the previous council was vindictive toward a certain segment of the residents. There just seemed to be a pervasive "that'll show them" undertone to a lot of their words and actions, i.e, demonizing people who appealed their taxes, giving away Wildwood as an affordable property and calling it "social justice", the lack of concern about the impact of continued spending on pet projects, etc.

I agree that the previous town council had a "that'll show them" undertone to a lot of their words and actions. The dissing of Cary and the committees and ignoring of sound financial recommendations. The decision to do the Wildwood sale despite the clear townspeople feelings against it, because Rene felt the the First Ward "deserved it". The position that some council members took that they would not do anything that would reduce town employees salaries or benefits by $1. The statement that we are on sound financial footing and past the crisis despite being over $200 million in debt.

I could go on and on, but thankfully that council is gone. It is much too early to tell, but hopefully the new town council will address the real problems and not treat the townspeople like people to be ignored because the council knows better.

Stu, fantastic data.

Wondering though... how is it that Millburn, with is historically so-called "best schools in NJ", has such a low rate? Is it only because they have the Mall? Is that the same reason for Livingston? What about the Caldwells and the West Essex Regional area? What are we doing wrong? Should we level half of Bloomfield Avenue and build a Bed Bath and Beyond, Staples and Target?

Also would be interesting to note how all the school districts rank in this list.

Kay...Yes, the Short Hills Mall is a huge, huge, huge ratable for Millburn. I can't speak for Livingston, though I have a feeling that their large Jewish population keeps the local government spending in check. I choose not to use the school ratings because they really are flawed and are definitely influenced by the racial makeup of the community unfortunately. What would be interesting to me would be the local debt numbers for each community and how much of local tax revenue goes to pay for this debt service. The numbers in Montclair and Fried's complete ignorance of what kind of an impact this debt has on local services scared me out of the town. If things do get worse, I wouldn't want my kids in the school system when the state is running the show. I saw first-hand how well they ran the Jersey City Schools when I lived there for a short period in the 90s. This debt in Montclair represents $6200 per person on average. If you have a family of four, you owe Montclair $24,800! At some point this is going to break regardless of what Benecke (the consultant Fried paid to obtain what he wanted to hear). And to make matters worse, Fried wouldn't even keep the capital spending to the levels recommended by Benecke. Russo and Jackson have a history of ignoring capital debt. They deserve the benefit of the doubt for now, but if their past performance is any indicator of their future, pray for Montclair.

Did anyone catch the article "Towns Cut Costs by Sending Work Next Door" in Friday's Wall Street Journal? It talks about towns cutting costs by outsourcing city-hall jobs to county government. Some towns counties assume the duties of tax collections, construction related work, dispatch, purchasing, human resources, etc.. The article says the downside is "you lose accountability to citizens". We don't have that in Montclair. The nepotism that happens in our county could have an impact on efficiencies and effectiveness. The newly elected town councilors could very likely be looking to do this type of work given their connections with the county and the unions.

If it saves money it could be a good thing. Does each town need a parks department along with a county parks department. What about other services. There could be some synergies that can save money.

This council and the Essex County machine will NOT outsource. They want more people on the payroll.

The people experiencing large increases are being hit by the reassessment, not by town spending. Work the numbers. People should have been focused on the redistribution - who is paying more, who less as a result of the reassessment. If homes in the $600 to $700k range saw their taxes go up on average by 10% while those in the $500 to $600K range saw 2% increases that says something important. It's a shifting of the burden. And this might have significant impact on the market. It could easily put downward pressure on the price of the more expensive homes.
The point is we needed analysis and discussion before the new assessments were sent to the county.

Cary, is anyone working the numbers? I'd love to know if there's a discrepancy based on price range or ward. Is this another case of "social justice"?

Yes, the numbers need to be worked. Something is very wrong with how property assessments are done. And none of the answers given are acceptable.