Businesses Support Large Chunk of Bridgewater’s Property Base

Like most other local real estate property taxes in New Jersey, those in Bridgewater are very high, but they do not reflect what the impact could really be on the typical Bridgewater homeowner.

Were it not for the massive influx of large corporations such as the Bridgewater Commons Mall, Met Life, Sanofi Aventis, Merrill Lynch etc., etc.; as well as hundreds – if not thousands – of small to medium size businesses and professional buildings popping up on the Bridgewater landscape, the tax levy on this township’s residents would be even more intolerable.

Most of your residential property tax bill is taken up by school taxes. Yet, in the midst of a severe recession, the salaries contained in school levies have been increasing annually at a rate above that of inflation. In fact, from March through August of 2009, inflation has been in negative territory. In July and August, for example, those rates were minus 2.10% and minus 1.48%, respectively.

Association contracts for school employees are negotiated on an individual school district level. Contract talks are held behind closed doors with no interim reports to the tax-paying public. And, they are based on wage increases relative to those awarded to other school districts in the state of New Jersey, not on economic factors.

The contract with the Bridgewater-Raritan school district, effective July 1, 2008, provides for a three-year increase of 12.8%.