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Asbury Park residents who may be confused about the city’s recent tax assessment card mailing and new evaluation process are being encouraged to attend the workshop session of tonight’s City Council meeting.

Eric Aguilar, the city’s tax assessor [shown above], will give a presentation during the workshop session that outlines the city’s recent tax assessment mailing, he confirmed with the Sun. The workshop session begins at 6 p.m. The tax assessor is responsible for establishing real property valuation for the purpose of maintaining a municipal property tax base.

County officials rolled out a new countywide property tax assessment system in August.

Since city residents received assessment notices through the mail last week, Aguilar’s phone has been “bombarded” with residents asking questions,” he said.

“It’s just going to be a quick presentation and update on the revaluation,” he said.

“Because there seems to be a lot of confusion from residents as to how their taxes would be calculated, we thought the presentation from Eric would be helpful,” said Councilman John Moor.

Aguilar will be answering questions from members of city council only. He will not be taking questions from the public and will not remain for the public portion of the regular session meeting at 7 p.m., he confirmed.

While property owners may see their assessed value is significantly higher than previous assessments, rates from older assessments cannot be compared to the new assessments because a different tax rate will be applied to the new assessment to reflect the increase in ratables the city has seen since the last assessment in 2002, he said.

“The tax rate is not going to be the same 5.922 – after revaluation the ratable base tripled,” he said. The tax rate will be about a third of the old rate.

From Nov. 7 – 16, anyone with questions about their individual assessments can schedule an informal hearing with the re-evaluation company, Realty Appraisal, every day except for Sunday, Nov. 10. Meetings will be held in council chambers and must be scheduled. Meetings will be scheduled between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Tuesday, Nov. 12. They will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day.

Hearings can be scheduled by calling 732-571-4941 during the hours of 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thurs. Nov. 7.

Residents who do not agree with value of their assessment are encouraged to schedule a hearing. Multiple representatives from Realty Appraisal will be on-hand during the hearings and will head out that day to inspect the property, according to Aguilar.

“If nothing changes after that, they can file an appeal through the County,” he said.

[Correction: A previous version of this article stated the new tax rate would be one third “less” than the current rate of 5.922. The new rate will be a third “of” the current rate. This article has been updated to reflect that change.]

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