Did City have enough time to properly reval the island? That’s what many homeowners want to know after receiving their recent tax bills. WATCH VIDEO BELOW>>> ‘Revaluation’ or “Re-val” attempts to provide accurate, current market value of all taxable properties within the City of Brigantine Beach.
George De Angelo from Vital Communications (independent organization tasked to determine value/assessments of properties within city) made a presentation and took questions at the City Council meeting on Wed. night, August 20.
Due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy, Brigantine was forced to deal with a smaller window of time in order to sample sales. Mr. DeAngelo said: ‘as an appraiser, I was looking for a longer period of time to get larger sampling of sales…the more to hang my hat on to determine what fair values are. The City wanted to get the re-val done and eliminate tax appeals”
- Between 1,200-1,500 tax appeals every year, over last 5 years
- About 1,400 tax appeals last year
- 8894 ratable properties in Brigantine. 8000 had a lowered assessment
- Total value of Brigantine Real Estate as of Oct 1, 2013 is $3.1 billion, down from $4.1 billion
This year, with the ‘re-val’ going into effect, there was a total of 217 tax appeals. That’s less than 2% of the total taxable properties in city. According to Vital Communications, most people felt that the assessment was a reasonable representation of their home’s market value.
Taxpayers have til April 1, 2015 to file appeal
Quotables:
- City Manager: You would need over 24% decline in assessment… to see a tax decrease.
- The Brigantine Taxpayer: When assessment is cut in half, City has to double tax rate in order to cover cost of city operations & salaries. Your home value went down? You lose money. Taxes go up? You lose money. plus, you’re still on the hook for expired, but still in effect public employee contracts. Salaries and benefits for a substantial amount of city employees, many of whom make well over $100,000 per year.
- Vital Communications: ‘In Brigantine, so many appeals, filed over so many years, so many multiple appeals. No rhyme or reason to some of these assessments’.
WATCH VIDEO. George De Angelo from Vital Communications. Presentation from 8.20.2014.
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Vital Communications re-evaluated Galloway, and made so many errors, it is astounding! The entire town is “up in arms” due to their mistakes. Same house, in same development having a differential of $30K?????
Randy Grauerholz
My assessment here in Brigantine makes no sense as well based on comps. and erroneous square footage.
My whole condo association will be filing appeals early next year.
The problem is the number of employees, overly generous wages and benefits. The full year population is 9,000…. a fraction of what it was 30 years ago. While the number of employees remained static or grew.
Bob Wendt
If the taxpayer’s didn’t have to support these excessive wages and benefits to so many unnecessary city worker’s, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Add to that the city purchasing the golf course that was not supposed to cost the taxpayers anything, and we are paying for that too.
This problem was created 20 something years ago, and it is now coming to a head!
Remember on November 4th who created this mess for the taxpayers of Brigantine.
Besides a few Doctors, there’s not one job in Brigantine that warrants a $100,000+ salary. These city workers are getting paid too much.
Our assessment was decreased by 16% and our taxes were increased by 10%. It is a tough pill to swallow. Having worked for the federal government for almost 40 years, I know how benefits are paid when an employee retires. No one gets paid cash for their accrued sick leave when they retire. The sick leave is added to their years of service calculation and you end up with a few more dollars in your pension. Federal retirees also pay a significant sum for their health benefits. The citizens of Brigantine and even the State of New Jersey should not be shouldering these outrageous benefits that are paid to the employees of the state and its municipalities.