As a resident of nearby Monroe since 1972, Thomas Mancuso, like Lt. Furda, has also been able to watch Plainsboro progress from a very rural farming community into a nicely developed community of blended residential and commercial development.##M:[more]##
Now with his new position as the township’s tax assessor, he will have a direct part in managing assessments of both kinds of development in town. Mancuso’s first day on the job was August 6.
Born in Italy, Mancuso moved to the United States when he was two-and-a-half years old. He first lived in South Plainfield with his mother, who spent much of her time taking care of the family’s five children, and his father, who was a machine mechanic. His grandfather was the first of his family to become an American citizen. He worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania, but moved back to Italy after an injury.
In 1972 Mancuso moved to Monroe, where he still resides. He and his wife, Nadia, have two children — Daniel, 16, and Alessandra, 14 — and also raise two foster children.
Mancuso was enrolled in the engineering program at Rutgers until he got into real estate in 1982 with a revaluation firm. From there, his first stint working as an assessor for a municipality was in East Brunswick, where he started out as the assistant tax assessor for six months before moving on to Manalapan, where he took the job as the tax assessor for three-and-a-half years. When the position opened up again in East Brunswick, this time as the tax assessor, he moved back and worked there for 12 years. For the past five years, however, he has worked with BRB, an evaluation consulting firm that does work for multiple municipalities, including handling their tax appeals.
His position there enabled him to work for and against towns, but his speciality, he says, was in working for towns and handling their tax appeals and doing appraisals. Last October, while working with the firm, he also took a part time job in Highland Park as the town’s part time tax assessor.
Mancuso says he was not necessarily looking for a new job, but it was something that happened at the right time. And he realized he liked dealing with people.
“I like the aspect of closely dealing with people, just talking to them, and answering their questions,” he says. Most often, people become very confused by valuations as it relates to their taxes. “But, they’re really not that complicated. It’s a matter of taking the time and having someone explain it. I like explaining how the whole system works, and how they’re impacted directly and indirectly.”
Mancuso says he likes the challenge in working with the values of commercial properties. When analyzing the value and assessment of a home, one can easily look at 40 or 50 homes in the development for comparison. Assessing the value of commercial properties, he says, involve more complicated approaches, more investigation, and more studying to figure out what they are actually worth.
Wendy Wulstein, the township’s chief financial officer, said that she had been working with township officials for a long time to find a replacement for former tax assessor Jean Jacobson, who held the position for 20 years before retiring in January, 2007. The township hired Marianne Busher, who left shortly after because of a long commute.
Wulstein said Jacobson did a lot for the community, leading it through two successful revaluations since 1987. She said she kept the township’s values as close to market value by law as possible, and kept Plainsboro from falling subject to numerous tax appeals. She also came back to help the township during its search for a replacement. “She cares about the values, she cares about the taxpayer, and she cares about the tax assessor’s office being the best it could be, even though it was not her job anymore,” Wulstein said.
Finding a worthy replacement was a challenge, Wulstein said, but the township found “such a hire” in Mancuso. She pointed out that through his employment with his consulting firm — Plainsboro is one of the municipalities that works with his former consulting firm — Mancuso has been working with township officials, including Jacobson, for the past five years. “He helped us with large-scale assessments,” Wulstein said. “He knows the behind-the-scenes view.”
“We’re thrilled to have him on board,” she said. “He’s already become part of our team.”
