I n the April 30 article, “East Brunswick Forgoes Revaluation For 30 Years,” East Brunswick Finance Director Lou Neely boasted, “We have been very aggressive in keeping our assessmentto sales ratio very tight, and the assessor does a good job at that.”
That claim doesn’t match what the state’s Department of the Treasury says at www.state.nj.us/treasury/ taxation/lpt/lptvalue.shtml. (Click on Middlesex County.) Including tax appeals, the state says East Brunswick’s 2013 ratio is a dismal 26.19 percent. That’s the lowest of the 25 taxing districts in the county.
Neely further states, “There’s often communication difficulties, and quite often the party that approves the revaluation is not reelected.” That’s probably the heart of the problem: politicians whose pathological need for power and reelection put issues involving fairness and accuracy aside. It is a perfect example of how pathetic politicians are.
In a series of email exchanges, Neely said that a revaluation would cost $4 million, not a trivial amount. He is more concerned that all the properties in a neighborhood are uniformly assessed, and it doesn’t have to be to the true market value.
Raymond Kostanty
Manalapan