The Borough of Kinnelon approved an ordinance at its Thursday night council meeting which gives the borough a green light to pursue a state-mandated tax revaluation.
The revaluation, which Mayor Bob Collins spoke about with Patch last month, is expected to cost the borough $260,000 and is long overdue, according to the mayor. Collins said Thursday that the process is required by the state every 10 years. Kinnelon, however, has not undergone a tax revaluation in the past 12 years.
"The number of appeals that we’ve gotten of late has increased exponentially in recent years,” said Collins. “Revaluation has gone beyond that 10-year period of time, so we’re actually required to do it.”
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The council is moving forward with the revaluation now, according to Councilman Stephen Cobell, to “more fairly distribute the tax burden” amongst Kinnelon residents. To that point, Collins estimated that a third of property values would increase, a third would decrease and the other third would stay the same throughout the borough. Cobell explained that the revaluation needs to be done in order to accurately assess the property values throughout the borough today, as opposed to the values indicated in the previous assessment 12 years ago.
“We’re not assessors; we’re not licensed to say how the market has changed on various homes,” said Cobell.
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Cobell, who also serves as the council’s liaison to the Finance Department, stated that the revaluation process will benefit the borough’s economic condition by causing fewer tax appeals once property values are reassessed.
“When taxes are forced on appeal, the county or schools don’t pick up any of that, we do,” said Cobell. “We’re going to have far fewer tax appeals after revaluation.”
