Politics & Government

Few Districts Used Windfall for Tax Relief, Despite Deadline Being "Local Decision"

Majority of districts, like Barnegat, did not amend current year's tax levy with extra state aid

Only a handful of school districts in New Jersey chose to use a state aid windfall announced earlier this month for property tax relief, despite the fact that the July 19 deadline given by the state for districts to amend their tax levies was more fluid than previously believed.

The announcement of extra aid  – which Gov. Chris Christie and the Department of Education "strongly encouraged" districts use for tax relief – came Tuesday, July 12. For Barnegat, it meant an additional $467,533 will bring the total amount of aid for the 2011-12 school year to $19,697,121, up from the originally expected $19,229,588.

On Thursday, July 14, districts received details from the DOE on how they could use the funds, said Dean Allison, business administrator for the Barnegat Township Board of Education. The DOE informed districts they were encouraged to use the extra fund to bring down current tax levies, but they only had until Tuesday, July 19 to submit the amended levy to their county tax board for approval. 

Find out what's happening in Barnegat-Manahawkinwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In many districts, officials decided that wasn’t enough time to schedule a special meeting of the board, which requires adequate public notice.

Barnegat's Board of Education, which had several members away on vacation when word of the aid increase was handed down, decided to take the option of waiting to decide what to do with the funds until the 2012-13 school year. 

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Few districts used the state aid immediately, and held meetings before the July 19 deadline to amend their tax levies.

The impact varied widely. In some school districts, it meant more than a couple dozen dollars off a tax bill, while others were able to roll back the tax impact to 2010-11 levels.

  • The Brick Township Board of Education voted to apply its $1.3 million aid boost to tax relief for Brick residents. The average Brick household – calculated as a house assessed at $304,000 – would have seen a tax increase of $54.94 this year, but will now see an increase of $15.16. That translates to an average savings of $38.78 per household.
  • Warren Township used the additional aid to reduce an increase in the tax rate for the 2011-12 year (from $98 to about $30). River Edge School District returned $141,000 to taxpayers in town.
  • Manasquan's tax rate for school purposes dropped 1.4 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, from 8.418 to 8.275. That equals a zero tax increase for this year and will lower district spending to the state-mandated minimum tax levy.
  • Moorestown in Burlington County also eliminated a tax hike. The district erased its entire planned tax increase and cut a controversial pay to play policy as well, thanks to the additional state aid.  Moorestown kept its school tax rate at the 2010-11 level by applying $695,000 of its budget toward tax relief. That means the increase approved by voters in April – which would have resulted in an approximate $80 tax increase on a home assessed at the township average of $533,800 – went away.

But some districts only managed to squeeze in a meeting and adjust their tax levies because they were granted an extension on the July 19 deadline by their county tax boards – a deadline that the DOE has said could have been extended if districts and tax boards could come to an agreement. 

In Parsippany, for example, the Board of Education was granted wiggle room on its deadline after receiving word from the state that the deadline was not hard and fast, officials there said. The board met on July 20 and voted for tax relief.

New Milford also received an extension, and will decide on how to use the extra state funds at its regular meeting in August, though it does not plan to use the aid windfall to tax relief.

But Ocean County Tax Administrator Lawrence Vituscka said the county tax board never received any direction from the DOE beyond the initial guidance, which gave the July 19 deadline and mentioned nothing about the possibility of an extension.

“No one contacted us at all,” Vituscka said in an email. 

DOE spokesman Justin Barra said his department had its eye on tax bills when it gave out the initial tight deadline.

Counties were waiting on the districts’ updated school budgets before they could issue already overdue tax bills, Barra said, “so the state gave guidance to districts to certify with their tax boards by July 19, beyond which point counties would have started facing real financial hardships.” 

But ultimately, “that is a local decision that we left up to them.” As a result, he said, it’s possible that some districts could still certify adjustments to their tax levies in August.

Daniel Nee, Tom Dunphy, Lauren Burgoon, Eamon Harbord, Jason Koestenblatt, John Patten, Tracy Montgomery Schoenberg and Natalie Davis contributed to this report.


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