Thu. Nov 21st, 2024

The assessor says town officials fired her after she declined to approve a farmland tax break for an elected official. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

An appellate panel on Wednesday revived a municipal tax assessor’s claims that she was fired in retaliation after she declined a township committeeman’s application for a farmland tax break.

The ruling says whistleblower protections in New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act can extend to tax assessors despite separate job protections afforded to them elsewhere in statute.

“This decision affirms and clarifies that the protections afforded under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act can certainly apply not only to tax assessors, but to all tenured public employees in New Jersey. We believe this decision will ensure justice and fairness for courageous whistleblowers in the public sector,” said Matthew Luber, an attorney for the plaintiff.

The three-judge panel’s decision overturns a lower court ruling that found tax assessor Anna-Maria Obiedzinski was ineligible for job protections under the law because tax assessors can only be removed by the state’s taxation division. The new ruling directs a Superior Court judge to examine facts to determine whether the law’s guards apply in her circumstances.

Obiedzinski in 2020 sued the township, alleging township officials engaged in a pattern of retaliation after she in 2013 denied Township Committeeman Robert Becker’s application for a farmland assessment that would have exempted some of his land from property taxes.

She received a call from Tewksbury Mayor Louis DiMare not long after when DiMare urged her to contact Becker’s wife, adding the two had complained about her, Obiedzinski told other township officials. Obiedzinski alleged that elected officials were attempting to exert political influence to have her improperly settle a tax appeal. 

In 2017, the township declined her request for seven additional weekly work hours to complete farmland inspections, which Obiedzinski was then conducting on her own time.

Three years later, the township sought to have her removed, alleging she failed to properly oversee an outside appraiser or timely inspect properties and gave incorrect advice to residents seeking to appeal their tax assessments.

Obiedzinski sued in response, alleging township officials were retaliating against her for “objecting to defendants’ unlawful attempts to engage in a fraudulent tax scheme and, worse, cover it up.”

The state’s taxation division, the only body with statutory authority to remove a tax assessor like Obiedzinski, denied the township’s request to remove her, finding no merit to their claims, but a Superior Court Judge ruled against her retaliation claim, finding she was not covered by the state’s whistleblower law because Tewksbury could not fire her on its own.

The appellate panel said the lower court should have applied a factor-based test to determine Obiedzinski’s eligibility under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, in line with more recent case law.

They found the township had over the years “reduced her work hours and decreased her salary,” “reprimanded and belittled” her, and “required her to work on her own time to complete an essential function of the job.”

Attorneys for the township did not return requests for comment.

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