West Milford has a full-time tax assessor and two full-time deputy assessors. Most towns don’t even have one full-time assessor. Indeed, our full-time assessor has three part-time public jobs as the assessor for Bloomingdale, Wanaque, and Haledon.
With such a richly staffed assessor’s office in West Milford, how could some of the assessed values have been so far off the mark? It sure looks like some of us were paying more than our fair share for years and others are now in a state of shock over their new assessment. The obvious question is, what was going on in the assessor’s office for the past 20 years? Based on the record number of tax appeals, many residents want an answer to that question.
Now that the revaluation is over and it will be 20 years before the next one, it’s time for the council to downsize the assessor’s office to a staffing level comparable to neighboring towns. Based on the results of the revaluation, it sure doesn’t seem like we were getting good value for our money.
Let’s not pay higher local property taxes than absolutely necessary.
Robert Nolan
West Milford
Former Councilman