By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
Princeton Borough and Township are moving forward with the first property revaluation in over 12 years.
Officials from the two municipalities awarded contracts to Appraisal Systems of Morristown this week, with the company receiving a $500,000 contract from the township and a $280,000 contract from the borough.
The next step is meeting with county tax officials to put together an action plan, according to Neil Snyder, the tax assessor for both towns.
Following those meetings and other preliminaries, inspections could begin this year, and continue through the summer of 2009.
New assessment notices should go out as early as October of 2009 after inspectors make their rounds inspecting the exteriors and interiors of structures in the two municipalities.
”If people want an accurate assessment, they should let the inspectors in,” said Mr. Snyder. “Otherwise, they are forced to guess.”
The new assessment values should be useful for the next 10 to 15 years, according to Mr. Snyder.
He said the previous assessment was performed very well and provided numbers that were useful for over 12 years.
But current assessments, made in 1996, are only 40 to 50 percent of real market value, according to officials, who said getting those values to near-market value would assist in tax collecting and handling tax appeals.
That situation caused the Mercer County Board of Taxation to mandate the revaluation back in 2006.
Robert Bruschi, the borough administrator, said that undertaking the revaluation simultaneously made sense due to the services and associated costs shared by the two municipalities.
Property owners get concerned about revaluations, he said, but in the end the same amount of taxes is collected. Only the distribution of taxes shifts.
Owners of property that appreciated more precipitously than the average rate of appreciation will see increases, according to officials, and those with property that appreciated more slowly will see decreases.
In sum, it is expected that taxes will increase for one-third of property owners, decrease for one-third and stay at the same level of the last third, according to officials, who commented on the revaluation previously.
Borough Council members, during discussion at Tuesday’s meeting, noted that the revaluation may be of concern to property owners and pledged to hold a public hearing on the revaluation.
The revaluation process “makes people very nervous, some people will be stuck with higher tax bills,” said Councilman David Goldfarb.
”The residents deserve as complete an explanation of what is going forward as possible,” said Councilman Andrew Koontz.
Given the economy and the borough’s financial constraints, adding revaluation to the mix “is going to be sort of a perfect storm next year with problems for our taxpayers,” said Councilman Roger Martindell.
Mr. Goldfarb proposed having the contractor and assessor make a public presentation and explain the process.
”Of course, it would be a perfect subject for a joint meeting with the township,” Mr. Goldfarb said, noting that all officials were in agreement on the need for revaluation and the township was using the same revaluation firm.
Some Township Committee members expressed similar feelings.
Deputy Mayor Bernie Miller admitted there could be residents concerned about the revaluation.
He noted that the process was county-mandated and said some property owners seeing higher taxes and some seeing lower taxes with no way to predict the outcome, “in light of what’s happened in real estate.”
Staff Writer Lauren Otis contributed to this story.

