County's Rising Taxes Concern Summit Officials

While no tea was dumped in the Passaic River and no cannons were aimed at Elizabeth, the Common Council on Tuesday began inching its way to calling for a peaceful revolution.

Frustrated by property taxes levied by the Union County freeholders that some council members believe unfairly burden Summit, officials are beginning to consider ways to lobby for a fundamental change in a fraying relationship between counties and municipalities.

Councilman Dave Bomgaars said a committee has considered about 20 options for the city to express its displeasure at the way the property tax system is working in Union County and throughout New Jersey.

One way, Bomgaars said, is to support legislature that creates a commission to study the effectiveness of county government.

Another way, that is slowly beginning to gain traction, is to call for a constitutional convention to review the state’s property tax system and the function of county government, he said.

Those ideas were endorsed by Mayor Ellen Dickson, who also said that counties should abide by a 2 percent cap in property tax levies, just as municipalities are bound by that cap.

“I don’t think we can afford to do nothing,” she said.

Councilman Patrick Hurley, who noted that Union County expenditures are “out of control,” agreed that the state should “fundamentally re-structure county government.”

Hurley also said that Union County should be divided into wards so that the western and more Republican municipalities, like Summit, could gain representation on the freeholder board, which is all Democratic.

He said that the present form of county government functions well in New Jersey’s more rural counties, but does not work in more urban counties, like Union or Essex.

“It’s so bad right now,” he said.

If Union County had to adhere to a two percent tax cap, he said, the freeholders would have to reduce the budget. But Hurley doubted that would happen.

“They’re not programmed that way,” he said.

Bomgaars said that the “tide has turned” and other municipalities, such as Millburn and Livingston, are also considering ways to lobby for a change in the property tax system.

Bomgaars said that the state-mandated equalization of property assessments leads to a “redistribution” of taxes because municipalities with higher property tax values end up paying more county property taxes.

According to the state Division of Taxation, equalization is theoretically designed         
”to ensure that each taxing district, as a whole, is treated equitably.” The primary component of equalization is determining the true (or market)  value of property in relation to the assessed value. When the ratio is close to 100 percent, the tax burden is more equitably spread.

In most New Jersey counties, that ratio is more than 90 percent. But Union County, the ratio is 35.93 percent, according to the Division of Taxation, the lowest of the state’s 21 counties. In Summit, the assessed value of property is 45 percent of its true value.