Property Taxes In Belleville: School, Town Bills Will Increase

BELLEVILLE, NJ — Belleville homeowners will see hikes to the town and school portions of their property taxes under the next budget cycle.

Property taxes in New Jersey are made up of three parts: school, municipal and county. Last year in Belleville, the breakdown was 38.3 percent for school taxes, 48.3 percent for municipal taxes and 13.4 percent for county taxes.

Belleville had the 168th highest property taxes out of 565 municipalities in the state for 2021. According to state figures, the average residential property tax in Belleville last year was $10,513 for a home valued at $277,094. That was a $196 increase from 2020 – a difference of 1.6 percent. Read More: NJ's Largest Tax Bills: Belleville, Nutley Rank High On List

The town also ranked high for its effective tax rate when compared to other Essex County municipalities. Read More: Tax Gap In Essex County: Many Wealthier Towns Pay Lower Rates

Here’s how much more local homeowners can expect to pay under this year’s budgets.

SCHOOL BUDGET

The Belleville Board of Education gave a green light to a preliminary budget for fiscal year 2022-2023 in March.

Superintendent Richard Tomko offered some background about this year’s budget at a recent presentation before the Belleville Board of Education.

Initially, district administrators proposed a tax levy increase of 2.8 percent, which would have meant a $108 hike to a home assessed at $277,600. However, after meeting in committee, the board of education “yelled at us a few times” and administrators took another pass at the budget, Tomko said.

After making some adjustments, the local tax levy hike was reduced to 2.45 percent, which will mean a $97 increase for a home assessed at $277,600.

Tomko pointed out that the district got a big boost from this year’s state school aid figures. Belleville will get a total of $43,951,378 under the proposal – an increase of 23.97 percent from last year.

State aid is an influential factor in a school district's share of property taxes. Many districts say that cuts – or even flat spending – forces them to raise taxes for local homeowners. Read More: Belleville Will Get More NJ School Aid; Nutley Will Lose Some

See the district’s user-friendly budget here, and watch a video of the district’s 2022-23 budget presentation below.

TOWN BUDGET

In late June, the Belleville Town Council unanimously adopted their spending plan, which will mean a small hike to the municipal portion of local property taxes.

The budget appropriates $56.08 million for municipal purposes. It will mean a $48 tax increase for the averaged assessed home at $278,000.

According to Mayor Michael Melham, the biggest drivers to the budget “by far” were:

“A $2 million dollar increase to our insurance costs”

“Unfunded federal mandate to replace a percentage of lead service lines, $5 million bond”

“Court revenue is down $600,000”

Melham said that on the revenue side of things, “regrettably, we needed to increase our water rate … this allowed our water utility to finally become fiscally solvent.”

• See related article: Belleville Town Budget Means Small Tax Hike For Homeowners

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