TimesLeader.com

August 16
County reassessment foes seek allies

IAN CAMPBELL Times Leader Correspondent

JACKSON TWP. – A meeting to oppose Luzerne County’s reassessment held at the Jackson Township Fire Hall Friday ended up having three purposes.

The first, in the words of Michelle Boice, of Harveys Lake, was to pull as many people as possible to publicly protest Monday on the lawn of the Luzerne County Courthouse and to press commissioners to support a proposal from Commissioner Greg Skrepenak to delay reassessment for at least a year. Boice told the more than 100 people gathered it was important they came Monday to wave signs that showed it was more than simply a disgruntled group of residents from Harveys Lake who were protesting questionable property valuations.

The concerns raised by the assessment process would take longer than a simple four-week extension to resolve, especially if that period was only to process the current appeals rather than examine new ones. Commissioner Maryann Petrilla had supported an extension for that purpose, Boice said.

The meeting also heard from Venango County resident Geraldine Wike, who outlined the eight-year history that his county had with 21st Century in its appraisal process. Many of the same issues raised in Luzerne County had been raised in Venango, including questionable error rates and an unwillingness to fix problems.

The significant difference between the two counties was that Venango did not charge property owners fees to correct errors, she noted. That stance had also been taken by Perry, Cumberland, Union and Tioga counties. Tioga County had stopped its reassessment because there were too many errors in the process, according to documentation provided at the meeting.

The final part of the meeting challenged the position that taxing real estate was the only fair way to raise school revenue.

David Baldinger of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition noted that the school tax bills were the largest cost to any taxpayer, and a model based on a sales tax and small earned income tax had the potential to spread the tax burden more equitably over the entire state.

He urged support of a state House bill designed to do that, which locally had only been supported by Rep Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake.