Here are the facts...

The Bergen County Board of Taxation issued an order for Ramsey as well as half the towns in the County to
perform a town-wide property revaluation. This occurs when the town-wide valuation drops below an 85% threshold to the current market.

Given the market’s upward movement in many of the property segments across the County, half of the 70 Bergen County towns have received this same order from the County to be implemented on or before October 1, 2025 for tax year 2026. The Borough has met with Appraisal Systems who is one of the leading companies in this field and performed the last revaluation for Ramsey that started in 2014 and was implemented in 2016. Because of Bergen County Board of Taxation’s order, an ordinance was introduced in Ramsey on February 28, 2024 to authorize the framework to fund the cost of the Borough-wide revaluation over a five-year budget period.

A property tax revaluation is a “net neutral” overall tax impact to the Borough. The new property valuations will create a new Net Value Taxable (“NVT”) for the Borough as a whole and the property tax rate will be adjusted down by the same percentage as the Net Value Taxable goes up. This produces the same tax dollars when multiplying the new higher NVT times the new lower tax rate. While this is net neutral as a whole for the Borough, individual properties will see different impacts to their property taxes with some increasing, some decreasing and some staying basically the same as all properties are adjusted to the current market values.

A public hearing for this ordinance (Ordinance 3-2024) was held at the March 13, 2023 Mayor and Council meeting before a vote on adoption was taken. At this same March 13th meeting, we also approved a resolution to define the budget repayment over the five years as well as a resolution to authorize a contract with Appraisal Systems, Inc. to perform the mandated Property Revaluation.

The fact is New Jersey consistently has the highest property tax rate in the United States. Property taxes in
New Jersey are high due to the state’s reliance on local property taxes to fund public services, particularly public schools.