PRINCETON: Forum Sunday on university tax status

By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
   This Sunday, Princeton residents can come out to hear the case for Princeton University paying more to their communities so they will pay less.
   ”This is about direct tax relief to taxpayers in the borough and township,” not about university pet projects and non-financial contributions, said Sue Nemeth. She is a member of Princeton Township Committee and a founding member of Princeton Citizens for Tax Fairness, sponsor of the public presentation to be held at the Suzanne Patterson Center at One Monument Place in Princeton on Sunday, April 26, from 4 to 6 p.m.
   The university’s in-excess-of $1 million annual payment in lieu of taxes to the borough, and its tax payments to the borough and township of approximately $7 million, are substantial, but cannot remain static, particularly in a bad economy in which individual taxpayers are shouldering an increasing burden of municipal costs, Ms. Nemeth said.
   ”We appreciate all their help up till now, but it is just not enough,” she said.
   ”We have to talk about it as a community. We have heard a lot from the university on how much they do. This is our chance,” Ms. Nemeth said.
   The presentation is entitled “Why Princeton University Should Pay its Fair Share of Property Taxes.” The organization Princeton Citizens for Tax Fairness bills itself as “a nonpartisan group supported by the Princeton Community Democratic Organization and the Borough & Township Republican Committee Chairs.”
   Ms. Nemeth said among those speaking would be Borough Councilmen David Goldfarb and Roger Martindell, Princeton Borough Republican Committee Chairman Dudley Sipprelle, and Alan Hegedus, president of the Princeton Regional Board of Education.
   She said much of the session would be devoted to hearing from the public. “Certainly the Q&A is very important. The public has many questions. It is a complicated issue,” she said.
   Mr. Goldfarb said he would be presenting findings from a Princeton Community Democratic Organization study that found that if Princeton University had paid taxes on all of its property in 2006, it would have paid $35 million in taxes to local government units, and if the university had paid this share, property taxes would have been reduced by 24 percent for other borough taxpayers and by 15 percent for other township taxpayers.
   Mr. Martindell said he would be discussing how the university and borough came to their current arrangement, mostly through private discussions between the borough mayor and university officials. He said he would be presenting the case for why, going forward, “this has to be a broader ongoing discussion open to the public.”
   Princeton Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman said, “I am going to be there to listen.” Princeton Township Mayor Bernie Miller said he had not yet decided whether he is going to attend the presentation.
   ”This is a full spectrum of the community coming out,” Ms. Nemeth said. “We hope the university is listening,” she said, noting that the matter reaches beyond the university’s community affairs staff.
   ”The people we are talking to now are the trustees, the president, the alumni and the students,” she said.
   [email protected]