Records public; state laws a problem
To the Editor:

This is in response to the letter to the editor of Ted Doty titled "Details sought on local budget."

After serving on the school board for four years, Doty should be familiar with the municipal taxing and budgeting process. He ought to know better than most that the line by line "actual dollars and cents" that he purports to seek is readily available to him or any person, every day at our public library or at the municipal building.

The township's budget for last year and previous years is on file, as it always has been, for public examination.

Besides being reviewed and passed by the council, the budgets are independently audited by a private firm and then reviewed by the state treasurer.

Furthermore, our municipal accounting practices have been praised with a Triple A rating by Moody's Investment.

In my three years as mayor and six prior years on the council, I do not recall Doty, despite his being "suspicious," ever appearing at any public budget meeting. The simple fact is that for every $1,000 the tax assessor collects, the mayor and council get $210 to run the township. The balance, $790, goes directly to county, schools or open space taxes.

Even more misleading and perplexing is Doty's proclamation, "I'd like to apply the municipal tax rate to the assessed value of the town's commercial property." That is exactly what the town is now doing and has always done! In fact, we are required to do so under state law.

As I pointed out at the reorganization meeting, this is precisely one of the many problems with our state-mandated, archaic property tax laws; particularly now, when commercial property values in Morris County are not rising as rapidly as residential property values. This happens to be the root cause of successful commercial tax appeals.

louis s. sceusi

Mayor

Rockaway Township