2,265 parcels of land in Lakewood Township - 21.97% of all parcels of land in the township - are currently exempt from paying property taxes, according to municipal budget documents obtained by FAA News.

All of these parcels of land together would be assessed at $2,360,803,900.

As previously reported on FAA News, (https://www.faanews.com/2022/06/lakewood-township-to-raise-taxes-to.html), the Township Tax Collector has estimated that the total tax rate for FY '22 will be $2.309, of which $0.70 is the tax rate for the proposed FY '22 municipal budget. This is the amount of property taxes you pay per $100 of your property's assessed value.

(As explained in our previous article, at these tax rates, an average new duplex in the Oak and Vine neighborhood which is assessed at $577,200, paid $13,148.62 in total property taxes for FY '21 and of this amount, $3982.68 funded the municipal budget, the same house will pay $13,327.548 in total property taxes for FY '22, which represents a $178.93 increase. Of this total amount, $4,040.40 will fund the municipal budget, an increase of $57.72 from FY '21.)

At these rate, these properties would pay $54,510,962.051 in total annual property taxes, of which $16,525,627.30 would go to Lakewood Township's municipal budget.

Of these 2,265 parcels, 11 are public schools and those would be assessed $101,792,600; 259 are non-public schools and those would be assessed $956,937,700; 905 are public property (such as public parks and government buildings) and those would be assessed $571,588,900; 312 are churches and charities and those would be assessed $422,298,000; 8 are cemeteries and graveyards and those would be assessed $12,004,800; and 770 properties are not categorized and those would be assessed $296,181,900.

By the way, we have great news to report!

We previously reported on the introduced version of the municipal budget. In that version, the amount to be raised by taxation was $75,239,878.38, a $3,044,888.93 increase over the $72,194,989.45 raised by taxation in FY '21.

The Township Committee has amended the final version of the budget to reduce this amount by... $2,452.00! Yup! This will bring the total amount of revenue by taxation for FY '22 down to $75,237,426.38.

The Township Committee will hold a public hearing and adopt the final budget at their upcoming meeting this Thursday, June 23 at 5:30pm. Members of the public are welcome to watch the meeting live at https://townhallstreams.com/. Public comment can be sent via email up until 11:30 am on the day of the meeting at premeetingcomments@lakewoodnj.gov or during the meeting via comments@lakewoodnj.gov. Please include your name and address for the record. Comments may also be made live on the phone by calling (408) 418-9388. The Meeting ID#/Password is 2631-947-0052. All participants will be muted upon entry to the meeting but may participate by using the *3 key when the meeting is opened to public comment.