School board members stepped back Monday night from implying that part of the school’s budget squeeze might be due to an increase of tax appeals in the township.
With two governing body members sitting in the audience, the board agreed that while township ratables had dropped by $120 million, only about $17 million was due to tax appeals. The rest represented a lagging real estate market that hasn’t fully recovered since the Great Recession began in 2008.
Superintendent Jorden Schiff acknowledged that the ratable total didn’t affect the proposed budget or the amount of money the school would need to raise from local property taxes. Ratables would change the tax rate, though, he said.
Committeeman Frank DelCore said Tuesday night that the 2010 revaluation reflected lower market values of 2008 to 2010. In 2013, the township moved to a system of annual assessment adjustments, with about 25 percent of properties receiving an in-person evaluation.
The system has two effects, said Mr. DelCore. It assigns the most timely values to a property and limits the number of appeals. In all, the township saw its overall assessed value drop by about 2 percent, he said, which amounted to about $120 million.

