By jane meggitt
Staff Writer
The Citizens for Property Tax Reform have a simple agenda: They want property tax reform, and they want it now.
Chairman Cy Thannikary, an Upper Freehold Township resident, supports a property tax reform convention which would deal with only this issue, and would like to see a question proposing such a meeting on November’s Election Day ballot.
The nonpartisan group cites the "ever-increasing property taxes in New Jersey and their crippling effects on millions of homeowners in the state" as a major problem facing residents today.
Thannikary, an economist, served as director of the New Jersey Division of Economic Development during Gov. Christie Whitman’s first term, and as vice president of Economic Development Policy during her second term.
A native of India, he lived in Freehold Township before moving to the Four Seasons adult community in Upper Freehold Township.
"Legislators for 30 years have had good intentions, but they can’t come up with a solution," said Thannikary.
He noted that there are currently 117 bills in the state Legislature dealing with the property tax issue. With 120 legislators, there are almost as many ideas as there are politicians, he said.
Citizens for Property Tax Reform is not pushing any particular solution to the tax problem, he said.
"Let the people at the convention come up with a solution," said Thannikary.
However, Thannikary’s organization hopes that bills A-540 and S-478 will be passed by the Legislature by June 30. If passed, those bills would place a convention referendum on November’s ballot. If the referendum is approved, there would be an election of delegates to the convention, two delegates for each of the state’s 40 legislative districts.
The convention would meet in May 2004 and recommendations made at the convention would be voted on by the public on the November 2004 ballot.
Another Four Seasons resident, Gerald Nathanson, who previously lived in Manalapan, recently had the tax issue hit home when his son decided to relocate from Maplewood to Pennsylvania to escape his ever-escalating property taxes.
"He was paying $14,000 a year and it was going up," said Nathanson. "He’s a middle-class wage earner."
Now, Nathanson said, he will have to drive much farther if he wishes to visit his granddaughter.
Thannikary said that since he became involved in this endeavor, he has heard many stories of people struggling to pay their taxes.
"I had a call from someone in Marlboro who has had to give up his medicine to pay his taxes," he said.
A 78-year-old Matawan woman sent Thannikary a letter in which she described working three days a week at an $8-an-hour job and going without food to pay her property tax bill.
"The mandate is for the convention to come up with a revenue-neutral solution. It gives it a focus that ordinary people can understand. People are jaded about taxes. In our lifetime they’ve only gone one way — up," Nathanson said.
He said that property tax reform would also affect smart-growth planning, as communities now pursue ratables to offset the high property taxes generated by school funding.
Thannikary said Michigan and Maryland had the same system of school funding as New Jersey, but changed it. Michigan increased its sales tax by 2 percent and Maryland reduced its number of school districts, he said.
The Legislative District Data Book by the Center for Government Services at Rutgers University finds that the property tax burden falls disproportionately on communities with the largest number of homeowners on fixed or low incomes. The coalition partners of Citizens for Property Tax Reform include the League of Municipalities, the League of Women Voters, United Adult Community Residents and groups such as the New Jersey Sierra Club, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, New Jersey Future and numerous individual towns throughout the state.
"Trust the people," said Thannikary. "They will not throw this away. The main focus is not to promote ourselves. We want to promote the cause. People are hurting — if people have to give up medicine to pay taxes, that is wrong. I will not accept that. If we can do anything about it, that’s the biggest reward we get."