School District, Township CFO Disagree on School Tax Rate

Despite conflicting reports on the coming year school budget, the owner of a home in East Brunswick assessed at $200,000 can expect to pay $263 more in school taxes this coming school year, district officials say.

For the 2013-14 school year, the East Brunswick School District is proposing a $134 million school budget supported by a $113 million tax levy.

Business administrator Bernardo Giuliana said the district tax rate will increase 13 cents from $6.09 to $6.22 per $100 of assessed valuation in the township. 

"For 2013-2014, the net tax levy increase is $2,547,334 (General and Debt Service Funds combined), which translates into a 13.17-cent tax rate increase," he said. "These are as reflected in the actual budget that was adopted."

Township Chief Financial Officer Lou Neely told East Brunswick Patch on Tuesday that the tax rate reported by Giuliana at the March 19 budget hearing was incorrect.

Neely said that number was miscalculated, and that the tax rate would actually rise 22 cents from $6.09 to $6.31 per $100 of assessed valuation.

"The Budget amount the (board) approves is divided by the tax base, which equals the tax rate," Neely said. "Therefore the rate times your value should proceed the amount of  (tax) money (to be raised)."

Why the confusion?

Giuliana said that the district did not make any mistake on its calculations, and that the nine cent difference between the district's proposed tax rate and Neely's explanation of the tax rate comes from changes in property values in East Brunswick.

Neely said that a $30 million loss in taxes comes from appeals filed by property owners in East Brunswick, of which there have been more than a thousand in the last two years.

"This year the tax base against shrunk by 30 million dollars...as soon as that was known I sent the information to Bernie in January," he said.

With the loss of that $30.6 million, the tax burden gets spread out across the township, Giuliana said.

"Losses in property values are not within the control of any governmental unit," he said. "Large losses may be attributable to an imbalance in property assessments throughout a municipality. When that occurs, assessments should be brought back into balance in order that all property owners are taxed on an equal footing."

The tax levy for the coming school budget is 2.1 percent and supported by money that the district had saved specifically for the cap, Giuliana said. This keeps the increase within what is permitted by state law if the district is to bypass a vote on the budget.

"It utilized a piece of (banked funds) so it is within the cap restrictions set by the department of education," he said.

Giuliana said he plans to make a presentation at Thursday's board of education meeting to explain the tax rate to the public. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and will be held at the district administration building on Route 18.