NJ 2025 State of the State: Phil Murphy on property taxes/minimum wage
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy gave his final State of the State address. Here he talks property taxes and the minimum wage.
New Jersey property taxes are expensive, no doubt about it.
In 2024, the average homeowner spent $10,095 in property taxes, according to the most recent state figures.
That’s higher than a $10,000 limit the federal government put in place in 2018 for how much you can deduct in state and local property taxes each year on your federal income tax return, more commonly known as the SALT deduction.
Steep taxes are not necessarily surprising. New Jersey is sandwiched between New York City and Philadelphia, with all the perks of those two cities.
Proponents of the state argue that New Jersey boasts better quality schools, access to universities and major talent pools, top transit hubs including the ports of Newark, Interstate 95, and some of the nation’s busiest airports. Plus great food!
Story continues below photo gallery.
We broke out the 2024 average property taxes from the state Department of Community Affairs, the most recently published numbers, to find out the towns and cities in Bergen and Passaic counties with the highest average property tax bills.
Top 10 towns in Bergen County
- Demarest: $24,736.
- Tenafly: $23,833.
- Alpine: $22,581.
- Ridgewood: $20,370.
- Haworth: $20,090.
- Saddle River: $19,758.
- Upper Saddle River: $19,739.
- Woodcliff Lake: $19,624.
- Franklin Lakes: $19,374.
- Glen Rock: $19,297.
Top 10 towns in Passaic County
- Wayne: $13,698.
- Prospect Park: $12,651.
- Ringwood: $12,620.
- Haledon: $12,230.
- Bloomingdale: $11,740.
- North Haledon: $11,709.
- Woodland Park: $11,634.
- Hawthorne: $11,604.
- Passaic: $11,355.
- Pompton Lakes: $11,007.
Many towns with higher property taxes lack other revenue sources, such as businesses or corporate headquarters, said Marc Pfeiffer, a senior policy fellow at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, who studies local government in New Jersey.
So instead, municipal services — from the police department to the schools — are largely funded through property taxes alone, Pfeiffer said.
What about in previous years?
We also delved into the most expensive towns by property taxes in both counties going back to 2020. Each year they were — for the most part — the same towns that made the top 10 in 2024, but they shift rank slightly from year to year.
In 2021 and 2022, Little Falls pushed onto the Passaic list. In 2020, 2021 and 2023, Cresskill was on the Bergen list, and in 2022 Ho-Ho-Kus made the Bergen list.
Why are NJ’s property taxes so high
Property taxes are typically used to fund local services, such as schools, police and fire, road construction, libraries, and water and sewage departments.
The “heavy reliance on local funding” for these services leads to higher property taxes in New Jersey, said Chip Lupo, an analyst at the personal finance website WalletHub.
In many cases, each town replicates its own version of those services for its own citizens, like a singular police department. Larger towns can achieve more economies of scale, buying more in bulk, from police cars to road salt, and therefore bargaining for lower prices.
Congress approves raising SALT deduction cap to $40,000
As part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that he signed on July 4, the federal government will raise the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $40,000 through 2029.
Critics say the lower $10,000 cap has targeted — and hurt residents in — often Democratic-leaning states with high property taxes, such as New Jersey, California and New York.
Any plans to lower property taxes?
Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli floated proposals to cap property taxes “at a percentage of assessed home value,” along with expansions to the state’s senior freeze, and “reducing state spending and aggressively using the line-item veto pen to eliminate wasteful spending and ‘pet pork projects.’”
Meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-Montclair, proposed more shared services among towns, such as municipal courts and schools.
But shared services often yield savings only on a case-by-case basis at the local level rather than statewide, said Rutgers’ Pfeiffer, while Ciattarelli’s proposal for an alternating property tax rate could run afoul of the state constitution.
“You can’t give some people a lower rate than other people,” Pfeiffer said. “You have to assess everybody at the same standard.”
Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record.
Email: [email protected]; Twitter:@danielmunoz100 and Facebook
