MIDDLETOWN — Democratic Committeeman Sean Byrnes does not want the township’s revaluation delayed any longer and is calling on township Tax Assessor Charles Heck to proceed with Middletown’s property revaluation.
“Middletown has delayed implementation of the revaluation for three years, has had its tax assessor suspended, and has had to budget an additional $150,000 for failing to complete the revaluation in 2008,” Byrnes said at the Dec. 15 Township Committee meeting.
“In so doing, we have forced a majority of our residents to endure higher than justified taxes while the owners of a small percentage of the most valuable real estate in the township have paid taxes based on extremely low assessments.”
His comments came after Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger in prior weeks had called on Heck to look over his numbers for the township along with Realty Appraisal Co. to make sure residents’ assessments are correct.
“We don’t need to spend any more taxpayer dollars delaying or interfering with this process,” Byrnes said. “Further delays will only force a majority of our residents to carry the tax burden for a small minority who own valuable real estate. Current assessment figures suggest that two-thirds of Middletown’s residents will experience a decrease in taxes based on 2008 budget figures.”
Byrnes said that while he may be one of the 33 percent whose taxes have gone up, he doesn’t see a reason to spend more time on the revaluation.
“I strongly disagree with the mayor’s assessment that ‘adjustments need to be made to many of the assessments arrived at by the Realty Appraisal Company,’ ” Byrnes said. “I suspect that the bulk of the complaints referenced by the mayor come from owners of properties with high values that have not been reassessed for decades. While these residents, like every Middletown resident, have the right to challenge the fairness of an assessment, there is no need at this point, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, for the Township Committee to take action and incur additional unnecessary expense engaging in reassessments.”
He said that whenever a reassessment is done, there would be prices going up and down.
“We’ve not done a reval since the 1990s,” Byrnes said. “When you don’t do that, there are going to be certain sites in town that are under-assessed.
Scharfenberger said that his office has been getting numerous complaints.
“I guess I’m the lucky one who has gotten the brunt of the complaints,” Scharfenberger said. “But contrary to what you think, they are all not mega- mansions along the river. I had a couple come up to me after their meeting with Realty Appraisal and letting their grievance be known, who live in a small house on a small lot who feel that the assessment that they were given is not reasonable with what they have.”
He said he would look into the reevaluations and question the tax assessor as to what should be done.
“We just want to make sure that everyone’s reval is as accurate as possible,” Scharfenberger said. “I will be speaking with the tax assessor to make sure that all the data is accurate, which I think is in everyone’s best interest.”
Resident Bill Heaney said his house was unfairly appraised.
“Nobody came to my house, nobody did my appraisal, but yet I still received a number,” Heaney said. “I’m an original owner, and the increases they have given me are through the roof.”
He said his house was assessed incorrectly with an incorrect number of bathrooms and fireplaces. Also, he said that he was assessed for a refurbished kitchen when that was not the case.
“I said to them, ‘You didn’t even come into my house; how did you come up with that figure?’ ” Heaney said. “How can they tell me what is in my house when they never stepped foot in it?”
Resident Cliff Raisch said he feels that his property was reassessed improperly as well.
“Realty Appraisal needs to be accountable for what they do,” Raisch said. “We need to take a more in-depth look into what they do and how they come up with their numbers.”
State law requires that all properties be assessed at 100 percent of their current market value.
According to Middletown’s Web site, market values in Middletown have far exceeded property assessments because of what has occurred in the real estate market since the reassessment in 1991.
Currently, the average township property is assessed at only 42.59 percent of its market value.
The goal of the revaluation program is to redistribute the tax levy among property owners.
Because of previous concerns relating to what Scharfenberger said were “unrealistic” market values, Middletown has delayed the revaluation process since it was originally ordered in December 2004.
The process was delayed in 2005, but the county denied the township’s efforts to seek another delay in 2006.
In 2007, the township hired a special tax attorney to determine if the township could challenge the revaluation mandated by the Monmouth County Board of Taxation, but no viable legal alternatives were determined to exist.
Middletown failed to meet the Jan. 10 deadline that all municipalities must meet for submitting data to the county on revalued properties, resulting in property assessments remaining the same. The county imposed a 15-day suspension without pay for the township tax assessor as a result.
Among the reasons for the delay in submitting revaluation data stated at a February meeting with the Monmouth County Board of Taxation was the township’s size: it has more than 25,000 taxable properties/ line items, so a longer time would be necessary for a revaluation to be carried out than most municipalities would need.
The township also listed difficulties in obtaining appropriate sales data in the unique state market as another factor in the delay.
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