The way and time in which Evesham Township handles property tax appeals could soon change depending on a decision by the Burlington County Taxation Board.
The possible changes being discussed by the county tax board would include moving the deadline for property tax appeals from April to January, as well as requiring all municipalities in the county to conduct home revaluations on 20 percent of the homes in town on an annual basis.
Evesham Township Manager Tom Czerniecki and Mayor Randy Brown recently spoke about the proposed changes and how they believe the changes would have a positive impact for the township regarding its budgeting process.
Czerniecki said with the current system, the township adopts its budget around March or April, then in April, residents file tax appeals, and in June the judgments are mailed and settled, when the township then reimburses those who won their judgment.
Because of that schedule, Czerniecki said the township ends up reimbursing the resident on behalf of the township and school district, the school district having already spent money it collected in taxes since it operates on a different calendar schedule.
“We give them an assessed valuation and they strike their rate on that and they don’t get involved in the process at all, but we have to settle up once they come in,” Czerniecki said.
According to Czerniecki, over the past five years, the township was forced to pay about $1.4 million to residents who won their tax appeals.
“That doesn’t include the cost of legal expenses, hiring of appraisers, so on and so forth,” Czerniecki said.
Of that $1.4 million, Brown said he believed around 70 percent was the township paying for the school district.
“When we reimburse for tax appeal loses, neither school district, neither of the two school districts, repays us,” Brown said. “That’s on us and the county.”
Brown and Czerniecki said the new process, which would require the township to perform two property revaluations per home per decade, would eliminate most if not all tax appeals by keeping properties up to date.
“The tax appeals will go away because of the schedule,” Czerniecki said. “The large majority of them will go away.”
Czerniecki also said the new process of requiring appeals to be filed by January would allow the township time to budget for any successful appeals by the time of finalizing a budget several months later.
And, overall, Czerniecki said the new system would be fairer.
“The idea is the current revaluation system isn’t fair nor is it efficient,” Czerniecki said. “It’s not efficient in a sense that typically a community would have to bond to do a revaluation, pay debt on that, interest and treat it as an emergency in many situations.”
Should Burlington County moved forward with its new plan, Czerniecki said certain details are still unknown, such as when the plan could be instituted and how the township would decide what 20 percent of homes would reassessed in a given year.
“It’s on the horizon, but exactly when it’s going to happen and what form it’s going to take we’re not sure,” he said.
