The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-07-23
THE CITY'S VALUATIONS
Why the Total This Year
Will Not Much Exceed
Last Years Total.
THE NEW APPROPRIATIONS.
The Finance Board Will Hold An ALI
Day Session Next Tuesday to Fix
Them at About the Same Figure
as Now.

as Now.
Taxpayers all over the city are awaiting
the declaration of the Assessors as to the
total tax value of the city's realty and
personally, and the fixing of the tax rate
by the city, with an interest no less eager
than that with which the several munich
pal Boards await the deliverance of the
Board of Finance on the question of spe-
cific appropriations.
The mere fixing of the value of the rate
ables will not, of course, determine the
tax rate, for the division of the tax rate
will yet have to be fixed by the Board of
Finance.
FIXING THE APPROPRIATIONS.
The Board of Finance will meet next
Tuesday morning to fix the appropria-
tions, and will be in continuous session
all day. The appropriations must have
been passed by that time to be legal.
The Tax Board, as has already been re
ported in these columns, has until the
lst of August to comeplete its valuations
SO that the appropriations may be paid III
advance of the time when the value of
the rateables out of which they are to be
collected, is made known officially
1t will be necessary for the Financiers
to know something about valuations be-
fore fixing the appropriation. They are
forbidden by law to fix tax levy repre-
senting more than three per cent. of the
rateables If they were to go it bllndly
they might bring disaster upon the city by
going above that proportion; and it is
likely that if the Tax Board shall not
have completed the tax books by next
Tuesday they will at least drop in upon
the Financiers and give them a private
little tip as to what the total valuation OF
| the taxable property of the city would be.
SMALL VALUATIONS.
| Newark city officials have already fixed
| the values of the taxable property OF that
city. The realty there, it may be interest
ing to state incidentally. is valued "a at
s82, 800 and the personality at w, I93'-
264, making a total of little over $780,
| 100000.
It was assumed when the Tax Board
| first got to work that, as it was assessing
values at fair market rates, the valuations
of about s69,ooO,oO0, last year would run
| this year. The discovery that the
total will not much exceed s72, 900. 900
| if it reaches that figure, was diSappolnt-
ment to the members of the several CITY
Boards who expected to have spending
money apportioned to them in more
liberal amounts than the old Boards of
| Finance used to allow them. 1t was also
| a disappointment to the people of the
| city who expected to see, as the result OF
| an equalization of values, enough money
at hand to put the city in some kind OF
order.
| AN EXPLANATION,
| City Treasurer Cleveland talked with
me about the matter, when | called his
attention to the fact that $72, ,000, 600 tax
values this year against 10000, 600 OF tax
values last year indicated that the old
| Assessors had not been lar out OF. bne way
l iy,f ivir
'The old Assessors, when they turned
| in their books" said the City Treasurer,
who. by the way, is also County Tax
| Commissioner, "would find when the
totals were added together that the yaiu-
ations, even at the top rate, would not
yield what was imperatively needed to
meet the interest accruing and the cur
rent expenses of the city.
$50, in order to make the valuations turn
| in a three per cent. tax levy, they would
patch up their valuations oy aoalng
| thousand or two here and thousand or
two there and by including all the prop.
erty in the city, the responsibility of
which for taxes was in litigation in the
courts. Then after the tax rate had by
this method been brought within the pre-.
| scribed three per cent, the Board OF
| Finance would sit as Commissioners of
| Appeals, and lop off these specific addi-
| tions the owners who were conteSt1ng
their taxes in the courts paid no attention
| to their tax bills, and the city would Dor
row to make up the deficiency thus Gre
ated."
A DENIAL.
A member of the old Board of Finance
said this murning that it is not true that
the Board had squinted at a practically IL
legal tax levy; but that as Commissioners
of Appeals they had revised the ligures OF
| their assessors on the appeal of those tax
payers who complained that theirproperty
| had been taxed at too high figure.
1t seems to be assumed among those
who are familiar with the financial affairs
of this city that the closeness of the new
! valuation to the old, and the necessity
| of raising as much money at least as
| the old Boards of Finance used to appro-
potato, will combine to make the tax rate
for the next fiscal year just about what 1t
is this year.