TRENTON — Both the Senate and Assembly voted Thursday to set up a program in Gloucester County that shifts tax assessments from the municipal governments to the county level.

The bill -- sponsored in part by Senate Majority Leader Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat who also is Gloucester County freeholder-director -- was passed 25-7 in the Senate and 55-23, with one abstention, in the Assembly. It's now on Gov. Jon S. Corzine's desk.

A county assessor would be appointed and assessment functions transferred within three years. All municipalities would have to be reassessed unless an update has been done in the last two years, to make property values uniformly rated, and the state would likely wind up paying that $8.8 million cost.

Sen. Robert Singer, R-Ocean, said it isn't fair for state taxpayers to have to pay those costs and said costs could be even greater if larger counties are added to the pilot program in the future.

"I don't have an argument with a county trying to come together and create one assessor per county," Singer said. "My argument is that in every other county in the state, we are waiting for our reassessments. Let them pay for their own. Why should the rest of the state pay for their revaluation that all the rest of us have to pay for? Why should we subsidize one county when the other 20 counties aren't subsidized?"

"I am concerned about the precedent being set of the state picking up the cost of the reassessments. It can really pile up as you go further along," said Assemblyman Sam Thompson, R-Middlesex.

Sweeney said there's no guarantee the state will have money in either of the two accounts from which funding is promised come 2012, when that bill might come due. For now, Sweeney said, Gloucester County would be fronting the money.

"We are taking a chance in trying to create a new system of taxation," Sweeney said.

Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester, who is also mayor of Paulsboro, said municipalities in the county estimate they will save a combined $1.5 million a year through eliminating the municipal tax assessment offices.

"Gloucester County was prepared to take this step, make this investment, to see if this can work. So there's some benefits to being first as well as some drawbacks," Burzichelli said.

Sweeney said Gloucester County is the only county that centralized its stormwater management at the county level, in part due to a state grant of $5.5 million to cover start-up costs. No other county has followed suit, he said.

"The other counties didn't even attempt to do it because there was a large effort and there was a cost associated with it," Sweeney said. "In my county, mayors have trusted us to create countywide services, which is what we really should be looking at around the state more often."

All 24 municipal governments in Gloucester County have adopted resolutions that support the countywide tax assessment program, Sweeney said.

He said state commissions in 1977 and 1997, under Govs. Brendan Byrne and Christie Whitman, recommended moving tax assessments to the county government level, as did the Legislature's special session in 2006.

Reach Michael Symons at msymons@gannett.com