Articles Taxes and budget
Montgomery's Property Revaluation, Explained
The Somerset County Board of Taxation has ordered Montgomery to revalue every property, now for tax year 2029. A revaluation does not raise the total the schools, county and township collect; it resets every assessment to market value, so each owner's share of that total shifts. How it works, who decides each step, the record so far, and what is not known.
How a revaluation works
Every property in Montgomery has an assessed value, and the tax rate is set so that the assessments times the rate raise what the schools, county and township budget. Between revaluations, assessments stay where they were set while market values move, unevenly from street to street.
A revaluation fixes that. An outside firm inspects every property and resets every assessment to 100% of market value as of October 1 of the year before the tax year. The state’s guide puts the purpose this way: “Two properties having essentially the same market value should be paying essentially the same amount in property taxes.”
It does not change the total. The budgets are set in dollars. In the state’s worked example, the town must still raise the same amount after assessments double, so “the revaluation would not have caused an increase in total taxes to be collected by the municipality. The tax rate would have declined proportionately.”
It changes each owner’s share. A home whose value has risen faster than the town average will carry a larger share of the same total; a home that has lagged will carry a smaller one; a home that has kept pace will see little change from the revaluation itself. Budgets, school and county levies and tax appeals move the bill separately. Public data does not show which homes are on which side; the state publishes only townwide and class-wide measures.
An illustration, not a forecast (LocalWhy’s arithmetic). Montgomery’s 2026 general tax rate is 3.607 per $100 of assessed value: schools 2.457, county 0.609 and township 0.541. Spread the same 2026 levy over the state’s 2026 estimate of Montgomery’s full value ($7,660,147,582 instead of $4,045,323,938 assessed), and the general rate would be about 1.90.
Who decides what
| Who | What they do |
|---|---|
| Somerset County Board of Taxation | Orders the revaluation, recommends extensions, and asks the township for its timeline. |
| Director, NJ Division of Taxation | Approves the order and any extension (Handbook §807.20). “Every revaluation contract must be approved and signed by the Director, Division of Taxation before work can commence” (§807.17). |
| Township Committee | Must have “an approved, current tax map before a contract will be approved,” and “must draft bid specifications and draft and approve a bonding ordinance before awarding the revaluation contract” (§807.17). An ordered revaluation may instead be funded by a special emergency appropriation (N.J.S.A. 40A:4-53). Awards the contract. |
| Tax Assessor | Files a compliance plan within 30 days of the order, then monthly reports, and oversees the work. The township’s Finance & Tax page lists the Tax Assessor as Carolyn Bower, 908-224-1440. |
| The revaluation firm | Must inspect “100 % of the properties” inside and out, with “No less than three attempts” at entry (§807.10). |
| Property owners | Receive a notice of new value, usually “after November 10 but prior to December 31,” with an informal review. In a revaluation year the deadline to appeal to the county board is May 1. |
Why Montgomery was ordered
The state measures each town’s level of assessment as the average ratio of assessed value to market value, from a year of sales.
| Tax year | Montgomery’s average ratio |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 83.29% |
| 2017 | 83.00% |
| 2018 | 82.27% |
| 2019 | 81.29% |
| 2020 | 80.30% |
| 2021 | 81.91% |
| 2022 | 79.30% |
| 2023 | 72.38% |
| 2024 | 64.64% |
| 2025 | 59.97% |
| 2026 | 56.24% |
| 2027 | 52.81% |
Source: the Division of Taxation’s yearly Chapter 123 certifications (2025-2027 linked above; earlier years from the same series). The 2026 equalization table gives Montgomery’s aggregate assessed value as $4,045,323,938 against a true value of $7,192,965,750.
The state rule says a ratio “of 85 percent or lower generally denotes noncompliance” where, as is the norm, the county’s standard is 100% of value. A second test measures how evenly assessments track sales (the coefficient of deviation); above 15 “generally indicates a need for revaluation.” Montgomery’s is 12.75, under that line. The county’s written order and its findings are not public, so the board’s stated basis is not known.
Montgomery is not in the county’s annual reassessment program and does not appear on the Division’s lists of approved revaluations and reassessments for tax years 2017 through 2026; fifteen or sixteen Somerset towns appear on each of those lists. The year of Montgomery’s last townwide revaluation is not confirmed by a primary record. In January 2025 Deputy Mayor Vince Barragan told the Committee, in the meeting video’s captions, “I THINK IT’S BEEN OVER 20 YEARS SINCE WE’VE DONE AN ASSESSMENT.”
The record so far
| Date | What happened | Record |
|---|---|---|
| October 8, 2024 | County board sends its annual “watch list” letter to towns “on the cusp of requiring a property assessment revaluation (Montgomery, Somerville, South Bound Brook).” | County board minutes |
| January 14, 2025 | County board approves an “Order to implement a municipal wide revaluation in the Township of Montgomery for tax year 2028,” on a roll-call vote with one abstention. | County board minutes |
| January 16, 2025 | Deputy Mayor Vince Barragan tells the Committee: “THERE IS NO NEAR-TERM IMPACT FOR ANY RESIDENT. AND I MEAN NO NEAR-TERM IMPACT, NOTHING IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS. … THE FIRST YEAR THAT IT LOOKS LIKE WE MIGHT BE REQUIRED TO HAVE A REEVALUATION IS 2028. AND PROBABLY THE MOST, MOST LIKELY THOSE FIRST HOMES WON’T BE IMPACTED UNTIL 2030.” He adds that the governing body is “FULLY COMMITTED … TO EDUCATE THE RESIDENTS OF MONTGOMERY ON ALL THE POTENTIAL EXEMPTIONS AND BENEFITS,” especially for senior citizens. The order then in force was for tax year 2028; it is now tax year 2029 (August 11, 2026, below). | Meeting video, captions from about 1:31:20 |
| February 20, 2025 | The Clerk reports the order “has been approved by the New Jersey Division of Taxation.” The minutes record that Deputy Mayor Barragan “referenced his comments regarding the order of revaluation made at the second Township Committee meeting in January assuring that there is no immediate impact to the residents; that this is a multi-year process,” and that the chief financial officer “also confirmed that there is no impact this year and that this is a multi-year process.” | Township Committee minutes, p. 11 |
| July 2025 - February 2026 | Tax map work: a first draft goes to the state in July 2025; the final version goes to the Division for approval in February 2026. | County board minutes |
| September 4, 2025 | Committee closed session: “Tax Re-evaluation procedures for 2027.” | Township Committee minutes |
| January 7, 2026 | At the Committee’s reorganization, the Mayor’s remarks say Deputy Mayor Barragan “plans to lead the upcoming property tax reassessment.” He resigned from the Committee by letter dated June 18, 2026. | Township Committee minutes, January 7 and July 16, 2026 |
| January 13, 2026 | ”There was discussion at the town council level about requesting an extension of the revaluation.” | County board minutes |
| February 5, 2026 | Committee closed session: “In the Matter of the Revaluation of the Township of Montgomery.” | Township Committee minutes |
| March 10, 2026 | ”Discussions regarding a request to extend the revaluation order to 2029 are ongoing with the mayor.” | County board minutes |
| March 12, 2026 | Letter from Mayor Neena Singh: “Request to extend the order for a municipal revaluation to tax year 2030.” | County board minutes, April 14, 2026 |
| April 16, 2026 | Presenting a budget petition to the Committee, resident Raj Koltur says: “WITH THE COST OF LIVING AND PROPERTY REASSESSMENT IN THE HORIZON, RESIDENTS ARE SEEKING AT LEAST 3 MILLION IN COST REDUCTIONS IN THE 2026 BUDGET.” See township debt and the 2026 budget. | Meeting video, captions |
| May 1, 2026 | ”The governing body has requested a 2-year extension to tax year 2030.” | County board minutes |
| July 14, 2026 | County board, with members of the governing body invited, votes “to recommend a 1-year extension to the Division of Taxation” and asks for “a new updated timeline.” The motion “passed unanimously on a roll-call vote.” | County board minutes |
| August 11, 2026 | ”Approval received by the Director, Division of Taxation to extend the revaluation until tax year 2029.” | County board minutes (posted draft) |
| September 8, 2026 | ”Waiting on revised timeline with extension to 2029 tax year. Tax map anticipated to be approved in 1st quarter of 2027.” | County board minutes |
The county board’s minutes do not give the reasons in the March 12 letter, and the letter itself is not posted. The board met on October 13, 2026; those minutes are not yet posted. Only two commissioners attended on September 8, and the August 11 minutes were tabled “due to lack of quorum,” so the August 11 text is the posted draft.
What has not happened yet
No request for proposals, firm, contract, cost or revaluation appropriation appears in the Township Committee’s minutes and agendas through October 1, 2026, or in the 2026 adopted budget. The steps still ahead, in the order the state’s rules require:
- The state approves the new tax map (expected in the first quarter of 2027).
- The township writes bid specifications, adopts the funding and awards a contract.
- The Director approves and signs the contract.
- The firm inspects every property.
- New values, as of October 1, 2028, are mailed to owners, followed by informal reviews.
- New assessments take effect for tax year 2029, with appeals due May 1, 2029.
Steps 4 to 6 are LocalWhy’s reading of the rules, not a township timeline; the county board is still waiting for the township’s revised one.
The Kenvue campus
A revaluation applies to every parcel, including the former Kenvue campus at 199 Grandview Road. Under the state’s appeal rules, a Tax Court judgment’s value is frozen for the appeal year and the next two, except after “a completed revaluation/ reassessment in the district.” The owners’ appeal of Lot 2’s assessment is pending; see the Kenvue tax appeal.
What is not known
- The written order of January 14, 2025 and the county’s findings.
- The Division’s approval letters for the order and the extension.
- The reasons given in the March 12, 2026 letter, whether the Committee voted on the request (no resolution appears in the posted minutes), and who spoke for the township on July 14, 2026.
- The revised timeline, the tax-map approval date, and the firm, contract amount and funding.
- Whether the township will join the county’s annual reassessment program afterwards.
- Which neighborhoods or property types are furthest from market value. Only the assessor’s sales data would show it.
What residents can do
- Follow the county board. It meets November 10 and December 8, 2026 at 12:00 p.m., 27 Warren Street, Somerville. Minutes are posted on its page.
- Watch the Township Committee agendas for a bid, contract or funding ordinance; the meeting calendar lists dates.
- Ask for the records. The March 12 letter, the order and the approvals can be requested from the Township Clerk under the Open Public Records Act.
- Ask the assessor how the revaluation will run and when inspections will start.