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7-18-07 Star Ledger on high taxes & quality education in one town
Moving day follows kids' graduation day in one high-tax town

Moving day follows kids' graduation day in one high-tax town

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

BY PHILIP READ

Star-Ledger Staff

It was a proud moment. Eva Fenning's triplets were graduating from top-ranked Glen Ridge High School. On the lawn of their Ridgewood Avenue home stood the traditional congratulatory sign with the triplets' names: Brad, Blane, Brittany.

But just a few feet away was a telltale sign of what lay ahead: "For Sale."

In tax-stressed towns such as Glen Ridge, families are grabbing for a real-estate listing as soon as their youngest slip out of cap and gown. Many families are counting on the savings in property taxes to fund college tuition bills.

"My friends never believed me" when she said she'd be leaving town, Fenning recalls, but the move translates into huge savings. How much each year? "Only $13,000," she says tongue-in-cheek.

The postgraduation home sales extend to neighboring Montclair, where head-craning drivers can spot blue-and-white ribbons -- the colors of Montclair High's Mounties -- tied to trees just feet from "For Sale" signs.

In Glen Ridge, which a few years ago was top-ranked not just for its schools but for "tax trauma," according to a 2002 Star-Ledger analysis of New Jersey towns, the evidence is everywhere.

"Flocks of them," Fenning, now a North Caldwell resident, said of other Ridgers who have traded in Project Graduation limos for U-Haul vans.

One of them is Jennie Ciappa-Ng. Like Fenning, Ciappa-Ng set the wheels in motion when the younger of her and her husband's two sons, Ian, graduated from Glen Ridge High in 2005. "Actually, we're late a little bit. I waited till the fall. We sold. We actually moved in May."

The switch to Bloomfield cut their property taxes by some two-thirds, she said, and allowed her the luxury of trading a high-pressure job for working at home.

Had they stayed in Glen Ridge, "we were going to be paying close to 25" thousand dollars in property taxes, she said. But the move also cut into her heart.

"I was really sad. It was hard for me because I brought up both of my kids there. ... I loved living there, but the house became kind of unmanageable in terms of the taxes, and I couldn't justify the taxes with no kids at school."

The saving grace of the postgraduation exodus, experts say, is it creates openings for families with young children. Drawn to the top-flight school system, they are buying into the community and keeping property values high.

As Ellen Sherry ends a chapter in her life, putting her Glen Ridge home up for sale fresh from her youngest child's high school graduation, she says: "The reason to move here to start with was because of the schools, and it has been worthwhile." If the family hadn't moved, "we probably would have wound up sending them to private school. It's worth it."

"If you have children at all, Glen Ridge is a bargain," Carol Rhodes of Rhodes, Van Note Realtors in neighboring Montclair, said. "Those taxes represent one child's tuition in MKA (Montclair Kimberley Academy) or a private school."

For that reason, experts say, Glen Ridge can hold its own as New Jersey communities find themselves in a property tax quandary.

"If there are households with children trying to gain access to the school system, then it's certainly not a crisis," said James W. Hughes, dean of Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

KIDS ARE THEM

Still, unlike affluent New Jersey towns in areas such as Morris and Somerset counties, purely residential Glen Ridge remains a small, built-out community in a county, Essex, where the property-tax burden has spawned secessionist fervor.

The town's demographics -- described by a former mayor as "Kids, kids and more kids" -- does push up enrollment, which in turn drives up school costs. A few years ago, an anti-tax group called "Taxed Out of Town" tried to counter school spending. Then it fell silent. Its founder, in the words of a remaining member, had been "literally taxed out of town."

In defense, school officials drive home the message that Glen Ridge's per-pupil cost of $10,078 is far below the state and Essex County averages.

Still, a random sampling of property-tax bills along fashionable Ridgewood Avenue could be mistaken in some other communities for salaries: $33,962. $17,380. $24,244.

For those pulling out now, the decision isn't an easy one.

"Initially they were unhappy," Kathleen Kelly said of her two daughters, the younger of whom just graduated from Glen Ridge High. "It's the only home they've ever known." But the family is moving only a mile and a half away and her daughters are coming around, Kelly said. "Because this is where their friends are."

Even post-move, life is not a cakewalk.

After resettling in North Caldwell, Fenning and her husband, David, wound up carrying two houses -- and two tax bills -- until they sold their Glen Ridge home, she said. "Thirty-six thousand in property taxes I paid last year," she said. "Plus the tuitions." The Fennings have five children, four now in college.

She still has a sense of humor, though. "I'm writing a rice and bean cookbook right now," she said. "I should be, because that's what we're eating."

Carl Bergmanson, Glen Ridge's mayor, said the inherent unfairness of school funding in New Jersey forces many households in town to "downsize" early. But the Bergmansons, with their only child about to enter 12th grade, don't intend to be one of them.

"I live in a fabulous town," he said. "I told my wife, 'The only way I'm leaving this house is feet first.'"

Philip Read covers West Essex. He may be reached at pread@starledger.com or (973) 392-1851.