I can't believe my property taxes

conandrob240 said:

cramer said:
Among other reasons, taxes are high in SOMA because residents like the services provided and are willing to pay for them. You want lower taxes?  Try going to a BOT or TC or BOE meeting and suggest that any service - you pick it - be cut back. Watch the backlash from the public. 

There are plenty of other towns outside of NJ who have great (even better) public services and schools and the taxes aren’t even close to as high (maybe about 30- 50 percent lower. In decent proximity to NYC. And then many other places far away from NYC who also have great services/ good schools where taxes on much larger homes/ lots are literally 10-20% of what we pay.


Something’s far out of whack in NJ and it’s not because there are far superior services/ schools.

 I think it boils down to the school funding formula in New Jersey.  The vast majority of the burden falls to the local district (unless the district is an Abbott district) to pay the bill.  

conandrob240 said:

cramer said:
Among other reasons, taxes are high in SOMA because residents like the services provided and are willing to pay for them. You want lower taxes?  Try going to a BOT or TC or BOE meeting and suggest that any service - you pick it - be cut back. Watch the backlash from the public. 

There are plenty of other towns outside of NJ who have great (even better) public services and schools and the taxes aren’t even close to as high (maybe about 30- 50 percent lower. In decent proximity to NYC. And then many other places far away from NYC who also have great services/ good schools where taxes on much larger homes/ lots are literally 10-20% of what we pay.


Something’s far out of whack in NJ and it’s not because there are far superior services/ schools.

South Orange:  

  SOPAC - $280,000/yr paid by taxpayers for operating costs, plus debt service on $15 million construction bonds. 

 Municipal swimming pool - free, other than cost of recreation pass. 

The swimming pool is free because of the terms of the deed, and nothing can be done about that. Plus, people move here because of the swimming pool. 

SOPAC is an asset to the town, but it is the only municiapl  performing arts center in the state funded by taxpayers. 

I have no problem with either, and consider them assets, but am pointing them out as examples. 

conradbob240 - You live in Westfield. My son lives there too. My observation is that the streets in South Orange are much better maintained that Westfield. He pays a lot for the municipal swimming pool and there is no performing arts center. 

sbenois said:
Can't believe that this topic has never come up before.

 MOL looks like deja vu all over again, today.  Top categories include property taxes and redistricting elementary schools.  It's back to Y2K.

cramer said:

conandrob240 said:

cramer said:
Among other reasons, taxes are high in SOMA because residents like the services provided and are willing to pay for them. You want lower taxes?  Try going to a BOT or TC or BOE meeting and suggest that any service - you pick it - be cut back. Watch the backlash from the public. 

There are plenty of other towns outside of NJ who have great (even better) public services and schools and the taxes aren’t even close to as high (maybe about 30- 50 percent lower. In decent proximity to NYC. And then many other places far away from NYC who also have great services/ good schools where taxes on much larger homes/ lots are literally 10-20% of what we pay.


Something’s far out of whack in NJ and it’s not because there are far superior services/ schools.

South Orange:  
  SOPAC - $280,000/yr paid by taxpayers for operating costs, plus debt service on $15 million construction bonds. 
 Municipal swimming pool - free, other than cost of recreation pass. 
The swimming pool is free because of the terms of the deed, and nothing can be done about that. Plus, people move here because of the swimming pool. 
SOPAC is an asset to the town, but it is the only municiapl  performing arts center in the state funded by taxpayers. 
I have no problem with either, and consider them assets, but am pointing them out as examples. 
conradbob240 - You live in Westfield. My son lives there too. My observation is that the streets in South Orange are much better maintained that Westfield. He pays a lot for the municipal swimming pool and there is no performing arts center. 

 When I sold real estate locally, I never had a single buyer remark about either a pool or a performing art center. It was always about the house and the street. I could do without both pool and SOPAC and as I mentioned to Sheena recently, I'd give anything to see Tao, removed and sold for whatever it could fetch. Now if I could lobby for lowering property taxes on one of the only streets in town with no lights.........

cramer said:

conandrob240 said:

cramer said:
Among other reasons, taxes are high in SOMA because residents like the services provided and are willing to pay for them. You want lower taxes?  Try going to a BOT or TC or BOE meeting and suggest that any service - you pick it - be cut back. Watch the backlash from the public. 

There are plenty of other towns outside of NJ who have great (even better) public services and schools and the taxes aren’t even close to as high (maybe about 30- 50 percent lower. In decent proximity to NYC. And then many other places far away from NYC who also have great services/ good schools where taxes on much larger homes/ lots are literally 10-20% of what we pay.


Something’s far out of whack in NJ and it’s not because there are far superior services/ schools.

South Orange:  
  SOPAC - $280,000/yr paid by taxpayers for operating costs, plus debt service on $15 million construction bonds. 
 Municipal swimming pool - free, other than cost of recreation pass. 
The swimming pool is free because of the terms of the deed, and nothing can be done about that. Plus, people move here because of the swimming pool. 
SOPAC is an asset to the town, but it is the only municiapl  performing arts center in the state funded by taxpayers. 
I have no problem with either, and consider them assets, but am pointing them out as examples. 
conradbob240 - You live in Westfield. My son lives there too. My observation is that the streets in South Orange are much better maintained that Westfield. He pays a lot for the municipal swimming pool and there is no performing arts center. 



I wasn’t necessary referring to Westfield although my taxes here on a bigger, nicer house were around 40% lower. More importantly, it feels like they have increased much less over the years than they did in SO. I don’t notice a difference in road maintenance. I fo notice a much cleaner downtown and more responsive public works/ town office. I don’t have kids in school but my sense is that Westfields are of better quality (at least rate as such). I’d prefer to not have an arts center if it is th drain that SO’s is. 

Whether Westfield or the twins I was thinking of on LI, The point is there is nothing that extraordinary about M/SO that explains why taxes are so high. Other towns in NJ and out do it as good or better on much less.

conandrob240 said:   
I don’t have kids in school but my sense is that Westfields are of better quality (at least rate as such).

FWIW: I have kids in SOMSD, and my nephew and niece are in the Westfield district. Westfield is 'higher rated' because it is generally higher socioeconomic status, which is directly correlated to higher average test scores. 

I'm not going to go into details as Westfield district is just not my style, but SOMSD has been a better fit for my kids than the Westfield district has been for their cousins. 'Better quality' is relative.

that’s fine. I said I had no experience. My post was not to debate if Westfield or other towns are “better” than SO.  

The point stands- there are plenty of towns within or outside of NJ that offer EQUAL services, schools, etc that run much more efficiently and do not have such high taxes. Saying SO has a good pool and arts center doesn’t explain away or justify the completely insane taxes.

conandrob240 said:
that’s fine. I said I had no experience. My post was not to debate if Westfield or other towns are “better” than SO.  


The point stands- there are plenty of towns within or outside of NJ that offer EQUAL services, schools, etc that run much more efficiently and do not have such high taxes. Saying SO has a good pool and arts center doesn’t explain away or justify the completely insane taxes.

 Percentage of property taxes paid by residential properties is a major factor in the level of property taxes paid by residential properties.  More commercial means less paid by residential.  That is different from town to town.

conandrob240 said:
that’s fine. I said I had no experience. My post was not to debate if Westfield or other towns are “better” than SO.  


The point stands- there are plenty of towns within or outside of NJ that offer EQUAL services, schools, etc that run much more efficiently and do not have such high taxes. Saying SO has a good pool and arts center doesn’t explain away or justify the completely insane taxes.

They don’t have as high residential taxes because they have more commercial ratables or receive more aid.

I has nothing whatsoever to do with efficiency. If anything, our municipalities and schools do more with less.

Smedley said:

spontaneous said:

Smedley said:
NJ will always be a high-cost and high-tax state. Too much stuff — like public-sector wages and pensions, strength of unions, and home rule — is just too entrenched.
 Sure there might be marginal change here and there but it’s never enough to meaningfully change the dynamic. 
IMO it’s something that people just have to accept as a negative aspect of living here, just like relatively high incomes are a positive. Or else, move south or west. I have different friends orig from NJ who moved to NC, SC, FL, and TX, at least partly due to high cost of living including taxes. Nobody has ever come back. 

 Wait, so public sector wages are bad, but relatively high income for private sector is good?  Public sector employees have to be able to afford to live here too

Where did I say that the positive aspect of relatively high incomes applied to private sector only? I meant earning potential is high generally which spans sectors. But if you’re not earning relatively high income, whether from being retired or whatever, the high cost of living here sucks.
And yes, public sector employees have to be able to afford to live here. But they don’t need to get $300k retirement payouts for unused sick days, nor does there need to be 556 municipal fiefdoms each with their own payroll and overhead, nor should there be pension double-dipping, etc. Stuff like that. 
And now Murphy wants to give away the store. 

Your words it's something that people just have to accept as a negative aspect of living here.  In that sentence it is apparant that "it's" refers to the previous paragraph, which stated NJ will always be a high-cost and high-tax state. Too much stuff — like public-sector wages and pensions, strength of unions, and home rule — is just too entrenched.  You clearly put public employee wages and pensions in the negative column. 

I was a public employee.  I dispatched police, fire, and EMS for a small town a bit west of here.  I took 911 calls, coordinated mutual aid, and did medical dispatching, including giving CPR instructions to callers while waiting for the first units to arrive on scene.  It took six years for the union to be able to negotiate a pay raise from $28k to $29k.  One of my co-workers was making $45k a year, but only because she had been on the job for 25 years.  These are FULL TIME salaries, not part time.  Dispatching and call taking is a very stressful job.  Believe me, there wasn't going to be any $300k payout.  The low pay was actually one of the reasons why I ended up becoming a SAHM, after taxes I would have been paying more for childcare than I would have been taking home from my job.

At least I had a desk job.  My  husband is also a public employee, he works in EMS.  He's been injured on the job multiple times, including one time he was thrown down a set of stairs by a mentally disturbed patient.  One of his many on the job accidents resulted in injuries severe enough that he needed two separate surgeries.  He's currently out injured again, the surgeon is trying to do everything he can to fix his rotator cuff tear without cutting him yet again.  When he finally gets injured enough to no longer be able to work he won't be getting a $300k payout.

My husband earns more than I did, but he still earns well below the average for Maplewood.  Most of his co-workers live out in Warren county and Sussex county, having an hour plus drive each way to and from work so they can afford to live on their salaries. 

Chris Christie passed a law that NJ public employees couldn't live out of state.  He forgot to balance that by also saying public employees should be paid enough to be able to afford to live in state.  While it may be true that many public employees in Trenton were taking a short commute over the river for lower costs, the public employees I know of up here who were driving an hour and a half each way to and from work to get to PA weren't doing it because they loved the drive.  Believe me, after working a 12 hour shift on the street the last thing they wanted was a 90 minute drive home.  They did it out of necessity, not greed.  People look at the salaries of top level administrators in the public sector and forget that there are a great many more lower level employees who aren't earning money hand over fist and who won't see anything near the six digit pensions those high earners will get.

yahooyahoo said:

conandrob240 said:

cramer said:
Among other reasons, taxes are high in SOMA because residents like the services provided and are willing to pay for them. You want lower taxes?  Try going to a BOT or TC or BOE meeting and suggest that any service - you pick it - be cut back. Watch the backlash from the public. 

There are plenty of other towns outside of NJ who have great (even better) public services and schools and the taxes aren’t even close to as high (maybe about 30- 50 percent lower. In decent proximity to NYC. And then many other places far away from NYC who also have great services/ good schools where taxes on much larger homes/ lots are literally 10-20% of what we pay.


Something’s far out of whack in NJ and it’s not because there are far superior services/ schools.

 I think it boils down to the school funding formula in New Jersey.  The vast majority of the burden falls to the local district (unless the district is an Abbott district) to pay the bill.  

 This.  Collecting the majority of the operating funds via how much your house is worth instead of based on income (i.e. ability to pay) creates a large burden.  In addition, Abbott districts get funding from the state, which comes from income, so in a non-Abbott district like Maplewood most people have paid for both local schools AND Abbott district schools.  

I'm not saying that we should have NO property taxes, but I think too much is paid for by them.  

Spontaneous, it's true there are lots of hard-working public sector employees who aren't overpaid and may well be underpaid. 

My point is that in aggregate, public-sector wages and pensions are a prime reason why NJ's property taxes are so high. And high property taxes are a negative aspect of living here. 

https://www.njbia.org/three-reasons-njs-property-taxes-higher-everyone-elses/

It's probably as much about there being too many public employees in NJ, as it is about the median salary + benefits package of NJ public employees being out of whack. That goes back to home rule and 556 municipalities.

I understand how it works in NJ but I don’t agree that it’s okay or not broken. There are plenty of towns I can think of that have same or even fewer businesses (I’m thinking of other states here), great schools, excellent services, good proximity to NY or other large cities with much, much lower taxes. 

Amstel said:
Towns should really be run like corporations, because the residents are in many ways shareholders.  Instead, they are stuck in their old stodgy ways afraid of implementing change.  Sure, Maplewood has given the impression they’re innovators with a few shared services with South Orange but those only have a minimal impact on the fringe.    A full cost/benefit analysis needs to be done on each and every service and some tough decisions would need to be made (ie. does Maplewood really need a full time fire dept?).  Cost efficiency is the only way to address the tax burden.  

 Just what do you think could be cut locally to save enough money to make a substantial impact on your taxes?  Our school spending is pretty close to average for the state, with cuts being made almost every year to minimize the tax hit.  Meanwhile our school buildings are crumbling and other local infrastructure is also threatened in some areas.  Our local governing boards have worked very hard to keep the increases in check, but it is an annual challenge.  All the evidence I've seen indicates that the problem isn't runaway local spending; it is a combination of living in a high income/high cost area of the country (feeding both demand for excellent services AND high costs of employment of municipal staff) AND our state's dysfunctional method of funding local services, especially education.  No matter what changes might be made, we will never be in the lower tiers because of the former, but changes at the state level could go a long way toward making the tax burden more evenly spread statewide.  However the political will to do this does not seem to be present and there are powerful individuals and groups that prefer the status quo and oppose change that would make education funding fairer as well as reducing the overall tax burden (income plus property taxes) for the highly taxed areas (primarily in the northern part of the state), because that would come at the expense of those in lower taxed (mostly southern) counties.  Furthermore there are some significant education funding inequalities that have yet to be rectified although they have been "nibbling at the edges".  For example, I understand that Jersey City receives a very large amount of state funding that benefits their affluent residents (a growing portion of their population) as well as their lower income residents, resulting in services such as free Pre-K for all (not just the lower income families) and significantly lower property taxes than comparable value homes in most other "hot" towns.

So those concerned about property taxes should be directing their advocacy and energy at our state legislators rather than at local officials who seem to me to be doing the best they can in a nearly untenable situation.  And if you do see waste at the local level, find a way to call it out constructively and you might well see results.  But posting on a message board that it could all be solved if we were to run towns like corporations doesn't help.

nohero said:

sbenois said:
Can't believe that this topic has never come up before.

 MOL looks like deja vu all over again, today.  Top categories include property taxes and redistricting elementary schools.  It's back to Y2K.

 I just find it strange that there are hundreds of posts on Trump but something that seems to have a significant impact on our actual town gets met with a shrug.  

Responding to ConandRob:

Other states have very different school funding mechanisms. And very different costs of living.

DannyArcher said:

nohero said:

sbenois said:
Can't believe that this topic has never come up before.

 MOL looks like deja vu all over again, today.  Top categories include property taxes and redistricting elementary schools.  It's back to Y2K.

 I just find it strange that there are hundreds of posts on Trump but something that seems to have a significant impact on our actual town gets met with a shrug.  

 I didn't see a shrug.  

again, yes. Then why doesn’t NJ look at some other models? 

conandrob240 said:
again, yes. Then why doesn’t NJ look at some other models? 

 http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2013/06/constitutional_convention_is_b.html

"The only way to make a deep-enough cut in property taxes to make New Jersey competitive is to reform the state’s tax structure by shifting part of the $20 billion cost of residential property taxes to another tax or taxes, as the League of Municipalities’ Property Tax Reform Task Force recommended last week.

It is increasingly clear that the only way to make that happen is through a citizens convention — a constitutional convention called specifically to reform the punishing and antiquated tax structure under which New Jerseyans pay more in property taxes each year than the state collects in income taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, motor vehicle fees, and cigarette and alcohol taxes combined."

NJ is fundamentally broken.  We are sitting on a fiscal time bomb and cannot tax our way out of $90B in unfunded pension liabilities.  

My taxes were a third of what they are now when I first moved here 18+ years ago.  It is definitely all Trumps fault.

quercus said:
We love MW and after living here for 42 years we are leaving.  We would be happy spending our retirement years in our home but the prospect of spending $17,000 a year on taxes, which I'm sure will continue to rise, in addition to the added cost of garbage, sewer, etc., leaves us with no choice but to relocate.  Our taxes will be under $3500 in S.C.  Adios N.J.

 There are some nice apartments for rent in Maplewood-South Orange. I was in SC recently. I doubt that I could live there. Different strokes for different folks.

And I just remembered that I purchased a small food item in a grocery and was charged sales tax!

conandrob240 said:
again, yes. Then why doesn’t NJ look at some other models? 

Now we agree.

Where we disagreed was that SO and M’wood were somehow “less efficient” than Westfield and these other places.

LOST said:

 There are some nice apartments for rent in Maplewood-South Orange. I was in SC recently. I doubt that I could live there. Different strokes for different folks.

I agree about SC, but taxes are also much lower in places that are pretty comparable to NNJ. For example, here's a house in Silver Spring, MD, just outside DC, popular commuter suburb, 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, listed for $829,000, taxes $5,384 (and they in fact dropped this year). That's consistent with other houses I checked and with my experience when I lived in Silver Spring ten years ago. 

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Silver-Spring-MD-20910/fsba_lt/house_type/37278471_zpid/66708_rid/150000-_price/609-_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/39.002327,-77.020973,38.986934,-77.035865_rect/15_zm/ 

The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that most services are provided at the county level (Montgomery county), which covers 500 sq. miles and has a population of over a million. That includes schools ("As of the 2017–2018 school year, the district had 13,094 teachers serving 161,546 students at 205 schools"), police (about 1,100 officers), fire, animal control, zoning/code enforcement, etc. It still boggles my mind that services in NJ are provided by each itty-bitty town. 

1,100 police officers covering 1 million people and 500 square miles?!!

That seems like way too few!

lord_pabulum said:
My taxes were a third of what they are now when I first moved here 18+ years ago.  It is definitely all Trumps fault.

You are definitely in the mood Britt if you like in MAPSO and your taxes have increased 60% or so over 18 years. 

jimmurphy said:

conandrob240 said:
again, yes. Then why doesn’t NJ look at some other models? 

Now we agree.


Where we disagreed was that SO and M’wood were somehow “less efficient” than Westfield and these other places.

 My opinion that Westfield has slightly better services/ efficiency wasn’t the point. 

The point was NJ is a financial mess. There are lots of other places that do it much better. It’s a disgrace and hearing “well, it’s okay because we have such great services” makes my blood boil. It’s not okay, people should demand better and stop drinking the koolaid. It’s not all that great here- there are far better states to live in that are run much better.

jimmurphy said:
1,100 police officers covering 1 million people and 500 square miles?!!


That seems like way too few!

  You're right.

There's a lot of farmland in the northern part of the county. Also, I think rural areas are patrolled by county sheriffs, who aren't part of the MoCo police department. Those were just some random numbers I pulled from wikipedia to contrast with our own police department, which has ... I dunno ... maybe 20?

Smedley said:

spontaneous said:

Smedley said:
NJ will always be a high-cost and high-tax state. Too much stuff — like public-sector wages and pensions, strength of unions, and home rule — is just too entrenched.
 Sure there might be marginal change here and there but it’s never enough to meaningfully change the dynamic. 
IMO it’s something that people just have to accept as a negative aspect of living here, just like relatively high incomes are a positive. Or else, move south or west. I have different friends orig from NJ who moved to NC, SC, FL, and TX, at least partly due to high cost of living including taxes. Nobody has ever come back. 

 Wait, so public sector wages are bad, but relatively high income for private sector is good?  Public sector employees have to be able to afford to live here too

Where did I say that the positive aspect of relatively high incomes applied to private sector only? I meant earning potential is high generally which spans sectors. But if you’re not earning relatively high income, whether from being retired or whatever, the high cost of living here sucks.
And yes, public sector employees have to be able to afford to live here. But they don’t need to get $300k retirement payouts for unused sick days, nor does there need to be 556 municipal fiefdoms each with their own payroll and overhead, nor should there be pension double-dipping, etc. Stuff like that. 
And now Murphy wants to give away the store. 

Well said, Smedley!