PRINCETON —The Princeton Township Committee and the Princeton Borough Council will be receiving a one-year extension on the revaluation of all properties in both municipalities.
The Mercer County Board of Taxation ordered the revaluation in both town in 2006.
Both municipalities’ properties most recently were revalued in 1996 and are assessed at less than 50 percent of their market values, according to Martin Guhl, the county’s tax administrator.
A bid from a company seeking to conduct the valuation was rejected by the Township Committee on Monday because the county indicated that completion of the revaluations could wait until 2010, said Deputy Mayor Bernie Miller.
The Princeton Borough Council followed suit on Tuesday, approving a resolution rejecting all bids received for the revaluation of its properties.
”We would never get this done in time to get it in the books as was originally planned,” Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi said, during the meeting. “The last thing you want to do is rush a revaluation.”
Mr. Guhl said representatives of the borough and township told him they preferred not to award the bids for revaluation companies at this time and that both municipalities will be getting their revaluation deadlines extended from 2009 to 2010 with “100-percent certainty.”
He added, “Because of the time-consuming labor involved, we wanted to give them enough time to go out and get the correct data. When you don’t have a lot of time, you’re doing a lot of estimating.”
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Mr. Bruschi reported that residents will soon be able to pay taxes at Borough Hall with credit cards. He said that the system could be implemented as early as July, in time for the the borough’s August tax deadline.
”We’ll be offering the package in part because we’re switching banks,” Mr. Bruschi said.
The borough’s next step regarding tax payments will be to make paying taxes on-line possible, he said.
The township is currently accepting tax payments online through checking accounts and credit cards with no processing or transaction fee.
