By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
EATONTOWN — After at least two meetings worth of discussion, the Borough Council has unanimously voted to re-enter the Assessment Demonstration Program of the Monmouth County Board of Taxation.
While no resolution was originally on the agenda for the governing body’s May 25 meeting, the workshop session saw the council members continuing their conversation from their May 11 meeting about the program. At the end of the discussion members made a motion to add the resolution to re-enter the pilot program to the evening’s Consent Agenda Resolutions — which all unanimously passed.
The resolution will soon be available for residents to read on the borough’s website.
According to Borough Attorney Andrew Bayer, the borough originally opted out of the program last December.
“At the last meeting there was discussion … [and Council] asked me to look into whether or not the borough can do something similar to Shrewsbury, which is opt in and revisit it in a year or alternatively opt out and continue to stay out and then revisit that decision in a year and opt in again in a year if that’s what [they] decided to choose,” he said.
Under the assessment demonstration program, 20 percent, or one-fifth, of properties in a municipality are inspected each year so that 100 percent of properties are inspected every five years.
“As I referred to at the last meeting, I didn’t think that there was a whole lot of law on this other than the statute creating the program [and] there’s nothing interpreting it; [however] the statute did create a steering committee,” Bayer said.
Bayer mentioned municipalities throughout Monmouth County have been receiving advice from the Monmouth County Board of Taxation about opting out or opting back in and several members of council have reached out to ask questions regarding the stipulation of being able to opt back out next year.
“The advice I would say … is not definitive in that it is not actually coming from the steering committee that is charged with overseeing and interpreting the statute,” he said. “So we didn’t find anything in writing or any case law or regulation interpreting [our] question, so we did contact County Tax Administrator Matthew Clark and had a discussion about it and we raised these questions.”
It was mentioned by Borough Tax Assessor John Gillooly at the May 11 meeting that there was no guarantee if the borough opted back in that they would be able to opt back out or vice versa: Staying out, the borough might not be allowed back in.
He explained that after talking with Clark he said it is because there is an advisory panel that has gone to the Attorney General’s Office for opinion regarding the provisions and have not yet received an answer.
Bayer mentioned the borough only had until the end of this month to make a decision and mentioned, “based on what [Clark] said, I would say most likely … the borough [will be] in [the program] at least through 2018, which is when the program is going to be sort of overall evaluated.”
Mayor Dennis Connelly said while he feels there are pros and cons with the program, officials have taken the time to address issues local residents and municipal officials have brought to his attention.
“I think they did respond well to us as a town that opted out and to the other towns that opted out,” he said. “There is something to be said about being with the majority in this case and not being made an example of by not going in.”
Councilman Anthony Talerico Jr. said he was also fine with re-entering the demonstration program.
“As I said at the last meeting I wasn’t a big proponent of leaving, but I wanted to do it as a group because if we were going to research I didn’t want to make it a political thing … and I [think] it was good that we spent time.
“I think it is an academically superior program, and I support going back.”