Mayor elect Steven Fulop holds meeting at City Hall in Jersey City

Jersey City Mayor elect Steven Fulop

(Jersey Journal file photo)

Jersey City Mayor-elect Steve Fulop today ordered the West New York company conducting a citywide revaluation to halt work immediately, and said he would audit the firm’s work because of its ties to a former city business administrator.

Fulop, who attacked outgoing Mayor Jerramiah Healy on the campaign trail for ordering the reval, today called the process “flawed,” saying in a statement from his office that it will result in tax hikes homeowners cannot afford.

“I will not allow this back-door tax hike planned by the Healy administration to take place,” he said.

In a letter to Business Administrator Jack Kelly, Fulop writes that damage from Hurricane Sandy might negate property assessments completed the Oct. 29 storm devastated the region.

Healy, defeated by Fulop in the May 14 mayoral race, declined to comment.

The City Council in February 2011 awarded a $3.2 million contract to West New York firm Realty Appraisal to perform the reval, the city’s first since 1988 (Fulop voted “no”). At the time, the company had on its payroll Brian O'Reilly, the city's former business administrator.

One year later, the city requested a one-year delay in the reval process, citing problems with the city's tax maps and a higher than anticipated number of residents refusing to allow inspectors into their homes. Only about 10 percent of the city’s properties had been inspected in that year, city officials said at the time.

The reval was a hot topic during this year’s mayoral campaign, with residents saying they feared it would bring about unaffordable tax hikes. Healy argued that the city needs the reval to bring more equity to the city's tax rolls, while Fulop said a reval now would cause property values to plummet.

In recommending a reval, the Board of Taxation in 2011 said the ratio between the true value of properties and their assessed value is too cavernous. The average assessed value of a property in the city is about $93,000 and the average property owner pays about $6,500 a year in taxes, city officials said.

A Board of Taxation spokesman and Realty Appraisal could not immediately be reached to comment.