Property Tax Index - Municipalities Rated

I originally titled this “Most Efficient Towns” intending to put a number on what each resident in each town pays for municipal services and highlighting the lowest taxed. But upon reflection the 41 towns by county that I single out for a MET award might not be the most efficient. They may provide fewer services. They may provide different services. They may have sold assets or bonded to keep their tax burden down. There are explanations that might have validity - and some that don’t. My goal here is to put the numbers out there so the questions get asked - and maybe answered.

Click on the county name to get a spreadsheet listing every town in that county ranked from lowest to highest on municipal taxes. The towns listed below have the lowest municipal tax portion within each county divided between small towns (populations under 10,000, but excluding micro-towns of under 2,000, who spend at least $1 million on municipal services) and large towns. Abbott districts are excluded.

COUNTY……….SMALL TOWN…….LARGE TOWN
Atlantic…………Buena Vista………..Egg Harbor Township
Bergen………….East Rutherford……Wallington
Burlington………Tabernacle…………Southhampton
Camden………..Lawnside……………Voorhees
Cape May……..Dennis……………….Lower
Cumberland…..Maurice River………….#
Essex………….North Caldwell……..Cedar Grove
Gloucester…….Logan………………..Deptford
Hudson…………East Newark*………North Bergen
Hunterdon……..Union…………………Clinton
Mercer………….Hightstown………….East Windsor
Middlesex……..Jamesburg…………..Woodbridge
Monmouth……..Millstone…………….Howell
Morris…………..Wharton……………..Dover
Ocean…………..Plumsted……………Lacey
Passaic…………Prospect Park…….Hawthorne
Salem…………..Pittsgrove…………..Pennsville*
Somerset………So. Bound Brook….Bridgewater
Sussex…………Frankford……………Wantage
Union……………Kenilworth………….Westfield
Warren…………Harmony…………….Hackettstown
.
# No winner since all three large towns are Abbott districts and they are in the bottom 3.
* Only town in this category.

Methodology
Combining data from Municipal Information Sheets with information on the breakdown between residential and commercial taxable property as listed on the Division of Local Government Services’ website I developed an estimate of what people around the state are paying. For ease of calculation no weight was given to non-residential values though commercial enterprises use services like garbage pickup. With 54% of property taxes going for schools, which businesses can’t utilize, and another 19% for county services the businesses get very little in the way of services from the property taxes they pay which is why towns like attracting them. They don’t have kids to educate or much use for parks or need much help with domestic disturbances. Finally, for the final cost estimates the municipal percentage of the tax bill was applied to the adjusted tax per person to put a number on how much your town is costing you.

Explanation of key columns in the tables
Total property taxes to be paid in 2009 from municipal data sheets are divided by population figures from the 2000 census for a straight average property tax bill by person which is allocated only to residential taxpayers for their municipal portion. There are other comparison methods - a better way would have been to get an average by household instead - but since that data was not readily available this will have to do. It should also be recognized that there are quirks within these numbers. For example some sewer bills are separate from property taxes and some towns have taken pension deferrals. In addition, comparative debt burdens are not accounted for.

Conclusions
To be drawn. This report is designed as a starting point to put what you’re paying in property taxes in perspective. Different towns provide different services and all balance their budgets with varying degrees of reliance on debt. There may be reasons why one town is twice as expensive as another that have nothing to do with inefficiency. Getting those reasons out there is the real goal of all this.

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