Survey of Property Revaluation



We conducted a brief survey of how the revaluation process impacted various parts of the Township. We took ten properties at random, in sections of the township, and averaged the numbers for each section. The data presented below is the outcome of that survey. Only properties with structures are included in the survey. 405 property owners have filed for tax appeals and probably everyone should do the same next year. The actual resale values of homes are as follows, 2006- $254,731., 2007---$260,961., 2008---$250,252. (http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/lpt/class2avgsales.shtml) which is approx a 10,700 decrease in one year. This is probably the first time in at least 25 years that actual property sales average has fallen. If this trend continues next years average sale price will be close to the average revaluation price of residential properties of $228,000, set by the township.




Highland Lakes Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 234,950 $108,670 95%

Storm Estates Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 452,840 $176,960 64%

Old Orchard Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 412,067 $170,522 69%

Barry Lakes Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 257,230 $ 107,060 73%

Harbour Estates Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $395,390 $177,520 82%

Lake Wallkill Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 196,810 $129,310 228%

Great Gorge Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $125,550 $ 68,980 126%

Black Creek Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 289,860 $ 47,080 20%

Vernon Valley Lake Average Price Average Increase Percent Increase

. $ 226,120 $ 109,390 93%





Commercial Properties
. 2008 2009 increase % inc .

Highlands Bank $ 1,085,600 $ 2,054,300 $ 968,700 89%

Lukoil $328,600 $ 508,000 $ 179,400 55%

house next Lukoil $ 104,900 $ 158,300 $ 53,400 51%

Saxony Bake $ 265,400 $ 522,800 $ 257,400 97%

Law office next Saxony $ 128,800 $ 237,000 $ 108,200 84%

Old Firehouse $ 212,800 $ 387,800 $ 175,000 82%

Lakeland Bank $ 856,100 $ 1,612,900 $ 756,800 88%

DS Mall $ 715,900 $1,293,900 $ 578,000 81%

A+P $ 6,500,000 $13,475,300 $ 6,975,300 107%

Burger King $ 538,500 $ 805,700 $ 267,200 50%

Bank next to BK $ 499,800 $ 964,000 $ 464,200 93%

Old pool hall $ 189,000 $ 285,000 $ 96,000 51%

$ 1,974,270 $ 973,150 78%

On May 27, the Vernon Taxpayers Association is sponsoring a “Meet the Candidates” night for candidates running for Vernon Township Council in the June 2 Primary Election.
Meet the Candidates Night will be held at the Nordic House café on Route 94 in Vernon at 7:30 p.m. Four candidates are running for two available seats on the Vernon Township Council. The four candidates are Neil Desmond, Michael Pier, Sally Rinker, and Harry Shortway. They will discuss their candidacies and their platforms. There will also be a question and answer period.
The event is free and open to the public. For information, call the Vernon Taxpayers Association at 973-764-5659.

Vernon’s Theft Budget 2009

It’s the silly time of year again for council members, town manager and the chief financial officer of Vernon Township. Spin and misinformation are the order of the day, along with the opaqueness of the town budget. Politicians and the manager like to point out that the budget is not increasing that much this year. Actually the part of the municipal portion of the budget that is supported by property taxes is going up 14% this year or in dollars 2 million. The municipal portion of the property tax levy will be $15.9 million this year if the council doesn’t get a waiver on $550,000 in pension payments. We assume that they won’t, but if they do it will lower the property tax increase to 11%. What all this means is that you are looking at, yet again, a double digit property tax increase or the highest tax increase Vernon has ever experienced.

In 2007 we searched for and hired a new town manger with financial expertise to address the town’s financial disarray. The property tax levy was $12.4 million in 2007 and in 2009 its $15.9 million or a 27% increase in two years. During the same time period the County taxes have gone up by 2% and the School taxes by 6%. We rate performance of the manager and the council members by the property tax levy increases and they receive an F minus for this budget. Yet again this year, they have spent a lot of money on things they want which they do not need: $50,000 for a grant writer, $90,000 for an Economic Commission, signed a contract with the police for $450,000 in pay increases over four years. Turns out that the pay increases are actually $880,000, and with pension increases will be (approx.) $1.2 million over four years for 28 police officers.

Currently we are paying $2.7 million in interest and principal for our $30.5 million town debt. Or you could say every two years we could build a new town park (Maple Grange) with the money we pay on our debt. The Economic Commission is composed of the same folks who brought you the Town Center. The grant writer’s contract was never put out to public bid but was awarded after he showed up at Council meeting. Seriously, folks, there are people out here on limited incomes and oh, yes, the economy is in the pits. All of this makes these property tax increases unsustainable.

When confronted with all this, the council and manager will offer platitudes such as trust us or we went through the budget line by line. Our opinion is that they put the lines in the budget, so what’s not to like? Trust works both ways. Give the Taxpayers the option of voting on your budget. You can trust us, too.

Tax Rate

Ballpark figure and how we arrived at it.

Attended the school budget presentation last night and they gave out the following numbers. The property tax levy for the schools will be 39.2 million and the tax rate will be $1.412 per $100 ( assessed value of property). The other two parts of the property tax levy are the county portion which is unknown at this time so we took last years number 12.5 million and increased it by 4% ( budget increase limit) got 13 million. The municipal tax levy will be 14.5 million which has been given to us, by the town council on a number of occasions. Total for county and municipal tax levies is 27.5 million.
To find the multiplier for one million in taxes we took the $1.412 school tax rate and divided it by 39.2 and got 0.036 which is the tax rate per million. We then multiplied 0.036 by 27.5 and got 0.990 added that to the $1.412 rate for the schools and got $2.402.

The new tax rate will should be around 2.402 per hundred assessed value.

Just multiply your new valuation by 0.02402 and that’s your ballpark tax bill


Total tax levy would be 66.7 million for 2009
Last years total tax levy was 64.8 million (2008)

Its about the Money

This letter is in reply to Mary Emelius’ recent letter to the editor. Mrs. Emelius makes three arguments in support of the current manager and town council. Mrs. Emelius argues that the manager is doing a good job, and that the council is also doing a good job. She also argues that the council and manager are fine people and we should all support them and stop filing these OPRA requests for such things as the town’s budget, debt statements, ect. Essentially what Mrs Emelius is trying to do here is take questions of expenditures and property tax increases and define them in the context of liking or disliking personalities. There are 25,011 people residing in Vernon and to presume that all of these people have a personal relation with the Council and Manager is unrealistic.
What the general public needs is a benchmark that gauges the council and manager’s performance, not their personalities. We suggest that the bench mark should be property taxes and debt.Yes, the municipal tax levy increased 12% last year and we increased bonding/debt by 4.1 million, and we believe that’s bad. Yes, the management style of (my way or the highway) and the reticence to share how taxpayers’ monies are spent is endemic in this council and manager actions. For example, during the past year we have asked the manager and council at each meeting how much resolutions and ordinances that they are voting on that night will cost. The answer we receive is that they don’t know but will look into it, and then they approve the ordinances and resolutions. Some of you may view this as perfectly acceptable, but we view it as nonsense. It’s about a tough job being done poorly or at best communicated poorly. It’s not personal.

We say if you like higher property taxes, financial disarray and a style that says “we’re doing the best job we can”, then you should love these folks and give ‘em a star for trying and failing. We would also suggest you might want to invest some money with Bernie Madoff ( Madoff Securities), who is also very personable and doesn’t like to communicate how your money is used.

Its about the Money

This letter is in reply to Mary Emelius’ recent letter to the editor. Mrs. Emelius makes three arguments in support of the current manager and town council. Mrs. Emelius argues that the manager is doing a good job, and that the council is also doing a good job. She also argues that the council and manager are fine people and we should all support them and stop filing these OPRA requests for such things as the town’s budget, debt statements, ect. Essentially what Mrs Emelius is trying to do here is take questions of expenditures and property tax increases and define them in the context of liking or disliking personalities. There are 25,011 people residing in Vernon and to presume that all of these people have a personal relation with the Council and Manager is unrealistic. What the general public needs is a benchmark that gauges the council and manager’s performance, not their personalities. We suggest that the bench mark should be property taxes and debt.Yes, the municipal tax levy increased 12% last year and we increased bonding/debt by 4.1 million, and we believe that’s bad. Yes, the management style of (my way or the highway) and the reticence to share how taxpayers’ monies are spent is endemic in this council and manager actions. For example, during the past year we have asked the manager and council at each meeting how much resolutions and ordinances that they are voting on that night will cost. The answer we receive is that they don’t know but will look into it, and then they approve the ordinances and resolutions. Some of you may view this as perfectly acceptable, but we view it as nonsense. It’s about a tough job being done poorly or at best communicated poorly. It’s not personal.

We say if you like higher property taxes, financial disarray and a style that says “we’re doing the best job we can”, then you should love these folks and give ‘em a star for trying and failing. We would also suggest you might want to invest some money with Bernie Madoff ( Madoff Securities), who is also very personable and doesn’t like to communicate how your money is used.

“It’s the Economy Stupid”

The Town Council’s idea of leadership during uncertain financial times for the residents of Vernon is to ignore the current financial meltdown and steer a steady course of spending and tax increases. As we have done many times in the past we object to paying ever increasing property taxes to support fields of dreams and lavish vacations.

Recently top executives at the failed insurance giant AIG spent more than $440,000 at a company retreat days after the federal government bailed out the company with $85 billion in taxpayer funds. Similarly, the town council has decided to start out the budget planning process by proposing to increase property taxes by 5% next year ( R 08-188). Our position is that process should have started out as a negative 10%, then see what we absolutely need to spend. What the township definitely didn’t need was the creation of a new bureau chief position which the council approved in ordinance 08-21.

During the open to public period of the council meeting we questioned the council on resolution (r-08-197 VALIC investment plan). The manager answered the inquiries by stating that it was a mandate new this year as January 1, 2008, and that it applied to one employee, the town manager, because of her salary. Once the meeting was closed to the public and the council was deciding the resolution, the manager went on to explain a few more things about the resolution. It was for the creation of a 401 A plan, it’s a statutory requirement, and it would cost about $3,000. Actually all those statements by the town manager seem to be incorrect upon review. We looked up AIG’s explanation (http://www.agc.com/valic2003/plansponsor.nsf/contents/plans_types-spp ).

• This is not a mandate or statutory requirement.
• It’s an option.
• It’s not $3,000, but it’s up to $45,000 in employee and employer matching funds. It’s not new this year this plan was first introduced in 2002 and modified in January of this year to allow greater contributions.
• It’s an IRS plan that lets the employee contribute and receive upon retirement or termination contributions to the plan without having to pay any taxes on the payout or pay in.
• This plan is not income specific and can apply to all the town employees.

Fortunately the council didn’t attend the AIG retreat this year but they are sending our taxes to AIG for next year’s retreat.

So for eleven months of work, we the taxpayers have rewarded the manager with the following benefits which were in addition to her initial contract apparently.

1. Enrollment in the State Deferred Compensation Plan. This is investment vehicle for government employees and is open to all town employees.
2. Enrollment in the State Defined Contribution Plan. This is a $5,000 match by the township taxpayers for $5,000 contribution by the manager and is a statutory requirement, sort of. The council gets the manager into this plan by deciding she’s in an appointed position not a contractual position.
3. Enrollment in the VALIC plan. This is an investment vehicle that is limited to the town manager and has a $45,000. matching contribution limit.

Not bad for eleven months work. We object to these expenditures, because in the future we will be asking town employees to take less, and the uncertainty of the current economic crisis.