Oceanport considers opting out of tax assessment program

By KENNY WALTER
Staff Writer

OCEANPORT — The Borough Council is gathering information and considering opting out of the highly scrutinized tax assessment pilot program.

The council discussed possibly leaving the Real Property Assessment Demonstration Program during the Dec. 2 meeting after the Monmouth County Board of Taxation ruled that municipalities could opt out of the program by April.

Business Administrator John O. Bennett III said that because the borough has yet to award any contracts involved in participation in the program, the borough can continue to gather information.

“The only contract that has been awarded by this governing body is a contract to our borough engineer for purposes of returning the tax maps to the borough,” Bennett said. “We are under an order to do a revaluation, but no bidding has been done.

“Because we haven’t entered into a contract, we kind of have the ability to let the dust settle.”

The county’s assessment program, which began in 2014, is designed to reduce costs for municipalities by replacing costly town-wide property revaluations with annual assessments that adjust property values based on sales data.

In recent weeks, the program and appraisal company Realty Data Systems (RDS) have been highly scrutinized by public officials, questioning ethics concerns with RDS and the overall effectiveness of the program.

According to Oceanport Tax Assessor John Butow, the parameters for which a municipality can opt out of the program have not yet been conveyed locally and it is unknown whether the county tax board has the authority to allow an opt-out.

“We don’t know; we have not received anything from the County Board of Taxation for direction on this,” he said. “This opt-out option was just voted on; the mechanics of that we don’t have yet, and the county tax board said [municipalities can opt out] unless directed by another authority.

“So they made the statement and now we need to make sure they are the proper authority that can say it and accept any optout statement.”

While the criticisms have been ongoing in recent weeks, Butow said there have not been a lot of specifics as to why the program should be suspended.

“I have not seen anyone on the other side say to me these are the factual reasons it is not working,” Butow said. “I don’t believe it is the best decision at this point; let’s let the facts come out during the next few months.”

Butow said he is part of a group aimed at reviewing the overall effectiveness of the demonstration program.

“I am on the steering committee, I am the assessor rep on the steering committee,” he said. “The pilot program was started to improve on an antiquated tax system; we haven’t come out with a final report yet.

“So at this point I don’t think that Oceanport needs to have any position.”

As part of the demonstration program, the county has ordered Oceanport to undergo a revaluation.

Butow said even without the demonstration program the borough likely would have been ordered to undergo a revaluation.

“As part of the demonstration program, given the timeline of our last revaluation and the effect of Sandy and other issues, we were ordered to do a revaluation for the 2017 tax year,” he said.

Butow said the revaluation couldn’t move forward until the state approves updated tax maps for the borough.

“In order to comply with the regulations we have to update our tax maps,” he said. “Unfortunately, our tax maps did not comply with the new mapping standards, which forced us to redo all our maps.

“Now that we are going to inherit the fort, we had to get from the government surveys, so this has been an arduous process.”

Councilman John Patti said he wants the decision to be discussed at a future council meeting.

“It sounds like this program has a lot of problems. I don’t have a problem tabling this,” he said. “I think it is a good idea to get more information, I don’t think the information that we are going to be getting is going to lead us to stay in.”

While Oceanport considers options, another municipality is embroiled in litigation over the demonstration program.

During its Oct. 19 meeting, the Middletown Township Committee opted to terminate a contract with Realty Data Systems, the company contracted to conduct assessments for the demonstration program in the majority of Monmouth County municipalities, citing concerns over the bid process, in addition to cost factors.

Last month Realty Data Systems filed suit against Middletown, citing breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and a violation of New Jersey’s civil RICO Act.

However, Township Attorney Brian Nelson said Middletown has no plans to return to the original contract.

“RDS is grossly mistaken if it thinks it’s going to intimidate Middletown’s elected officials from looking out for the best interests of the taxpayers by making entirely facetious claims it started shopping to the press on the eve of Thanksgiving,” Nelson said.

“We look forward to learning how RDS thinks it can change the terms of the contract its bid was predicated upon, which is the only contract that was ever authorized by the township’s governing body.”

According to a Monmouth County press release, in 2015, 33 percent, or 70,995 properties, had a decrease in their tax bill while 7 percent, or 14,880 properties, experienced a tax increase of more than $1,000.