Jersey City Revaluation Imperiled?

Steven Fulop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jersey City Mayor-elect Steven Fulop has announced that the city-wide property revaluation has been halted, and warned that an audit of the revaluation company hired by the prior administration may be performed because of alleged ties to a former city business administrator.

Fulop’s campaign had impugned outgoing Mayor Jeremiah Healy for ordering the revaluation, suggesting that it would result in property tax hikes that property owners could not afford.

Fulop officially becomes Mayor next week and has indicated that the City will not finish paying for the revaluation, at least not yet.  He had voted against the revaluation contract in 2011 as a member of the Jersey City Council, at which time the revaluation company had a former City business administrator on its payroll.

Jersey City has not undertaken a revaluation since 1988, and the average equalization ratio, used to translate the assessed value to market value, for 2013 is about 33%, meaning that a property assessed at $100,000 has an indicated true value of approximately $300,000.  

More information about this story is available in this story by Terrence McDonald in today’s Jersey Journal.

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