Roxbury Library Desperately Needs Help

Our Roxbury Twp Free Public Library plays a vital role in the community. It is the center where people can gather, where they can use a computer or where they can borrow a book or DVD to learn new skills and be entertained.  Sandy and its aftermath made this very clear when over 18,000 residents came to the Library to access the internet, re-charge their batteries and pass the time until power was restored to the town.

Computer Center during Sandy

Sandy has past and most of us in Roxbury have gotten back to our daily lives. The Library however is experiencing a storm of its own. The state mandated MINIMUM portion of the Library’s budget has been released with a $68,000 reduction from 2012 numbers.  Most people know that the vast majority of library funding is raised through local taxes, but you may not know that the State mandated annual minimum appropriation for the operation of our Free Public Library is equal to 1/3 of a mill on every dollar of assessable property within the municipality.  Due to the downturn in the economy, the mandated funding that the Trustees rely on for daily operation of the library has been decreasing each year for the past several years.  The minimum funding for 2013 is $1,096,213. In total, the 2013 proposed funding is $241,000 less than it was in 2008. The dramatic decreases in funding have necessitated difficult budget cuts; reducing hours, limiting book purchases and forcing technology to surpass its “End of Life” usefulness. Many needed projects and improvements have been set aside or scrapped altogether.  

The time has come for the residents to ask the Town Council to once again step up and support the Library beyond the state minimum. In years past the Council routinely added to the Library budget to create a Library that was looked up to in the county.  The past few years the Council has chosen not to continue that assistance. The result of the decreased funding; reduced hours, staff reduced by 1/3, program funding eliminated, and materials purchase (books, CDs and e-books) at a paltry 3% of the budget. We will need additional municipal funding to begin to restore our Library to the premier facility it once was. Please help the library by contacting your councilman and ask him or her to consider adding to the 1/3 mill for the library. Contact info for the council can be found at http://roxburynj.us/index.aspx?nid=3 .

Friends of the Roxbury Twp Public Library

The Friends are dedicated to preserving the library and its programs, an effort that has become increasingly important with the continued budget cuts to library funding. For more information on the Friends of Roxbury Twp Public Library visit http://www.roxburylibrary.org/friends/membership.html.

Pennies on the Dollar? (Part 1)

We’ve all heard the infomercials touting the great investment opportunity of tax lien investing. So can you really get homes for pennies? Well yes and no.

Counties need the funds from property taxes to pay the Sheriff and so on. Somehow these counties need to collect the taxes due. If the taxpayer cannot meet their obligation, then the counties look to outside sources to pay those taxes. The how to collect unpaid taxes are determined by the state. States either collect the unpaid taxes through tax lien sales, tax deed sales or a combination of the two.

Through tax lien sales you can purchase a lien for unpaid taxes on a property with the right to foreclose at a future time. Note the right to foreclose is not the guarantee to the property. Tax Lien states such as Arizona or Florida annually sell unpaid property taxes as liens to investors at an agreed interest rate. (The top interest rate in Arizona is 16% and 18% in Florida.) During the sale/auction, investors bid to win the right pay the taxes owed and place a lien on the property. After a period of time set by the state, generally several years, the lien holder if still not paid back has the right to initiate foreclosure proceedings on the property owner. Even during the foreclosure process the property owner can pay the tax lien and associated costs and keep their property. It is the aforementioned interest rate that attracts investors like myself to tax lien sales rather than the chance to acquire property.

At a recent sale I purchased an $800 lien on a property valued at over $80,000, hence the term “pennies on the dollar.” If after three years the property owner has not paid their back taxes, then I can begin the foreclosure procedure. I don’t expect to acquire this property; my objective is to earn a 12% rate of return on my investment until the property owner can settle up with the county.

An investor will typically only get the property about 2% of the time as a result of purchasing a tax lien sale certificate. That’s a far cry from the ads on TV. Tax deed sales result in the investor acquiring the property, but is it really “pennies on the dollar”? Check back for Part 2 for the answer.