Lakewood: 350 Orthodox properties tax-exempt

LAKEWOOD The total number of tax-exempt yeshivas, synagogues and other religious properties owned by the Orthodox Jewish community is in the hundreds, not the thousands, as many here seem to believe, the township’s tax assessor says.

There are “approximately 350 properties that are related to that community,” Edward Seeger said. “Maybe a little less.”

Seeger spoke Thursday at the quarterly meeting of the Senior Action Group, a grassroots coalition of representatives of eight adult communities including the Enclave, where the session was held.

Seeger was there principally to address questions about the ongoing township-wide property reassessment, which he said is scheduled to go into effect in 2017. But most of the questions from the audience of about 130 people centered on whether the Orthodox community is paying its fair share of property taxes.

One of the fastest-growing municipalities in New Jersey, Lakewood is in the midst of a breathtaking building boom. Much of the new construction consists of multi-family duplexes, synagogues and private religious schools, or yeshivas, built to accommodate a steady influx of Orthodox families. Local officials estimate that more than half the township’s population is Orthodox, though no official figures are available.

A pervasive assumption is that a large portion of the property here is already off the township’s tax rolls, and that the fevered pace of new construction will further exacerbate the imbalance, placing greater strain on homeowners who do pay taxes.

Seeger is aware of that perception, but he told the seniors that the facts show otherwise.

“People think it’s in the thousands,” he said after his presentation. “It’s not near the numbers they think it is.”

Some in the audience, however, were incredulous.

“That’s very hard to believe,” one woman said.

As the Asbury Park Press reported earlier this year, tax-exempt properties owned by private schools, charities and religious institutions make up 8 percent of Lakewood's total assessed value, according to 2015 county tax data.

That figure, which doesn’t include public schools and other government-owned properties, is up from 5 percent in 2009. No other town in Ocean County besides tiny Lakehurst, at 6 percent, even comes close. The ratio in Toms River, by comparison, is just 1.5 percent.

Together, these religious and charitable properties total nearly $597 million in assessed value, the equivalent of $5.1 million in lost local tax revenue last year, the Press’ analysis found.

When government-owned and other kinds of tax-exempt properties, including cemeteries and veterans housing, are added in, the total amount of assessed value that isn’t taxed comes to 17 percent, the Press found.

There are approximately 26,500 properties in Lakewood, Seeger said. Of that total, 1,585, or about 6 percent of the properties, are tax-exempt, and the vast majority of those, 1,044, are government-owned, he said.

Seeger said the township currently has 181 tax-exempt private schools, all but a handful of which are Orthodox yeshivas, and another 236 properties that qualify for tax-exempt status because they are religious or charitable in nature.

Among the religious and charitable tax-exempt properties on the books last year were 77 synagogues, 23 churches, 52 rabbi residences, 14 properties that double as synagogues and rabbi residences and 18 dormitories, county tax data show.

Georgian Court University, the Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva and Monmouth Medical Center are the largest private tax-exempt property owners in town.

In other matters, Senior Action Group leaders said a group of residents with extensive professional experience in finance and accounting have been poring over the municipal and school budgets for the past four years. The analysis, which shows a more than 5 percent increase in the average local and county tax bill over the four years, has generated a host of questions about the township’s fiscal management.

“Until we get answers to these questions, I don’t intend to go away,” said Denise Gregory, a resident of Leisure Village East who has worked as a business analyst and management consultant. “We want to hold people accountable.”

Shannon Mullen: 732-643-4278; smullen4@gannettnj.com