##VIDEO ID:NOBpHDFGNso## we're going to bring to order the workshop meeting of the late Koo mayor and Council um we did have two discussion items on this agenda for tonight uh we pulled the discussion item of streets one ways and parking um but I will report on that when we get into my report in the regular meeting we have one item on a discussion item on our agenda tonight uh that is a discussion and a presentation really for the council from our burrow Municipal tax assessor Mr Mark Fitzpatrick and our Mammoth County tax assessor Mr Matt Clark um as many of you know I did submit some questions to uh Mr Fitzpatrick and Mr Clark prior to tonight's meeting basic questions basic overview questions to get the discussion and the presentation started um this is an educational experience for our Council um to learn more about the assessment demonstration program otherwise known as ADP um it is the program that currently is the assessment program for the burrow of Lake KOMO um and the council will have that discussion with our tax assessors um and then at the end of that if there are any public comments for the council after that discussion I can open it up to the public to make comments to council and direct those comments to me um so first if um Mark or Matt if you want to just introduce yourselves and maybe introduce those that are come that are here with you tonight thank you very much as introduced my name is Matthew Clark I'm with the m County Board of Taxation I'm accompanied by my bosses um Mr denri and Miss Rell and my assistant Mr wam you all know your Municipal assessor Mr Fitzpatrick um thank you for the invitation the opportunity thank you for coming answer any questions purpose of this is to educate u a lot of math that we were given uh a handout of nine questions we've answered them in detail that that is what I've provided the goals here is to um have everybody understand why we're doing what we're doing how we're doing it give you my access so that if you have any further questions you can contact me directly if you need to um have both the taxpayers and the council members fully understand uh the intent and uh exactly what is transpiring year after year um and the the overarching goal is to annually redistribute the levy and what is most important is uh we have to for purposes of this presentation we have to understand the the fundamentals of property Taxation and how the the local government is being funded and your school is being funded and the county is being funded and that the services are connected directly to um a desire to have a level of service and in this in the coming directly from the Constitution we have a mandate the assessment function so we need to separate the assessment function from The Collection function or the assessment function from the bill that's very important to understand in this process is that the assessment function by law directly from the Constitution but empowered by statutory law is only has one purpose and that's to create and maintain a mechanism for the distribution of the bill now that that Levy is decided by the folks up here and in the county and you know interestingly enough uh the state right now because of the contraction in the aid is having a significant impact on how much we're raising by taxation and we we have to be mindful of that if the assessment function is is doing nothing Mr Fitzpatrick's job is to create this environment where we distribute it based on value that's what the the Simplicity of the Constitution says so if you're worth 5% of the town you pay 5% of the bill so his job is just tracking your percentage your value and as things change in the municipality and how the so your proportionate share within your town is changing over time your proportionate share of your town of the 53 towns is changing over time everything's moving and then we have the next variable of also the levy moving bringing in the fourth issue of how much Aid is impacting the the amount to be raised and we have a fairly simplistic formula which is addressed in here on how we're actually coming up with the requirements for property taxation so as we move through the questions of the night we I I I need to be tethered with the intent the intent of the assessment function is creating this model and the model is just you have 100 properties his job is to identify what their value is without passion Pride or Prejudice it is just identify the value and once you identify the value then what what comes next the bill is not a function of the of the assessor that's just math that's Downstream it happens so the the issue of how it gets distributed is what we really need to focus on as being the Assessor's job identify the the market value so having having laid the framework of what the intent of the assessor is creating this model the ADP in its summary is doing something that is very straightforward and it is rather than in the old system we would go to a reevaluation set the assessments equal to market value and then let the assessments stay static typically have the market appreciate and year after year the assessments don't change your assessment just becomes a fraction of of the current market value so in year one the assessment equals market value so the ratio between the two the relationship the percentage is 100% let's say hypothetically we in year uh two we we appreciate the value by 10% now the assessment stayed the same the market value increased and your your ratio is now 90% The Very straightforward man ma simple without adding all the zeros as you know Co appreciation has done very straightforward process as to put blinders on identify what the assessment the assessed value is and then repeat that for every property in the town the sum of the value of the town is its proportionate share relative to the value of the county and so we can we can have this this process whereby the assessor is uh doing the traditional revaluation and the problem with that is um static assessments do not track the difference between the change in value in one part of town versus the the next it's it's essentially saying everybody is looking at the all the sales putting them in a pile taking an average and saying you all went up 10% when in reality some went up 5% and some went up 15 year after year after year that happens and now we're talking about neighborhoods that are significantly over assessed relative to other ones enter the problem and that's a real world problem why is this so important it's because of our Reliance on property tax if this was some other states where the average bill was you know $1,000 I doubt there'd be any anybody in this room but it's not you know we're talking about properties in this town that are paying $ 25 $26,000 so so the issue is we have to be right with distribution we have to be annually we can't just assume understanding that taxation distribution is a zero some game if we turn around and say I'm going to reduce one property or I artificially hold it down someone else has to pay that bill this town Town Council says that they raise a million dollars whatever the number is that's going to get raised the question is depending on the assessments who pays what and it has to be constitutionally it has to be Tethered to your market value and elsewhere in the county certainly in the state from the hand out I tried to give uh a document that shows the status of of distribution in the state it is the wild west we have people going for 15 20 years grossly underpaying or overpaying their taxes and so the important part as we go through these questions is for me to convey this is not about the the the answering the issues about the tax bill that's a spending issue and I have no control over that no one in the assessment function has that control it's an issue of is the model correct are the assessments correct if they're if the assessments are wrong then they have to be fixed they'll be addressed if they're not representative of current market value then they need to be fixed and it's not it's you know the the the statutes in New Jersey say that the model is about the municipality the presumption of correctness goes with the town the entire ADP looks to shift that Paradigm to literally put the onus on the assessor to get it right have them have have to annually produce a refined document based on new data and so when when we're going through this and we're we're saying well why why do we want to do the P why do we want to do annual reassessments it's because number one the Constitution says it and our statute says it and the you know why is it not being done that's a better question and it's not being done because self-interest because the it's it is volatile to have friction if you're politically it is unpopular to make changes because someone's always going to be the the recipient of change no one saw the type of changes in value that we've seen connected to co no it's unprecedented the expectation is that the year-over-year change would be a couple points not double digits not 20% not 30% but we can't deny the fact that those numbers are there the market the sales data is there and so what what we're asking is to say what would we have done would we say okay the market data says that you went up 10% but you don't like that bill because it shifts your proportionate share shifts you appreciate it at a much greater rate than the average so you're now a larger piece of the value of your town so your tax bill is going up for two reasons number one the levy went up because fixed costs uh a third reason there's less state aid but then your proportionate share changed now it it's getting complicated but we'll leave it at those three truths those three things change your bill changed but that doesn't mean it's wrong okay I I I I understand the it's all we care about is the bill but all all we care about is is the assessment correct how much is being raised we have no control over that and I know I I understand the explanation to someone that went up significantly greater than the average or what was expected is not an easy thing for me to stand in front of the room and and and deliver the fact is I believe from the data that we we are provided the larger than average increases are supported by current sales it becomes very difficult to find issue with the modeling if the sales are present does work and we can pull this apart and find properties one offs and I no doubt that we may you know get into that this evening but the important part to see before we open up to questions is the intent the intent is the model and the model is driven by constitutional compliance that says assessments equal market value and that's that's what this is the shift that we're looking at today not knowing who's in the room um we have the general questions about why the system and what's fair about it versus the properties that went up significantly because that's how that this this issue originally got from me so with that said as a preamble to uh the ADP i' I'd love to so I appreciate that thank you Mr Clark the my my concern and I think the responsibility of this Council really is looking at the program itself um in your in your response to the general questions that I provided uh you talked a little bit about the history of ADP uh and what it is and and and I thank you for that I um I struggle with why certain towns have it and certain towns don't um when we talk about fair market value to me that just it almost doesn't seem fair that town a is using it Town B is not County a is using it County B is not so I understand that there's a constitutional obligation but I believe that Constitution is for the state so why are we obligated to do it and not other people well we're all obligated to um maintain our assessments it's not being done because many people throughout the state that have taken the same oath that I did are not doing their job County tax boards throughout the state are not doing their job they should be they should be removed so but but relative to one Town versus the other um when it comes to County to County there's not a a significant concern hypothetically theoretically uh because the shared budgets are within the county borders so if we look at just Mammoth and everybody as the intent of the law was everybody in Mammoth um was going to perform annual reassessments and the board gave permission to opt out of that and we had we have seven towns that are no longer doing it from the the timeline that I provided the fact is our board currently believes uh if I may speak for the board um that we never really had authority to offer the op out it was a safety valve from what was playing out in in politics and with the full expectation is it says right in the law that we can't change or redirect the the intent which was annual reassessments and that's irrefutable because we had a public meeting in every town in the county showed up at that meeting and lo and behold no one contested it until they saw the impact of it that's the interesting part it's not it you know that it this became a political issue not because anyone anyone is saying that it's not fair it again as far as if you understand if I do my job reasonably well and convey that the intent of the assessment function or purpose is to create the assessments to be fair then that is being accomplished when it comes to so we we covered that the counties it has to be within the within the uh shared levies within the county as far as a municipality not doing it within L County well it was never the intent it is still clear that the intent of the board was that all 53 towns perform annual reassessments forever that is crystal clear that there is no Sunset to this just like the glower County legislation that did not say well this is a five-year test it was where you're going to do this until legislation tells you not to if it was if they wanted it if the legislature wanted it differently they would have written that into the law and the important part is for the fair distribution um we have we currently have in our process Statewide County Equalization and Equalization is simply converting something from a fractional assessment to a 100% so that if if a Town's assessments are they in static assessment and they are at 50% that Town's assessments are doubled when we calculate their percentage share of the of the county so the idea of it being problematic that there's a a town next to you that is not performing it when it comes to the shared Levy they are absolutely being converted to 100% so they're not escaping taxation in doing it the problem is in that town it's not it's not necessarily anybody else's problem it's that Town's problem the distribution in that town is no longer Fair because when you look at your neighbors and and see certain properties that are at a different ratio assessment to market value ratio than the town's average if they're below that average it's really straightforward math if if they are below the town's average average they are paying less than their fair share if their if their assessed the market value is above the town average they are Point paying more than their fair share and that will happen year after year year after year after year go until the next revaluation that's the issue this is about distribution within your town so the idea of having a concern about your your next door neighbor town that somehow they're escap in their share of what the County taxes no that doesn't happen annually we go through a an equalization table that converts all the assessments up and down theoretically a Town's ratio could be above 100 let's say it was 110 we bring it down to 100 for distribution purposes so there is no concern about not being in other than the fact that it was never the intent of the legislature it wasn't in the intent of the law that the governor signed it wasn't the intent of the board when they made the order it wasn't the intent of the division of taxation when they signed off on it um and it's simply fundamentally not fair in their town and the fact is we could create a list of everybody that's overpaying in any of the towns that aren't participating a list that we've actually created to say this is why you want to be in it this is about this is about being fair to your residents if someone appreciates more than the average then their number should be a fixed to that or on the cut in its Converse if they if they're appreciating less for whatever reason then they shouldn't be held to a number until the next revaluation and none of the town councils want to go through the revaluation that's the history of New Jersey that's why outside of Mammoth or out outside of Mammoth and Somerset the only two counties that are actively pushing um the uh adherence to the law but our statistics are by far the best in the state for for accuracy of the assessment and that's that's our goal what happens again Downstream the the tax bill impact of that has to come back to the people that are deciding how much the levy is not to the people that are creating the model for the distribution so if if you could expound a little bit on two things really questions that came up while you were talking there um referring to the administrative code right the the state statute um that requires all towns to do this is the state making any type of move to bring those counties or those towns that you know of to follow the current statute well it it that a great question as far as the again speaking moment specific of the seven towns um the board has recently made six revaluation orders five sorry five revaluation orders um with the orders that say you must do it's been 10 years as the statute says Administrative Code says and after you've performed a reevaluation you must not it's not discretionary you shall perform annual reassessments those are sitting on the director's desk and we have about 30 days left for us to hear on what the division is going to do the interesting part um is that you know most of the municipalities that are out say okay we understand that we we have to do a revaluation from time to time and but we don't want to do annual reassessments and I ask why and it's the answer is without fail for political purposes so so that that is on the the state director's desk is that your say that is correct the the director of the division of tax so if the director of division of taxation replies to you and says that they don't have to enter the ADP program that's a possibility I yeah now in essence is that is he telling the towns that they don't have to follow state law that's why it's a possibility I don't believe it to be likely but anything possible but can't they be they can do annual assessment to that being in the ADP program they're required to do them and some some towns or some counties do them not through the program they they see that's the interesting part there's 5 64 municipalities in the state and over a hundred of them so over 20% are currently doing annual reassessments Statewide this is not this is best to breed this is wasn't a know the Commissioners supported this is identified from the iao the International Association of assessing officers this is best practices and the the the issue here is you know this was not original thought this wasn't Matt Clark came up with an idea this was what is the best model of Distributing taxes that we could identify on the planet certainly in the United States and it comes to performing the recommendation is annual why because if we're accepting that we have to up we we have to update it every 10 years and the answer to that is well because we don't want people to overpay and underpay but yet we have the technology to reduce the size and the duration of the the errors why would you not do it annually why would you be accepting when the law says that you're supposed to do it annually why would you be okay hey if a taxpayer is not going to complain about overpaying I'm not going to make them any wiser that's crap the idea here is that we're taking responsibility of addressing it and we're we're leveraging every bit of technology to create an environment that makes it that puts it in front of you that makes it easily understood to make it assessment equals market value and we all get plenty of uh uh advertisements of what current market value is we're trying to make it so that if you check the box as the law requires check the box that your assessment is okay and if your assessment's okay then only thing remaining is spending so if if there are municipalities in the state sorry if there are municipalities in the state that are assessing annually but not a part of an ABP program can you explain to the council what the difference of that is what's the difference between the quote unquote ADP program sure and a in a in a county or a town not in ADP but assessing annual okay so the ADP was meant to be a a a modern approach to creating the assessments it shifts a significant requirement to the Assessor many assessors here the truth many assessors get paid pretty well and they go through a revaluation by using a third- party company and they go there to the next 10 years and they literally don't value anything all they do is plug in numbers based on added assessments they have no requirements yet they're being paid significant there if someone files an appeal then they have to defend it but this this idea of Shifting the requirement of being transparent about the assessment uh was a a Cornerstone of the ADP the other the the so the the components of the ADP are really straightforward there's a revised calendar and the calendar is remarkably simple but it's worth millions of dollars to the state of New Jersey and what it does is anywhere else in the state you submit the book you have the uh budgetary process adopt what your your Levy is and then you have appeals so then if you have an appeal and it reduces the value of the Town your tax rate doesn't generate enough money to pay your current year bills so then you have to do emergency bonding depending on the size of the reduction and now your taxpayers get hit with both the under collection the emergency bonding costs and the interest associated with it all we did simple is we submit the book and have appeals and then finalize our appeals then adopt the budget that transition is worth millions to the state when things are going well and there's not a lot of uh uh appeal activity it's worth millions it is worth significantly more when the market contracts and there's a lot of appeal work so components of the ABP education education technology is one the calendar and annual reassessments they're the three uh points on our triangle that if you were doing annual reassessments out side of of uh Mammoth County there's no push to the technology and the investment from the county tax board we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an appeal system on education on things needed to make the assessor better um and provide public service and then the annual reassessments you can do that from anywhere if you make an application um and get permission but the interesting part is elsewhere in the state if if you talk about revaluation the typically there's there's entities there's entities that there's entities that are politically have concerns there's there're like none of my watch next year um there's the group that are know that they're when they go through the revaluation they're going to cuz they know that they're under paying relative to everyone else they don't want a revaluation because they're riding this wave of paying you know 80% of what they should sometimes less so we we we have this the the uh several entities that it's not in their best interest to go through a revaluation so more often than not it doesn't happen if the county boards are not not ordering the reevaluations as the law says that they should and nothing happens certainly the town council's not going to say hey I want to do this I want to I you know I want to rock the boat they don't do that my point here is we had to make the the annual reassessments mandatory because there were entities that didn't want to do what we believe to be the right thing thing and that's just again so now we we evolve this conversation to it's about we're doing the assessment and the and the bill that is a result let's have a discussion about spending about service levels that's where this is because you you know if if we asked anyone we oh okay I'll cut your assessment in half but I'll leave everyone else so that you're you're willing to underpay to your neighbors that's not what this is designed this is just a distribution issue this is about everyone paying their share of the levy based on their value so in essence and this is just a for instance the ADP system is in MTH because the tax board chose the ADP system over what other annual program or assessment that the county CH could have chose well no no other model with multiple issues the calendar was born and bred as part of this larger solution literally sat at a table and said okay what's wrong with the current system and the calendar being one of them the level of Education the investment in technology um and then annual reassessments the 10-year model had taxpayers grossly overpaying and underpaying so that's how we got to these three core components while there's a lot of things that we've developed as part of the ADP uh and again Somerset has been doing annual reassessments for 30 years this is this is not again this is not the the and the legislature has turned around and said you know what that calendar thing that's so simple and makes so so much sense let's do a one-off law on that so anybody can do the calendar just on its own which is remarkable to me me because I don't know is he your tax collector here not okay there there's a whole bunch of processes that are served very very well by the Simplicity of the calendar and um when you're asking about the components and the value of it it the ADP is not just a you know a enforcement of annual reassessments it's a package and the package has delivered us statistically to be have much more accurate individual assessments so if you don't mind moving to that um talking about the the formula uh which I forget you put it in one of um the answers to your question under uh question two number three uh annual reassessments are the exact same valuation process can you just take us through that process um you know we from what I understand 20% of the Town gets inspected % of the town get assessed right can you just go through the council maybe a little bit about how that process works where you inspect 20% but 100 100% gets assessed what that looks like well so let let's make the comparison between what we're doing and versus the a traditional revaluation the the valuation methods are identical the especially when it comes to the single family residence the market activity of usable sales within your town is really driving what how the assessor models his costing system and for the single family residential when whether it be the a traditional revaluation or the Assessor's annual reassessment the process is identical because the same data is used uh in a traditional revaluation there hasn't been an inspection in 10 or more years so a SWAT team comes in and um normally through a third party and and attempts to update the data for all the properties and in annual reassessments the idea is that we took you know the the accuracy of the data is the Achilles heel of the assessor if they have wrong data about your house if there's a missing whatever if a change was made and it's not present then there's no way that the assessor is going to model it correctly so the idea is in annual reassessments if we took the same 10year cycle to which the traditional reevaluation inspect it once [Music] we inspect twice during that uh 10year period once every 5 years and there's other inspections added assessments and other activity that's going on but the idea is we were looking to position the assessor to have more accurate data again reducing ing the error rate because if someone if you go through a revaluation and someone does a change to the property without permit the day after the reevaluation inspection they get 10 years of it of having the fair enjoyment of that characteristic and not paying taxes so is it fair to say that the 20% inspection does not really inform the 100% assessment now it's it's just data the the assessor annually is going to um rely on the data that's present relative to the property and it's you do not need you do not need a immediate inspection to Value it you have you're making the assumption that nothing has changed since your last value but over a long enough holding period everybody goes through that window I was 2 years out I was 3 years out I was four years out and then it then I got inspected so the again this is about a holding period the inspection process is to ensure that the assessor has the data necessary to fairly U calculate the amenities associated with your property how is the 20% selected typically um geographically and you know the 20% in in Middletown is obviously different than 20% in lock Harbor um the the idea is an assessor may turn around and say it doesn't make any sense because sometimes there's some friction about I'm across the street why they get inspected and I I didn't where it's Converse the fact is the 20% every 5 years we the Ward would be accepting of that it could be you could do 100% every every year if you were a small enough town that wouldn't that wouldn't be problematic um I think what I'm asking is it a random sample across the town because have a broad range of Home geographically if you if bird's eye view you would look at the town and they carve it up into it could be 18% because it's everything south of Bane Street in this corner that that type of of carving up unless you have a different process okay so there's four pieces that that's correct we generally we generally try to to get the most like the most adjacent properties together so the example gave one year might 18% the next year might be 22% because stopping at this house on this street which would equal 20% doesn't make any sense so they would finish that street they would finish that that location um Within that year so they're trying to get as as much um much of the like homes in the like areas to at the same time completed so it's not a random sample across not at all not at all nor nor does it need to be for the purpose that it serves should it be random sample not at all except if you're having a so so if you there are a lot of people in this room who got their assessments jumped up significantly presumably big part of the town in that area was reassessed this year if how do you then I mean it would seem that this is just a a a a late person's take if if you really want to be able to over a 5year period accurately assess all of the houses in the community I would I would be inclined to take a portion of district one a portion of District Two a portion of District three so that you can then see what's going on in those neighborhoods okay so to be absolutely clear 100% of the property assessment is changing every year it's going whatever it's a hitting a reset button the assessed value of every property in the jurisdiction is being reset to current market value as of October 1st of the pre-tax year that is factual the 20% is just data collection and it's data about the amenities of the of so that we know know whether or not you change your bathroom kitchen and basement so it doesn't matter it doesn't matter one bit because 100% of the properties are going to market value when you get your chapter 75 postcard in November it is representing its market value if that doesn't represent what you believe the current market value is of your property then you file an appeal it has no connection to well did we get inspected in the last five years it has nothing to do with that it's just is the total assessment equal to Total market value and that the market value is determined by I know there's not we talk about a formula all the time right it's not a plus Bal C no right so what what is that market value consistent well for for the purposes of discussion in the room it market value is what a willing buyer and a willing seller would um agree on the price for exchange that is not you know no one's under direct determined by what's going on but it it's that's the simple part we all have Zillow we we see we see what is being conveyed we know what what our neighbors house just sold for there are no secrets left and that's a good thing from our standpoint because it's full transparency when we say that this house is worth 500,000 you say my house isn't worth 500 ,000 but the house to the left and the right of you that are identical to you just sold for 505 how can you say that they're not that's that's the Simplicity of the discussion and that discussion should happen with your representative Mr Fitzpatrick you get your postcard and you don't believe that that number is correct then you have that discussion and he should present you with supporting evidence and if you can't agree with that number if he gives you uh comparables and you still don't believe that the assessment is correct then you file an appeal what's the window for that January 15 please do who makes that decision is is that required by Statute itself for the code or is that just how it's done in practice it's done in uh the ADP does not have any specific Administrative Code adopted um it's driven by the requirement that you are submitting a a document referred to as an AFR an application for annual reassessment and in that document you're submitting that to the Division of Taxation and it's saying that you're are going to um inspect 20% or whatever perent you're you're doing that given year and if they so require it they you have to provide a list of the block and lots right what what I'm getting at is in other words could we say okay this year we're going to change it and say we're going to do it randomly or is that completely left up to the Assessor's discretion well I not I'm not saying you want to do it randomly but if you want to change it well you can change it and I I I I would believe that the assessor would be open if for a change randomly I can't speak for any company or whether or not do you use an outside vendor or do you do so an outside vendor you could do it in house and have your own people do it or you could have an outside vendor either way if if if you do it randomly there's a heck of a lot more communication and travel in that process so that become tracking it becomes much more difficult we had we we wanted to leverage our GIS environment and um initially post the inspection process on the County's website and we were cautioned against it because we don't want to say oh we're we're sending inspections and now someone can go and say hey we're representing in town because they now know everywhere that we're knocking on doors so the point is that's an internal process it is managed by the municipality if you want it to make a change as long as it's it made sense or you're willing to pay if you want to alter it the year of transition we track at the County Board I track the lock and lots and the inspection attempts it's a requirement by law and if you were to change a the 20% the issue there is that's you if you change it and then you went to them last year and now you go to them again this year because you've changed the process they're going to say we're just here what are you doing and so that's I caution you but that as long as the data is is collected that's all that the County Board cares about can I just make a comment I know I feel like your questions about the inspections are leading to that's what's changing the value the inspections are not changing your assessment the market value the sales the comparables that inspection is just like hey did you know 123 Main Street have updated kitchen because not everyone gets their permits that they're supposed to you all know that right so now you like Matt said you're pay not paying for that kitchen that has now increased the value of your home because you didn't get a permit when there's permits uh Market's notified then there's added assessments throughout the year there's not just you know five years or whatever so the values the assessments are based on market value comp and sold in your neighborhood similar homes the inspections like M Clark was saying is just to get the data the square footage in your basement I mean when I got on the tax board I didn't really know property record cards and had to read them I looked at my own property record card it had me as a full finished basement but my half my house is cross space half is basement so I can simply call the assessor I didn't have to Ste my taxes for there was a data error that without inspections doesn't get picked up so that's really this the inspections are fixing stuff like that just to follow up there there's no correlation between a change of your assessment based on the inspection unless the data is incorrect um and what Mr Clark is trying to say very nicely is that he believes as I do that the random will end up costing the burrow more money because now you're sending someone here here here here rather than knocking getting everybody done and then you also run into the my neighbor got inspected but I did scenario uh the randomness I don't believe would have any effect on the changes that take place or the effectiveness of what I do on a year-to-year basis would' be something I would gladly have a conversation about if with it if it was felt strong about but um I do not believe that that would positively impact the burrow in any way uh based on simple data verification which is what the inspectors are doing I do have a question so councilwoman Al balad do asked about the window of time and I think you mentioned January 15th so do they have the opportunity to appeal between now and January 15th is that what you're saying no no this gets back to the calendar issue is that as with all all of our finances we need to we need to uh address the problem and then move on every taxpayer as a matter of law has to receive a notice and you then have the obligation to question the uh accuracy of the assessment within a window of time you have a minimum of 45 days from bless you uh from when the the Post Guard is or you're given notice of of the assessment and um if you do not act it's referred to as a fatal jurisdictional defect if we lose our jurisdiction to hear anything if we don't have an appeal timely filed so if you don't file an appeal uh with minor exception like if there was a clerical error and the assessor um owns that there was a clerical error we could address it but for the vast vast vast majority of the assessments if you don't file by that deadline New Jersey wide then because we you want to be focused on the assessment not the impact of the tax bill so not so January 15th is something to do with the calendar that you were talking about earlier you're saying that from the time they receed the postcard or it gets sent out they have 45 days a minimum of that January so sure so we we send out the the postcards uh uh somewhere around November 15th and so you're actually getting two months if if we need it please let me know what it was just ay question okay okay so you're November 15th of the pre-tax year so November of this year we're sending out the bills for 2025 then you have January 15th of 2025 to file at the county tax board if any of your properties are worth over a million dollars then you can file uh um at the tax court but then the matter wouldn't be heard for some time you said the tax bills do you mean the tax assessments I'm I'm I forgive me feel for notice the assessment cards will be going out mid November if you're getting around December and you haven't gotten it yet there they are available on the County website or feel free to contact me directly and I will give you the number is and we can uh I can give that to you the email or the phone whatever uh whatever makes it easy for you but we have the obligation to deliver it to every taxpayer in the state so they are they are available as much as they're available online we have the obligation to give it to you we I mean we've had a couple of residents say they never got them that happens I'm guessing through the post office or but you're saying that they all go out they're small yes well they are they are printed I I can certify that they're created we do that inh housee we go through 255,000 I can certify that they were delivered and counted by the postmaster in in Freehold what happens after that I can't guarantee so and I I I on rare occasion in 32 years I've had to go to the tax court and testify to the process and then then it's up to a judge whether or not they believe that the person did not get it but you're saying the information is available on online or they can contact you regardless absolutely correct yeah there a couple things um so want to make sure I understand going back to the um questions regarding some municipalities being in the program and some being that let you understand one you said Equalization of those that not been assessed in a while are you saying that um you know a municipality such as L comoo that is reassessed every year say they're at 100% of that Equalization Factor there's a neighboring municipality that has not been reassessed since say 2018 when you're calculating the county tax rate an equalization factors applied to take that into account yes so the assessed value which is static back in your example 2018 the in 2018 the assessment equal the market value total value of the town and then each year it went through appreciation so now it's probably 2018 it's probably 60% of what its value is so we would add 40% to that value to make it the equivalent of 100 okay and so there's no escaping shared Levy but there continues to be a distribution within the town yeah okay um in terms of the so the appeals process you know off the top of your head how many appeals were filed last year four five four five were there any significant changes after the appeal um and I guess finally specifically to the the data we're seeing in you know North Boulevard have you seen even countywide under the I think like an average um property values increased over 40% there were some specific lot that were uh close to 57 58% you seen other instances in the county where there was such a significant increase in a single year yes yes there are but it's atypical is and the question is if the assessment is currently correct Based on data and year over-year do we believe that the value went up that much in one year no and this is anecdotally know a postmortem review of IT the reality is is that in a perfect world the last couple years would have been greater increases than they experienced that but they that that's at the discretion of the assessor and based on available data so if if we go through the process and it's this concept of taking the the known the known activity if if we if a small town has 20 sales and it's saying that the on average the assessments from last year went up 5% if you had no other data you would apply 5% that seems very rational to every neighborhood what I just described is exactly what happens in every revaluation in New Jersey history they they take the active sales and apply it to the the inactive areas and so in this case could the assessor have been more aggressive with those numbers I'm I'm I'm not going to uh play Monday Morning Quarterback what I do know is that the current values absolutely appear to be supported by recent sales and so if we accept that as the the the beginning of the conversation then we can analyze going backwards not you know what what next year is next year is dependent on exactly what's happening during 2024 what's happening now is another neighborhood is there evidence that the assessors over over assessed and under assessed I fully believe that that the assessor will make the appropriate adjustments based on the areas within the town that are unique neighborhoods and um the count is going to do an overview of whether or not statistically it makes um it's supported by the data and if it does then it's it's accepted as a sufficient legal book and if what then happens is does the taxpayer individually believe that they're wrong if they're wrong if they're wrong then they should call the assessor if you have a problem with the assessor they call me but I'm going to try to boil it down just to the math is your property record card what a great starting point to all of this go online and look at the data that the assessor using about your is it right because if it's wrong that's you know that's a bell curve if it's wrong to your benefit probably not going to get a phone call if it's wrong um because they have you for something that you don't absolutely call the assessor immediately and have that fixed that's all all all that we're trying to do is create an environment that you're the value is being estimated based on the the actual amenities of your property we're fairly comfortable with the dimensions of your land and there's not a huge topography issue here so what remains is do we have the details about your structure um are there any easements and is the details about what's finished and the quality of it but that makes a big difference in the the Willing buyer willing seller if the the kitchen and the bathrooms are all updated we could have a couple $100,000 swing in the sales price so that's why it's so important we can't just say oh well 2 2400t is 2400 foot we know that not to be true we know that a 100 by 100 lot on Main Street is not the same as on North Boulevard for all of these reasons the assessor has to be armed with the right data and that's all that we're trying to do is position it so that the assessor has what they need to calculate it and if if the Assessor's wrong then it has to be fixed I want if there is an error I don't want it to go beyond a year that's the best public service that we can provide is to ensure that this doesn't happen for more than one year is there a difference between your process for residential versus business sure yes much more detailed on the on the process for uh um income producing property class four commercial industrial or apartments there is a different model as one of the methodologies of estimating value in class 4 property in incom producing property we're always going to check our modeling based on did it sell did did we know about you know at the end of the day a bargain and sale uh arms transaction is our Cornerstone for calibrating how we do this in technology the the idea of getting a handful of data points that are sales is what we're relying on again a point that is identical to the revaluation process anywhere in New Jersey when you say when you were saying a a home is 5% of the total and you're your 5% of the total bill so you would be paying based on that percentage do our businesses counted in that sure anything we're we're blind eyed to its use it's the market value and the market value uh so the the assessment of all your businesses should be based on what their market value is so if it's 2% or 10% that should be annually reviewed and updated by the assessment um I just have two final questions the first one is has to do with assessment as well so I wrot that first um your little card that you get or your the the assessment you get is broken into two pieces your land and your improvement is there a difference between assessing either of those I mean obviously the the Improvement is going to be different on almost every home we going to have like homes but the the land the dirt is that just based on sales how is how in a town like this we don't have a ton of raw land sales but we do have sales uh where they're not down which then represents the value of the land if you're removing the structure so the assessor is getting some data about what the a builder sees the market value of a build of a lot so the the idea of um you know the courts being a fial thing that they are they've said that you know you're not appealing the components of your assessment you can't you can't separate the land and the improve and the Improvement it's a total value it's there's case law that actually says that it's it's a arbitrary um construct by the assessor on how they assigned it to land and and building I disagree with that I think there damn well should be some math behind it and the reality is that the component should be U defendable on their own but at the end of the day the market value is What's the total value what would it you when you're a buyer you don't say well I'll I'll pay this for your land but this for your building no it's the value of the property and all of its its amenities connected to it so um so why is it separated well because we have vacant land we start we store with there's lots of properties not in your town but there's many jurisdictions that have thousands of Bacon Land Parcels without structures so our modeling has to develop it by component uh and my final question before I open up to the to the council again um in response to question three you discussed the director's ratio can you explain a little bit what the director's ratio is sure um I I had made earlier um reference to this concept of the assessment divided by the sales price and it's just a percentage in the year of the revaluation the assessment is supposed to be equal to the market value so the ratio is 100% or one um so the director's ratio is a very interesting program whoever came up with it you 60 70 years ago was had to be brilliant because it still has value today um all that they're doing in its simplest form is looking at all the sales within your town and they put them in two buckets they're usable meaning it represents market value or it's nonusable like a divorce decree it's a dollar decree so we get these Deeds the assessor gets deeds and that's how they're conveying ownership and and market value and he's putting them into two PS for the ones that are usable represent market value they're simply looking at the relationship between the current assessment and the sales price to determine how we did that Equalization uh whether or not there's a need to increase it 10% it's it's just tracking the average relationship between the assessments and the sales prices anything else from Council about Council no thank you very much for your presentation um answering the questions that we had um you have some water back here you've been speaking for a little while you need some water I'm good um I appreciate that at this time uh I will open it to the public for comments and questions of the counil um if if there is a consideration that I can refer to the assessors that I will I will do so um so anyone wanting to come up and make a comment from the council can do so now uh we just need your name and address please sure thank you mayor Higgins and thank you Council thank you Mr Clark um my name is Ron carola I'm a property owner at 397 North Boulevard thank you um I've had an opportunity to talk to you mayor and meet with Clark and thank you for your time um just by background um I'm in commercial real estate I have an accounting and finance background so I understand how all this works and in my opinion much of what Mr Clark has said tonight I agree with um I think he's correctly applying a model that makes sense where I think the biggest disconnect is it's not being equitably applied and when I look I I'm putting together a model and I'm going to use my my house as an example but this model applies to every single resident in lakeo it also applies to every single resident in Mammoth County when I work backwards they about the ADP think about PDA right let's work backwards let's take a look at our taxes and it all starts with the payer of taxes I start with my tax bill and work backwards and I put together a model that if my house on North Boulevard was in their neighboring counties in Belmar mquan Avon by the Sea Spring Lake seagert um and madisan my taxes would be $10,000 to $112,000 a year less expensive by working backwards and and the way that I come up with that is my uh assess value is going up year-over-year by 130% over the past three years it's gone up almost 200% neighboring towns belmare 0% Avon 0% Spring Lake 5% seagar 114% mquan zero so the challenge that I I have and I'm not disputing anything that Mr Clark said is it's like Mr you're you're involved in education it's like being a math teacher and everybody bombs a math test except for two or three people well you know we're the two or three people that got A's on the test belmare is not studying for their exam they're not reassessing their taxes Matt's job as a teacher is to curve that exam so he's bringing up Belmar and mat Squan and everybody else who's not reassessing their properties to curve the the grates and while he's doing it and doing a pretty good job at it it's not impacting everybody on an equal basis I I'll give you a case in point property at 212 North Boulevard I don't know who the people are and I'm not picking on my neighbors but they're closer to the beach than I am they happen to be in belmare the house just sold for $2.5 million the assessed value of that house is a million doll it's been a million dollar for 10 years so it it's hard for me to accept that we are being treated equitably relative to everybody else I I think the program makes sense we have to apply it to everybody and everybody has to be in it or else it doesn't work and we get penalized the other thing that I have a a problem with here in like comoo and and Mr Clark you touched on it tonight in commercial real estate properties don't really trade as much as they do and residential so you don't have as many sale comps you have an income approach so for example bar much larger property than my property pays almost the same taxes as I do and I'm sure that property is worth a lot more I'm sure they make a lot of money on it I'm sure that's why they're not selling that property right so the commercial properties after covid have lost value where they haven't traded for a number of reasons because Deb is crazy right now you can't get loans as a result an unfair amount of the burden has been shifted to residential property so yeah and and I agree with Mr FB right it doesn't really matter it's really a compliance thing is this does this House have four bedrooms is does it have a new kitchen is the basement correct that's more of a compliance thing it's it's the assessment and and the and the data that they're using to apply to our houses when three houses on our block sold for a lot of money we got hit pretty significantly with taxes and not everybody else did both in our town and in neighboring towns and that's what has us concerned and this is not a political statement we have 50 plus years of bad tax policies in New Jersey it's not getting any better right the the state subsidies are less why because the tax burden has been shifted to fewer people there fewer taxpayers in New Jersey year after year so I I I feel like we really have to take a stand now because I I'm paying $26,000 a year I only be paying $50,000 a year in three years and a lot of the other people in this room don't want to either so I I I I will volunteer because I understand how this works now and it works in principle it's not working in practice because it's not being applied equitably and I I don't know I don't know what our course of of action is to correct it I don't know the answer how do we get Belmar and Avon and manisan pay there fair share is there n it's really not question it's a statement but you and Mr Clark I I appreciate all all your time and followup I really but it's it's it's a problem and I I I I don't know what the answer is I and I appreciate your comments I think our discussion tonight kind of LED with those questions about how is it fair to lay Kobo as compared to to other communities um I think we got a a lot of answers about what the process is right now um what this Council here has to do representing everyone sitting out there is try to figure out how we can represent you to make it fair for you as compared to other places as well um what does that mean I mean does that mean we you wait to see if other towns go in it I know for a fact that I've talked to other towns and they're going to do everything they possibly can not to enter this program um does that mean that we look into doing what we can to get out of the program I'm just saying options here right do we look at doing what we can to get out of the program if we can get out of the program do we go as far as one of the this is going to be very far out there do we go as far as suing the state of New Jersey to make sure they are enforcing the laws that they've created right it sounds to me that there is a state statute out there that is telling every town in the state of New Jersey they have to do something like this 60% of them are not or 80% of them are not so you raise a lot of good questions and I don't have the answer you're you're a lot better at this than I am uh the the we've met each other we've known each other really for about a month now right um I'm sorry that we had to meet I'm glad that we had to meet but I'm sorry we had to meet you know more about this than I do and for you to say that you don't know what the answer is you know we have to figure this out what's best for our town um and how to make it fair for you or make it fair for everybody else in this town so there are options and there are options that we have to discuss um it it it you're I agree with what you're saying that's that's where I can leave it at that Mr Clark though said that they threw it up so that the Belmar residents you're talking about they're hurting other Belmar residents but but they're not paying less to the county and that's what I heard him say and I think that's exactly what I again this is area of expertise but the um Mr Kola you've nailed a lot of the issues one disconnect that we do have is that belmare is paying their fair share relative to this because of Equalization they are being converted the problem is when you look at the distribution Within in that town you're absolutely going to be able to find a ton of properties that are paying far less than they should be in their tax bill because they've appreciated year after year after year for 10 years at a rate that was greater than the average so that they are grossly underpaying doesn't mean that the total bill being paid to the county or the municipalities belmar's bills are getting paid is being paid by the wrong people within yeah and Mr Clark I I I do have this specifically for to answer that question I I agree with that um however I will say property values in belmare Spring Lake seagert Avon and massan have appreciated a higher rate than Lomo and our taxes have going up at a higher rate even with the equalization so I I don't disagree that you're you're you're trying to do that but it's like curving a test when everybody bombs and and I don't I'm a skeptic I don't believe that belar is really paying their fair share and I I just I really I I agree with with mayor Higgins I I think we need to go to the state and say look if we're all going to play by the same we got to play by the same rules we're not it's like raising your kids you know somebody's cheating on a test and they're getting better grades what do you tell them and I I feel like that and it's it's not your it's not your fault I'm not accusing you or the program I just I just see what's being done number one I don't understand why bar is only paying $34,000 year in taxes right I don't get that that's not right but and that's something we should be able to deal with at at at the the town level but I don't understand why a house four houses from mine closer to the beach is assessed for less than half and we're not going to argue the assess back they're only paying 15,000 I'm paying 26,000 that's not right so so tomorrow they go you you ask for the board to take action um the board as I started with the board has made those orders to bring those towns back in and I agree with the mayor I believe that those towns are going to fight at least some component of it um we may ask why and I think that is that's a really interesting discussion to have is why do you want out if it's fair um but the the expectation is if the answer is yes that so that in 2026 if the orders are standing orders as created by the board are that the municipalities in question perform a revaluation during the course of 2025 so that all assessments are equal to market value for the tax year 2026 when that happens that have a shift to those properties that are in question are going to be dramatic and when that happens it will absolutely Ely prove the point that they've been underpaying for an extended amount of time to the detriment of their neighbors not to any other town but within the distribution within their Town they've been paying less and someone else in town is paying more than they should have if if I can just add to this and for my clarification because I have to think of I have to try to think about these in the most simplest terms if if we're going to use Belmar as an example and I'm not I don't want to pick on Belmore but it's right next door and it's a town that is not in the ADP program they are paying x amount of money to say the county correct and that is being distributed among their um residents correct if they reassessed tomorrow would that x amount of money be higher or lower I I wouldn't expect a significant change at all but the individual bills are expected to change dramatically some going up some going down exactly again let's say it's a million dollars who's paying what is what's going to change these are the examples where the the the properties that are at a assessment director's ratio a ratio less than the town's average are going to jump more to 100 if someone's at 50% to go to 100 they have to to double if someone's at 75 it's only 25 points that's the Simplicity of the change and the increment is exactly why the board is passionate about why this is necessary because the property you're you're that's in question doesn't want a damn thing to change I don't blame it I don't but but it's not there's other properties I understand that and I I after sorry after we met I went back so I want to be fair I don't want to just say you know Ron you can go pick out examples right More than 70% of Lake Como borrow it's Noble because it's it's transparent the assessed value of our properties have gone up more than 40% over the last three years some of them going off more than 200% elmar is zero and and and and my my argument would assessments are static they wouldn't change my my argument would be when I look at the real estate valuations uh you know by the Realtors Le com is at the bottom on appreciation right it's appreciating and it's it's going up in value but relative to our surrounding communities it's not going up by as much so I I believe that if everyone was in the ADP program elmar as an overall Community would be paying more of the mammoth County tax bill and more of the school tax bill I believe that's the case we only only but their school tax bill is theirs their school tax bill is not ours but some of it get got allocated from so doesn't some of them get allocated isn't some of that the allocation from only from my response today Regional Schools are allocated based on equalized value if you're within the town if it's your mun if it's your um primary school no it's not shared by anybody else but you so that's a I mean it's I understand it might be a little bit confusing because our kids go to elar elementary school but we don't their school budget is different than Lake comoo School budget so our budget is only centered around the students that Lake KO sends to other schools for tuition they send 90 students to belmare Elementary and they send 51 students roughly I think to manisan high school and then there's some other students our budget for our school is only to pay tuition for those students to go to those schools okay so with that being said the percentage of total taxes let's let's use my neighbor's property because it's what we've been talking about I'm at 26 they at 15 25% of their $15,000 is going to school taxes 48% of my 26,000 is going to the school that's a whole lot more I'm telling you there there's a something not working out here in the no I understand what you're saying um that that's a that's a that's like a town siiz discussion right so we're uh we're a small town and we're sending kids to a school if we had a school it would be higher right if you had Lake Como El I'm saying excuse me we are higher yeah twice I'm saying if we had our own school we would be higher than that would be four times as much as I want probably yes which is one of the reasons why because we don't have a school we don't pay the administrative costs that other towns pay we don't pay for capital projects that other towns pay for we pay specifically to send a kid a student sorry send a student to another school to be educated which is one of the reasons why we don't have a school because it's cheaper to pay tuition if you look at examples I believe I believe there is a discussion in secret right now with this situation where they're having a debate on getting rid of their Elementary School I don't know if it's much a debate of of a debate but there's a discussion about should they get rid of their elementary school because it would be cheaper for them to send their kids to another District to be educated because they're because of whatever their rate is I I I I you can't quote me on that because paying 15% of their taxes to schools we're paying 48% of our taxes to schools it's not it doesn't I I with all due respect that doesn't make sense not not not with the data I'm seeing it doesn't so so what I'm saying is I'm going to close it my thesis is it's a good idea and principle it's not working in practice because it's not uniformly being applied and with the appreciation values we haven't captured the municipalities that are not participating in the annual reassessment and as a result towns Lake lakeo are paying a disproportionate amount in taxes that's that's my that's my conclusion okay and and I'm going to make this model available for everybody yep um it pulls from Zillow and it pulls from louth County and you can put in your address and it will compare your house to what it will cost you in taxes in the surrounding Burrows and I'm just termin it uh hopefully there's no uh no patent on this but it's uh it's PDA Jim buan 528 North Boulevard so I just want to I want to bring up just one example that I found and and I'm just gonna bring it up Spring Lake 65 South Boulevard almost 800 8,000 square fet the home on a half acre of land is paying $224,000 in taxes the home value assessment went up 2.14 million the home is valued at 4.9 million so in 2024 their taxes went up $17 or less than a half a percent mine went up 63 so I have questions about processes and how we gather information and I just I have to ask this question so Mark you got to ask me Jim I have to ask you yep could you ask Mark do the tax assessors update the values of every single home in the towns they assess manually and how many do we have how many homes do we have um I believe we have 1,6 and the answer to your first question would be yes you put that in manually what do you mean by manual well you have to go to the real property and you have to input your results right like I thought this is what I thought what kind of results are you talking about you talking about specifics I don't do I don't do the specifics on a year-to-year basis but the changes that I'm making I do I do make them globally and then I review them individually because there's a thousand homes so I am able to do that on a year-to-year basis so so what I'm saying is you have to go in there and type them in if there's a if there's a change in the value of a house or value of the land you have to type them in correct okay all right so that's and and you do that for eaten town too right English town English town okay that's a lot of entries just saying um your fingers must hurt individ I don't do it each individual every year I don't do it individual how do everybody get update because you can I can make Global changes in my C okay so there is a there is a system's a system program so there is a pro yes okay all right so if you were going to change something all right um so those changes are changed globally and manually on the real property taxation list tax L correct correct so do specific people have access to Lake plomo data or is it just more Mike I guess it would be Mark and probably the County tax assessor as well no uh we house the data as a cost savings it's centralized on the server but the the input is entirely your employee okay so any any manual changes will be done by whoever the tax assessment right think I have one more question oh this is it so D say okay you asked a question about has there been uh 40% uh increases in other places my of 60 the average was 40 on the boulevard um but you asked other counties do you know which counties I mean towns went up that much do you know no that was my question if there were other County but what specifically where were those places was it in say uh Seer was it in Asbury Park I I don't know so I don't think the the Mr Clark gave a specific answer to where those happened right wondering where else that happened I don't know if you know offand where that have happened that happened uh I don't want to misquote I certainly can provide town counil with a list of uh outliers so essentially what we're talking about is are the outliers of the average increase and every town is going to have outliers both both above and below the average change because we're going to have outliers that went out less some properties that were reduced theoretically because they had an error on the property so I we can find a a property where the assessment was reduced if you didn't do your homework you could turn around and say oh this was this individual property was changed dramatically and its assessment was reduced but when we look at it it's the structure was destroyed by fire and all that is present is the land so year-over-year change is a step to get a understanding of global change or specific change but every one of them has to be uh analyzed so I would only be interested in um things that weren't outliers that experien that 40 to 60% um tax increase or evaluation increase and they stuck I don't want anything that was a mistake I don't want anything that had a fire just a assessments that were done in that 40 to 60% range in other towns close by I would like to I would like to see those and then I have one last just one said one before I know that was before the last one I have I had after this question I may I have one more okay so trying to figure out how land is assessed and what I did was was I calculated things on a square by square foot and I found that land values I don't know how they're calculated but there's no consistency to them for instance uh two houses right next door to each other there's a difference of40 to $45 in per square foot assessment so if if you live on that side and I lived over here you're paying $45 more per square foot than I am even though we live right next to each other and I'm just talking about the land I also want to bring up that the square footage values range on North Boulevard from $813 to $380 66 what I saw was 399 North Boulevard it's that big property in front the grass in front and then there's that house in the back with no heat you know what I'm talking about okay it's 3.99 the house is like a garage with a I guess an apartment it's R down 39393 so that home so we're talking in belm we're not talking got you 399 y39 I got you I'm following you okay so 393 thank you all right so that house was assessed at 30,000 and it appears to me the improvements on the property there are no imprs well the improvements mean the structure that's on the property the structure on the property is that is assessed at $30,000 okay land was backed in to match that millionaire status I don't understand that if land is going for for $81 in one area and 380 on that uh particular property there's no consistency so I don't know about a formula but I I'm I'm a high school math teacher and I can't get any equation that would give me these results none and if you could do that uh mayor I would I would have a lot of respect for you so I'm just wondering how fair can you be unless you go to every single house and look at every single thing every single year which I think is impossible and the outliers are are way too too big it's like you poked the bear and now now we're looking that's all I have to say I did that one regular meeting Bob t North po so just so you guys know I think everybody knows when we get our little assessment cards we don't know like I got mine it's like oh 2.1 million hey wow this is wonderful but I don't really know excuse me what my ultimate tax bill is going to look like because I don't know what the rest of the town's been assessed at so you're not likely to get arguments or just discussions like we're having now from people who just see their tax gos and say I'm newly minted you know million um and so maybe I'm asking perhaps that an improvement can be made there so that we can anticipate because one of the big problems I saw with what happened now was I just saw a tax P that had like triple what I paid the last quarter and it would have been nice to have gotten a little warning on all that and being been able to maybe have something like this prior that I don't know who saw what when but that would be one of the suggestions I would make um the other thing I I'm assuming and these are questions not statements um there's a frenzy of activity in this higher end of the market on North Boulevard and I saw it you know everybody saw it I presume on places like 22nd Avenue that's not the case so perhaps your assessment you're not going to comp sales because perhaps there's not as many comp sales in that area as there are in ours if if that's true I guess you go to the um the cost replacement and depreciation model to figure out what they're worth or maybe I'm wrong you tell me uh but I I guess the big question and maybe everybody here has the same question is and assuming that these assessments are done and have been done of a year how can 15% of the parcels in the town have decreased in assessment value and 49% gone up only 0 to 7% what was our can I ask what was our budget up year-over-year like what was the increase so as far as whole dollars or rate was it 5% from the year previous or prior 22 to 23 um I don't I don't have it in front of me right now I can get it for you I'm sorry but I don't have a budget right in front of me the rate went down this year um now you talk about rate I've just started total budget um I I don't know the number page 10 of the book I just went it went up a couple hundred, this year because we didn't get the grants that we got last year I guess what I'm saying is most people would expect roughly that the tax bills would increase the amount that the budget in the town goes up year over year I think that's I think everybody agree with that and we know that there's going to be some um you know some aberration but if this year how long have we done the year on-ear thing assessments 2015 all right so then then there shouldn't be any big surprises year on year like I didn't you know like if you're telling me my house last year was worth I don't know 40% less or somebody else's year 60% less and that kind of I don't know that doesn't seem to make sense but anyway the question still stands 64% of the the Lots the properties in this town had a maximum increase of 7% and while um I'm reading this right what is it what is it 15% had these gigantic increases that we had so I guess was that a matter of these other homes not appreciating as much because they didn't have as many comp sales and could you see for see something in the future where you know this crazy activity you had in Co where you had a lack of Supply you had people making these big moves in a lot of these higher end properties undergoing you know like just these you know these the sales activity and these lower-end ones not can you see that changing and is there any way that you might consider smoothing it in your model you know so you're looking at it in chunks of three years in terms of you know increasing so Bob I'll try to answer your question first and I'll and I'll ask um our assessors if they they want to fill it in um because I know you're directing your question me so um I I will I will say that from what I've learned in in the scenario that you've given is that if you have a home that according to the assessment is close to or at fair market value previously you're going to see a lesser of an increase in that assessment from year to year correct okay um so it's kind of interesting because there was a there was a a resident in here before that was here for another the reason I knew she was why she was here and I told her that she didn't need to be here because that reason wasn't happening tonight but she said oh that's very interesting too she goes you know I was looking at my tax bill um and I realized that last year I went up 35% in my increase in my assessment and she said but I didn't really think about it this year because I only went up 3% right um I think that's where we are this year where you have number of homes that may have actually not increased an assessment by a lot and their taxes may have actually gone down because if if you look at everybody on a spreadsheet anybody whose assessment went up 2.5% or less their taxes actually went down because the rate of the budget went down within the municipality what you are experienced and I think Mr Clark said it at the beginning is that atypical right that huge jump which they didn't expect or we didn't expect or I didn't expect um so that's why you see different parts of the town going up different percentages in their assessment you saying that that that huge jump didn't happen for all of these properties or was there some anomaly that occurred in the last couple years where those properties didn't jump enough so I I believe that was the answer that Mr Clark gave that was that they were actually under assessed in previous years but this model they shouldn't be correct well corre I think what they're saying what the what the attack assessors were saying and I'll ask him to jump in because I don't want to speak for them was that according to the market value over the past years they did not have enough data or they didn't have the data to increase the assessments and so appropriately previously right and so that data would rely most heavily on comp sales so to my question before if there are not a lot of sales occurring in some lower valued neighborhoods and I'm going to guess that's the case because as we know nationally it's been an issue where you know with mortgage rates the way they are and a lot of people having sub 3% mortgage rates they can't sell their homes because they want to stay in the same area and they can't afford to that doesn't necessarily hold the case when you have people coming in from New York City and wanting this lifestyle and the north you know North Boulevard those type of sales so perhaps where I'm going with this is that perhap we maybe we're not valuing the bulk of the other um properties proper to get them up to perhaps the appreciation levels they should be at thus that might take some of the sting out of what the select amount of properties in North Boulevard are experiencing I appreciate your point Thank you can I just make a quick comment on that I mean we do I do review all sales every single year so I saw that a area of town was not selling for what I was putting on they would go up as well um last time I did a review my sales data compared my assessments compared to the sales data was fairly accurate for the rest of the town I'm not under assessing other people and just attacking one section as the mayor noted there was certain areas that have gone up significantly High uh in other years um based on the data that that was available at the time uh I know there was like we talked about with North Boulevard there was a a little bit of a lack of data to to show this sort of significant increase um but I did you know I did do my best to look at comp like properties things like that uh to to show and to prove value um I just believe that this was uh we keep using the word anomaly but I really believe it's the correct word um for that time frame I didn't anticipate it going as high appreciating as quickly as it did in such a short amount of time compared to what I was seeing with comparative data mayor if I may three three real quick points one chapter 75 postcard we have uh several times asked the legislature to modify the data it's controlled by statutory law we created a a um estimate of tax impact that would be given to you as part of that and overwhelmingly they said hell no we're not we we're not interested in that discussion number two tax rate estimator because the legislature wouldn't make the change um to be clear our Mammoth County people were in support of it it was Statewide that it was shot down because of was shot down tax rate estimator was created by the county tax board if you look on the County's open public records website underneath the tax board when you receive your postcard there we've created an environment where you put in your address and it will give you the ability to estimate based on the changes to your point it's not just enough that you know how much you changed because if everybody went Rose the same amount it would be a walk but it's a relative issue that's the complexity of this issue and the real world explanation is we want to arm you with the to the best of our ability an estimated back of a new tax rate based on all your neighbors changes not just yours um and the third final point is there is nothing in statutory law that permits the assessor to smooth anything there's discretion on what the data says but they cannot pull back from what the assessment what they believe it should be because of what the tax bill implications are so real quick just to follow up on that discretion right there's there's got to be a human factor to this yes you if four houses on North Boulevard sell for $2 million and then one sells for five and and then two more houses sell for $2 million how does that $5 million sale affect the assessment does it affect it well it we we'd have to look at what we try to analyze why it's an outlier I mean if if the houses are similar if all the houses are similar and that house went into a bidding war but we some from New York came not going to 25% a 20% difference we we haven't seen that type of change because we have bidding wars but all du respect we have we saw an anomaly this year that we haven't really seen either so I mean anything is possible and I think that's a big concern enough any so the discretion of the assessor has to weigh the the totality of the evidence to determine what the expected it's not the highest price it's the most likely price that's by definition of law it's saying most likely number that should be um expected for the conveyance of that property I appreciate it thank you hi Sten Pino 3128 first i' just like just make a comment I understand how the whole tax system works I understand how assessments work I think when you go after homes that are wellmaintained and there's a level of pride in ownership it raises the value of a home therefore it raises the taxes of the home in the town we do have a number of dorable houses most of them are and the landlords really don't have an emphasis to fix them the taxes will go up and I don't think that's fair so when it comes into the assessment factor I think you should look at the number of bedrooms versus the quality of the home because you can have a dilapidated four bedroom home with a large family with a lot of tenants going to the school system and it's a burden on the taxpayers who have a two-bedroom home that's in meticulous condition and I think we have to look at that as well not just look at what is the ground work what is the structure work because one structure can cost the town a lot more money than the wellmaintained structure that has an elderly couple in it with no kids in the school system so I think that that should be looked at as well not just a simple value hey he has GR countertops and they have a nice new house with new windows but it's a smaller home but it's assessed much more because it's nicer so that's one thing I think should be considered that's just the state of work so then when it comes to the I understand we used to be a 10year assessment and then your tax rate changes throughout those 10 years to make up to the dollar amount and 2014 we went to a a annual assessment is there any more cost number one be who pays for that assessment is it the town the town the town tax so does it cost us more to do it annually versus our once every 10 years sending out a team of people to assess the homes and then we just calculate the rate so are we spending more money to do this so I can tell you that was that was one of the first questions I've ever asked in this position about um as being the mayor um the answer that I received and and and I'm going to defer to the to the assessors too if they know um the answers that I received were that it was probably equal and not much different but if you know what you're paying every year it's easier for the town to budget for that's that's the answer that I have received would you be able to add to that we were well we were so the answer is uh one of the intents of the program was to have the administrative cost be reduced we did that by shifting in the old model you have a revaluation company that came in and did the inspections for a line cost and a valuation cost and then appeal defense we in the creation of the ADP we shifted the appeal defense and the valuation to the Assessor with no increment to their salary so the line item cost roughly when we started this um the line item cost was originally uh $72 per line item was the cost of a revaluation every 10 years and our original contracts for inspections were $2 we doubled that for $20 every 5 years so to compare apples to apples it was $40 for inspections versus $70 the cost that the Delta between the two that $30 savings roughly was savings to the taxpayer through administrative cost so the intent of this was to actually reduce the uh cost to the taxpayer increase the burden on the assessor but arm the town with them having it be created by their employee not a third party consult so so the intent was to save us money yes did it well I I I just asked I I I believe I I believe that your contract is somewhere around um $30 might be less than that okay so we have math teachers in the room so I could do pretty good division when it's just one divided by 10 I mean there's there's one cost every 10 years now there's 10 costs every year right so there's one cost to ass well if you assess properties every if you assess properties every 10 years I'm not going to make a big deal of this CU it's really not one cost one time cost every 10 years versus every year 10 times but the cost the cost every year is less the cost would be of course it's less but is it a 10th so so and then and then we know where we are as a town so my my my original answer and I I I mean we can find out for you exactly what it is yeah I can't find out right now but when I inquired about that originally the what we realized was it was pretty much the same right if you're and I would never I would never suggest 10 years but say you did it every five years and every five years you're paying uh you know $100,000 for an assessment you're paying $20,000 round numbers every five years every year for five years but and it wouldn't be huge I know that not really my purpose for it but it leads to the next question so the the way I understand that there's 53 municipalities in the county the county is here to tell us that this program is good for us as neighbor the bid they're selling us is that amongst our neighbors it's good they're not here for anything but to make it good for us so if there's 53 counties that's 53 slices I'm sorry 53 municipalities there 53 slices of the pie is the county taking in more taxes from any specific municipality that's over the amount that that municipality is receiving from the in Li of services in other words so no so we're we're equally dividing the P No it's it's based on proportionate Share value you wouldn't want to you wouldn't want to send Lake comoo Middletown's bill so it's based on value you wouldn't want to send deals Bill the reality is it's not uh it's not based on consumption it's based on value we could we could spend days talking about what is the best method of of dividing up the the cost is it per capita is it per property is it people in the school system lots of different ways to um decide on the distribution but we would need a constitutional amendment in New Jersey because the Constitution says it's based on the town's value it's based on a property's value and that's been found in the courts to be the market value so the the idea of Middletown paying significantly more um which is in your packet u i I wanted to get the enormity of the difference of the bill being sent by different towns so i' I've armed you with that that answer and I know that I guess what I was trying to get to is if we reassess Lake comoo every year and we know that there was a huge property increase in this area because of the coastal town and because spending money down are we now being penalized because our taxes are now going to go up Bally our assessments are going to go up therefore our town as a whole is going to have a higher assessed value that but even the town next door that didn't reassess their Equalization to Dems to calculate the value of Belmar not to pick on Belmar but to if if their relationship is appreciating at the same rate the data that that the assessor is using in your town for the annual reassessments is the sales for the most part to calibrate their costing system he's using sales and the sales will be based on year-over-year the appreciation observed in your Market the same data is being used in the equalization process for Belmar so while because of annual reassessments the year-over-year change on average in this town requires the assessments to go up 8% the equalization is in Belmar is using the exact same metrics the relationship between the assessment and market value because they have static assessments now through the appreciation the question was asked of the director's ratio again this Statewide analysis of just sales it's nothing more complex than that it's just looking at the individual sales and saying what's the relationship between the assessment and the the current sale price as the appreciation happens in belmare their R their director's ratio their percentage of assessment went from 60% to 50% % to 40% as appreciation happens that number drops so to equalize the town for distribution of all the shared levies they have to equalize or add more value each time that there's evidence of additional appreciation so this this idea of whether or not you know are you going to have to pay more because you're annually reassessed no uh I maintain that the town's distribution between the 53 players is accounted for an equalization what's not being accounted for is the air distribution within the town I understand and that would be the same going west so it would be the same Equalization absolutely go anyone in Mammoth County you here to tell us to be better no there's nothing hidden being sold to us it just there there is no what it's a very hard fil to swallow I must say I I I don't uh because I think it's the town's job and this this council's job to make sure that there won't be good stewards to each other and we're all getting a good representation and when you it sounds like when you do the annual uh assessments we're not doing the entire town we're doing this little chunk of the town no you don't no no that's a point that the the room has to wrap their head around respectfully every assessment no no no that's inspections that's what I meant but so that's just data verification that's all the assessments percent on the inspection of just that piece no no no no no no no 100% every property inspected or not the assessments being changed to market value I know it's being changed I just thought maybe that the area are no it was based on sales optim my name is Mike Rothman I'm actually uh at 393 go bar my mom's uh myom the property um anyway I I just had a maybe a comment it's kind of a question um I'm not really sure I I've heard a couple of things I just wanted to maybe summarize it and see if I got this right you know I think one of the points that has been made is whether the ad process is penalizing and I'm not really sure I've seen I'm not sure where where I'd find that data you know Pro that it seems like maybe the process itself is not flawed but seems like maybe uh you know the co and the desability of the shore has shifted the burden uh uh towards the coastal communities and maybe that will equalize again over time it seems like that may take several years more before that sort of um shift kind of redistri s over rest of the state I don't know whether know you comment on that based upon what you're seeing so so you again you have director direct sorry um so yes that that has definitely been part of the discussion I think the comments from our assessors today were that um they it was unexpected the rate of of appreciation thank you could think of the word um over the last so many years four years three years what what have you um part of what we're talking about and what we're thinking about is we live in a very unique area um part of the discussion is maybe what's good for Lake comoo and Belmar and Manis Squad and seet and all of these may not be good for allent town or Heights toown or other parts of Mammoth County and is that's another question that we have to to weigh too is it is is is that really fair for us are we going to see continue jumps like this over the next three or four years um because of of the anomalies that you're talking about um so that's part of the things that we have to weigh on with each other right so it seems that you know I'm not sure where this will uh you know go except that it does seem like uh you know the taxation burden has sort of shifted Maybe you could say at least the coastal communi because they became more desirable over these last few years it's unclear whether that will sort of redistribute itself and whether the model that we're using you know and I don't know whether ADP has some factor in that you know in terms of the distribution of the tax burden across the you know the you know the wi communities um the other comment or question I had is you know we like to be data directed but when we don't have very much data often times um you know we can still claim with data directed but maybe not do the right thing and so I think the other thing that I heard is that if there are very few homes that are sold and often times if they're in neighborhoods where um you know people aren't selling that are going to see this Distortion in the uh assessments and you know it it appears that that data you could see that in the data I think some of the people here have you know compiled some of that data and sort of saw that as a you know as a result right and so I'm wondering you know what do we do as a um you know how do we sort of address that and and because it seems like that's probably the bigger factor that we're saying yeah over the over some number of years maybe that will correct right because there'll be more home sales and after a while that'll sort of average out but it feels to me like you know especially on North Boulevard were being uh penalized and that may continue for some number of years so I'm sort of wondering and my question is how do we you know address that because it seems like the data is not going to fix that maybe for quite a while um I don't want to put words in his mouth but I believe the assessor commented that they took that into account is that correct so you can why don't you quickly ask your question it really isn't the data because the home prices there aren't uh enough home sales to generate a fair amount of data in that particular area it just makes it much more difficult to figure out how to reassess those homes that's that becomes kind of the guesstimate part of it that's the part obvious no I understand what you're saying um yes data drives everything when there's a lack of data you have to use what you have in order to do your job um we've had a lot of people come up here and talk about the data and this and that and nobody has come up here and said that someone in town is under assessed at least residentially right so I I feel like once again we keep going back and using this word because I really do feel it it is the right word to use with of North Boulevard the anticipated appreciation was wrong it anticipated at a greater rate than than than what I had thought it was going to have and then based on the data that I could find and that I did use um I'll beot to pull back to curtain pull back to curtain I went to other places elmar and Bradley and try to find comps in those towns as well to say okay if you want a house on North Boulevard and there's nothing for sale on North Boulevard where is your realator taking you to next right what's the next place they're going to go to and I there was some data there that I did use to help create my models um so when the data isn't directly in front of you there still is data available it's just may not be as specific as okay this house sold for this price I know what that's worth so the data is the implied data is there and then something else that Mr Clark had mentioned this sometime is just a general increase in what the town goes up as a whole um that's also a market indicator right we look at market trends we look at market indicators um just to kind of circle back around um did not anticipate the appreciation of North Boulevard moving as quickly as it did maybe the the thing confusing is that if 40% of the homes in Lake homo appear to have not appreciated and was very little data Maybe to support support that either way that's the part that maybe it's hard to kind of understand but you're making an assumption that their assessment is wrong because I didn't have the direct data for it yes well I don't know if I'm making it assumption or just I the the thing that is hard to understand is how did 40% of L comoo not appreciate so so what we were what we and somebody asked this question prior to you okay so um what when we're looking at the town as a whole and there are parts of the town that are assessed at or close to their market value so they would not appreciate the same rate as a house or an A area of town that are not assessed at or close to their fair market value so those depreciations on those side say sides of the town right for lack of terminology uh houses on that homes on that side of town would appreciate less than homes on another side of town because they're not they are they are closer to the market value than on this side yeah I I think that's the assumption that they close to market value didn't uh there was some some appreciation that was already factored in I guess right and that's the part of it that I guess maybe I don't understand I'm people behind yeah and listen and I I think if if if you need like if Mark even said if you want to sit down you can sit down and talk to him and he can kind of map that out for you if you want um but that's basic where that appreciation happened it definitely happened in a previous year yeah um like I said before there was there was a woman in here before that said she went up 35% last year and this year she only went up 3% right so that I think that appreciation was made up previously all right thank you so you're only allowed one comment at at the workshop you can make a comment at the regular meeting after questions what's that yeah but you only come up once that's why I wanted them to sit down so we didn't ask any more questions uh thanks so much for this I have I just need your name and address R over 1802 Greenwood um I get it market value I don't agree with it um I have some fundamental questions though um I think Mr Clark mentioned something about Constitution requiring that all the towns but not all the towns participate so not sure about the Constitution requirement that that doesn't foot doesn't make sense and as my neighbor said before still concerned about the overall cost of of the annual assessments on all this stuff um unlike one of the previous uh questioners I'm not a commercial real estate guy but I do look at the property values and spring L and there a dramatic difference tax assessments and Market values and when I say dramatic it's huge know hundreds of percent difference so I'm just curious on on how that that's gets addressed by the county and then just lastly you know it's just um having been in business before we don't need to be a leader here um leaders in product development always pay the cost and they usually get the profits from it this doesn't this doesn't look like a a leader here this this is we should follow and let everybody else get on board so that everybody else gets fairly assessed because it doesn't seem like we're on Bo quite so that's that's that's all right appreciate it thank you ask one more now you can go back to the regular meeting can't do it here sorry we don't have you on a time limit but we got you on a limit Jim new 68 north boulard good evening everybody thank you so I'm just going to go back to a you know kind of a a question that might not be able to be answered here so as we see we're basically saying the model's the model too bad for you guys know what about the people whose lives are affected that might not be able to pay and so as this anomaly happens there should be some consideration wait a second this maybe you made a good faith or you know good faith in this judgment but what about those people who can't afford to pay there should be some discussion that how do we work this out because it doesn't seem fair to say just hey model's the model too bad suck it up pay it or what might be some people might have to sell the house who knows what they have to do there are people on the Block just fixs who can't afford pay it what happens to those people so it's a it's a real question and it's something that everybody should stop and think about because it's tough for some people very difficult and it's it's it's life changing so when things like this happen it's life changing for a handful of people said thousand houses in town6 I think so if there's people now don't care houses on but there's still people and there's still people who just some people just live their all their lives and all of a sudden they get whacked in the head so just wanted to say that there some consideration I know Mod's the model follow the law but it just seems be unfair for a lot of appreciate question is fact the with respect to the tax card for each individual do that onine is that what you can get it online yes um house the property card uses yes you can um I mean you just have to Google MTH County tax records and and one of the first thing that comes up is you can look up anybody's card okay if you have trouble finding it email me and I will send it's linked on our website okay s just to address your your issue um if I may um there's no I I I I have no intention of standing before this room and being Cavalier about the change it's not well it's the model is the model no it's we are in strict adherence with the law and we can change it every dollar every program made available like the senior freeze there our programs the legislature has put into place safety nets for controls over uh property tax bills but the thresholds of of those being available are really what the discussion is about because every time that you freeze someone's taxes it puts the the bill is not changing for the town someone else's bill goes up because of that and so the the the point is I personally I'm not taking this lightly and the the year-over-year increase and the impact of it is real we labor over just trying to get it right and for everyone that I've spoken with um most people believe that the assessment is not far off from what they would sell their property they the concern is the real world tax bill and I get that but that there is nothing in the assessment function that allows us to change the assessment we need the legislature to make the difficult decisions about changing uh the thresholds building in a safety net building in a a Cap building all of those things when we discuss them means that every that I take away from someone paying based on their ass their valid assessment means someone else has to pay more that's the the net of the entire very very difficult moving from uncomfortable to actually painful reality of property taxation in New Jersey thank you thank you all right seeing no one else at this time I'll close the public portion of the workshop meeting um and it is 9:52 um we want to take a five minute break we need to go to okay we're going to push right through all right do you need to take a break all right we're going to push right through it is 9:52 I'm going to call the regular meeting of the lake comoo Belmar Council to order please rise for for a salute to the flag and a moment of Silent reflection i al to the flag of the United States of America the stands na indivisible andice for all please remain standing for a moment of Silent reflection thank you before we get to the Sunshine Law um I just want to thank our guests who came with us uh here tonight um Matt Mike thank you very much um and uh our other guests who were not invited but did take time out of their night to to show up I really appreciate it thank you all very much yep have a great night sunshine law please [Music] thank you um Mr trell I think you left your purse thank you all right um anyone in the back who's having a discussion if you could take it out into the hallway I'd appreciate it we are recording the meeting um roll call please did we do that no roll call council member Wy is not here tonight council member SC here here is here counc VRI here here thank you at this time I'll take a motion for approval of the minutes of the August 6th meeting move all in favor I opposed or extensions um at this time I'll take a motion to approve the minutes of the August 20th 2024 meeting second all in favor approve um sorry um opposed extensions we have no Communications we'll move right to reports of committee councilwoman albala Doyle thank you mayor all matters are in order thank you councilman ventrice thank you mayor all matters are in order councilman Dano thank you mayor all matters are in order councilwoman skull thank you mayor all matters are in order uh I do have a report I sorry um it's going to be very quick I I um we did have listed on our Workshop item tonight uh originally was the discussion of one ways and parking um within the burrow uh I did table that and what I'm going to do is assign a committee to discuss this Committee of the council members um uh councilwoman skull councilman dearo and councilwoman albala Doyle um to discuss this as a committee and bring back recommendations to the council um either at the next board meeting or the board meeting after or council meeting after um I was not able to get a affirmative um a definitive response from our engineer in time for the meeting tonight so I think it's important for the engineer to weigh in on that topic and even meet with the committee to discuss their their findings so um I did pull it from the agenda tonight and um we will um attend to that at the next hopefully at the next council meeting or the one after um other than that all matters are in order um I will take a motion to open for public comments on the new business and cons agenda so mov all in favor anyone wishing to come to the mic to speak on anything listed under new business that is the payment of bills and the executive session seeing none I'll take a motion to close so move second all in favor I thank you resolution 2024 d121 offered by councilwoman skull thank you mayor offering resolution 2024-25 Como that the proper officers be directed and authorized to make payment from the following accounts current account $ 28,33 7.97 Water and Sewer account $4,375 tourism account $350 42 AC wire payments $ 56,2 6.91 for a grand total of $549,450 thank you uh do I have a second second roll call please member scull yes yes yes yes thank you the resolution passes resolution 2024-25 offered by councilwoman alala Doyle thank you mayor so offering resolution 2024 d122 be resolved by the mayor and Council of the buau of lake comoo that the proper officers be directed and authorized to make payment from the following account the New Jersey natural gas account um for $93 52 thank you do I have a second second call please Council M call yes yes valid yes thank you we have resolution 2024 d123 offered by councilman inventes thank you mayor so for resolution 2024 21123 resolution Council sessions whereas B Council must discuss matter not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting whereas these subjects are within the exceptions of the open open public meetings act and are pered to be discussed in post session to njs 10 col 4-12 B7 and are covered by the attorney C privilege um CL session is estimated to be 30 minutes after which public meeting will reconvene and action may be taken thank you do I have a second second roll call please please M call yes yes yes yes thank you we will go into the executive session after the second public comments section with that I'll take a motion to open for public comments so moved second all in favor opposed anyone wishing to make a public comment to the council can come to the mic and do so now I'll save it you know what Jim you just stepped up on my uh list there moving up to late seeing not I'll take a motion to close second all in favor I thank you uh at this time the council is going to go into executive session we're going to Executive session in this room um so we're going to ask you to leave the room we'll close the doors we will come back for