With New Jersey's cost of living one of the highest in the country and its labor unions effective, that force of 350,000 is better paid than anywhere but California - on average, $55,000 a year.

They serve a local government system that, like Pennsylvania's, is among the most fragmented. The 567 municipalities, 611 school districts (110 more than its much larger neighbor), and 212 fire districts each have the authority to tax their residents, bundling the bulk of their expenses into one steroidal levy.

In the three South Jersey counties next to Philadelphia, real estate appreciation has significantly lagged that in the Pennsylvania suburbs, where the effective tax rate - that is, the average bill expressed as a percentage of the average home's value - is 30 percent lower. In other words, for every $100,000 of home value, New Jerseyans pay $820 more in property taxes than their neighbors across the river.

While the property tax's impact on individual homeowners is as clear as Washington's face on a dollar bill, its effect on New Jersey's general economic health may be impossible to quantify. Some evidence, however, suggests worrisome consequences.

Could the property tax also be fueling an exodus?

A recent Rutgers University study notes an inordinate migration of residents from the state. Between 2001 and 2006, 1.1 million New Jerseyans, or one in eight, left, and 883,000 moved in - a net loss that bumped the state out of the top-10 list for population. James W. Hughes, dean of Rutgers' Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and an expert on the Jersey economy, blames the hemorrhage on "a bundle of concerns," from the high cost of living and doing business to growing traffic congestion. The property tax, Hughes said, cannot be teased out as a culprit.

Carolyn DiMedio is hardly so circumspect.

When she and her husband, Ron, bought a house 20 years ago on Kings Highway in Haddon Heights, Camden County, their tax bill was $3,300. They assumed it would be the last home they'd ever own.

That changed on a steamy morning last summer when she opened the mail to find that the assessment on her home had been raised from $318,000 to $957,000, and with it her tax bill, from $16,000 to $26,000.

While Pennsylvania's reassessments are large-scale affairs conducted by the counties, the work in New Jersey falls to municipalities. Several Camden County communities, including Haddonfield and Collingswood, reassessed recently. But when Haddon Heights did, things got ugly.

In 2006, property assessments there stood at only 60 percent of market value. The round of reappraisals adjusted them to 100 percent. The DiMedios' assessment tripled.

The most famous landmark in town is the cannon in Memorial Park - fitting, since Haddon Heights turned into a battleground. In November, the mayor and two of the six council members were voted out of office. Nearly a quarter of the 2,800 homeowners appealed their taxes, including the DiMedios.

The DiMedios' appeal was denied.

"They have taxed me out of my home," said DiMedio, 55, who designs store-window displays. "It breaks my heart to say it. I have been brought to tears."

Her husband, a manufacturing executive, is turning 60. "We want to retire," she said. "But we can't retire and pay this tax bill."

She added, "At this point, I don't want to stay in this state."

The DiMedios posted a sign in their yard: "New Jersey: The Garden State, where we're watching our taxes grow."

Al Lintner, 73, a retired school psychologist, put the same placard on his lawn on South Third Street after his assessment jumped from $124,600 to $332,200.

Below the slogan he wrote the figure "$8,681" - the new tax bill on his cluttered frame house, up from $6,255 last year. Paying it will take about 20 percent of his fixed income. He fears having to give up the modest home that has been in his family since it was built in 1920.