Taxable property value, historically known and reported as Equalized Valuation, is the estimated true value of taxable property in a municipality or school district. Municipal tax assessors place a tax assessment on every parcel of real property within their municipality. The relation of the assessments to the actual true value of the property may vary from place to place. In order to provide for the fair distribution of State school aid, the Department of the Treasury has implemented a system to estimate the true value of property in every municipality and school district – the value that an informed buyer would pay and a willing seller would accept. Actual sales prices of properties are compared with their tax assessments and the results are consolidated for each municipality. Adjustments then are made to convert the tax assessor’s total values to the estimated full true value for the entire municipality – the Equalized Valuation.

Fiscal Resources Variables & Available Data

Data Variables
Data Variable Description
Available Years of Data
Taxable Property Value
Taxable property value, historically known and reported as Equalized Valuation, is the estimated true value of taxable property in a municipality or school district. Municipal tax assessors place a tax assessment on every parcel of real property within their municipality. The relation of the assessments to the actual true value of the property may vary from place to place. In order to provide for the fair distribution of State school aid, the Department of the Treasury has implemented a system to estimate the true value of property in every municipality and school district – the value that an informed buyer would pay and a willing seller would accept. Actual sales prices of properties are compared with their tax assessments and the results are consolidated for each municipality. Adjustments then are made to convert the tax assessor’s total values to the estimated full true value for the entire municipality – the Equalized Valuation.
1983 - 2020
Per Capita Taxable Property Value
The Equalized Valuation of each municipality is divided by the most recent estimated population to find the relative taxable property wealth of the municipality. The Equalized Valuation used here for municipalities uses sales during the most recent calendar year, as reported on the website of the New Jersey Division of Local Government Services.
1983 - 2020
Personal Income per Taxpayer and Dependents

The New Jersey Department of the Treasury, using State income tax returns, compiles the total personal income for taxpayers in each municipality in order to evaluate the fiscal capacity of the municipality for the purpose of distributing State aid for schools. The Department also compiles the number of New Jersey income taxpayers and their dependents. Under current conditions, the number of New Jersey income taxpayers and their dependents comprise about 90% of the estimated total population of the state.

These data are provided the Department of the TreasuryDepartment of the Treasury to the Department of Education, which has made them available to the New Jersey Data Book. The availability of income data generally lags property tax data by two years. In cases where data is not available, it may have been suppressed for confidentiality due to low population.

2008 - 2017
Percentage Residential Value
In the process of calculating Equalized Valuation, every municipal tax assessor is required to classify each parcel of real property in the municipality into one of seven categories: Vacant Land, Residential, Farm Homestead, Farmland, Commercial, Industrial, or Apartment. The number of parcels and the assessed value of each is reported on the website of the New Jersey Division of Local Government Services, permitting calculation of the percentage of the tax base classified as Residential.
2010 - 2020
Moody's Credit Rating

The following ratings have been assigned to municipal obligations by Moody’s Investors’ Service.

Aaa – Highest Quality
Aa – High Quality
A – Upper Medium Grade
Baa – Medium Grade
Ba – Medium Grade
B – Speculative, subject to high credit risk
Caa – Poor Standing
Ca – Highly Speculative
C – Poor Prospects, typically in default

Moody’s appends numerical modifiers of 1, 2 or 3 to each generic rating classification from Aa through Caa. The modifier 1 indicates that the obligation ranks in the higher end of its generic rating category; the modifier 2 indicates a mid-range ranking; and the modifier 3 indicates a ranking in the lower end of that generic rating category.

1983 - 2017