Legislative leaders target property taxes Wednesday, June 07, 2006 • BY TOM HESTER AND JOE DONOHUE • Star-Ledger Staff Senate President Richard Codey and Assembly Speaker Jo seph Roberts said yesterday they hope to enact laws to ease New Jersey's highest-in-nation property taxes by the end of the year, and will begin that effort with hearings over the summer. Four committees made up of Assembly and Senate members from both parties will spend July through September examining how to reduce state and local spending on schools, public employee benefits and services to reduce property taxes. "Since New Jersey homeowners do not get a vacation from high property taxes, the Legislature should not get one," Roberts (D- Camden) said. "Solving the problem of sky-high property taxes cannot be left to one person, one party, or one half of the Legislature. Today we are launching a full-court press to make major repairs to New Jersey broken property tax system." "For too long property owners have been getting blitzed with taxes advancing further and further," Codey (D-Essex) said. "It is time that we not only hold the line, but push them back. Unless we at tempt to create greater efficiency and reduce spending at the local levels, we will only be chasing our tails." The session will open with an address by Gov. Jon Corzine in mid-July and the committees would convene soon after, Roberts said. After holding public hearings, the panels will recommend poten tial legislation by Sept. 30. "I think this is a positive step in the right direction, and what we need to do is make sure that reality and substance follow," Corzine said yesterday. "I am totally supportive of the concept. I have been talking about it for over a year, and I am pleased that we are moving forward." While the lawmakers indicated a strong focus of the tax relief effort will be to cut government spend ing, Codey said tax alternatives to the property tax could come out of the Legislature. "We will be open to everything," he said. Codey and Roberts also said de pending on what emerges from the Legislature, a long-debated citizen's constitutional convention on property taxes -- something Corzine said yesterday that he still wants to see convene -- may not be necessary. One of the special committees will examine the need for a conven tion, which would require voter approval in 2007 for it to be held a year later. After that, proposed so lutions from that convention would face another referendum, which means tax relief would not come until 2009. "Let us do our work and we will decide if we need it (the convention referendum) on the 2007 ballot," Codey said. Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) said he favors a constitutional convention. "I want quicker action on a convention and I want a convention with the ability to deal not only with revenue but spending as well, and I think that is critical," he said. "In my view, to have true property tax reform, many of the proposals need to be placed before a constitutional convention." Tax reform and pro-convention activists and lobbyists expressed doubt the Legislature will come up with a way to reduce property taxes. "After 35 years of doing nothing, they realize the fact there will be a taxpayers' revolt," said Cy Thannikary, chairman of Citizens for Property Tax Reform and a member of a state task force that proposed guidelines for a constituional convention. "If they accomplish anything, that remains to be seen. A convention is the only way to get significant lasting reform." Former state Sen. Bill Schluter (R-Hunterdon), the orginator of the convention idea, said yesterday's announcement by Codey and Roberts "is progress." "Considering where property tax reform and a convention were a few years ago, we are closer to it," he said. "But I think we need a special convention to have tax reform. I do not think we will get a consensus (in the Legislature)." © 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.