This workpaper is a visual of the “Property Tax Tables” available from the NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) website. A picture of that site, as of this writing is below:
A few facts about this public site, why it’s important, and why I visualized it:
1–This is where the state publishes standardized property tax data stretching back to 1998. The “standard” property tax data includes information about tax levies, tax rates, tax bases, assessed vs equalized (aka estimated market) values, and more.
2–This is very “rich” public data i.e. it is “clean” (neatly presented in a similar format year-on-year) and it offers tremendous insights about property taxes in NJ. However, it is “locked” in standalone Excel sheets for each year which makes it inaccessible unless you are proficient with Excel. I “unlocked” the data for my readers.
3–How to use this visualization:
a) Find your community from the “Municipality” drop-down box. You can narrow down the number of municipalities by using the “County” filter.
b) I have endeavored to explain the visuals as you page through. I have recently received feedback that having a “key terms” sheet (like a glossary) would be helpful. I will be working on that this spring with my graduate students at Saint Peter’s University and look forward to sharing that when ready. For now, please use my Contact form to ask questions or give feedback.
c) Finally, an important disclaimer: this visualization is my attempt to demystify local finance and as such is a teaching tool; it is not a tool to dispense tax or accounting advice. It is important to always trace back to the public data — that is the root source that you should anchor your personal research in. Please read my full disclaimer here.
