Property Reassessment

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter
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Luzerne County will mail another 4,853 formal assessment appeal board rulings on Wednesday, according to reassessment company 21st Century Appraisals Inc.

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County officials had announced plans last week to add another mailing, but didn’t have a count until Monday.

The mailing covers rulings on appeals heard through Dec. 5, said 21st Century representative Tim Barr. Some of these property owners have been waiting for decisions since hearings in July.

However, the owners of up to 2,000 properties who had hearings through Dec. 5 will still have to wait until Jan. 5 for their decisions because their appeal results are still undergoing auditing, Barr said.

Another 1,000 assessment appeals are scheduled to be heard through Dec. 23, he said.

The 4,853 property owners have 30 days from the date of the mailing, or Jan. 9, to take their challenge to the rulings to court.

These property owners likely won’t get to court-level mediation until the summer because 853 challenges have been filed to date, and roughly 20 to 40 mediation conferences are expected to be heard per week.

Wednesday’s mailing also includes 732 revised notices stemming from new construction or corrections to property descriptions, Barr said. Appeals on these properties won’t be heard until 2009, Barr said.

The mailing also includes 263 lingering informal review decisions for property owners who never preserved their right to formal appeals and 84 value changes for property owners who withdrew or failed to appear for scheduled formal appeals, Barr said.

Property owners who withdrew from or canceled formal appeals won’t receive a decision order if there is no change of value stemming from informal reviews, he said.

All changes should be loaded into the county’s online reassessment database at www.courthouseonline.com by today, Barr said.

Roughly $269 million in assessed value has been removed from the tax base since the Nov. 15 certification as a result of formal appeals, according to Barr.

The tax base was about $20.3 billion at certification. As of Monday, the base had decreased to $20 billion, Barr said.

He plans to run another status report at the start of the year to show what, if any, impact the reductions will have on estimated new millage rates for municipalities, school districts and the county.

The combined assessed value of all properties in the county was $21.6 billion when the change-of-assessment notices were mailed.

On the Web

To see a chart of the latest millage rate estimates, go to www.timesleader.com. Click on the “local property assessment database” box and then the Nov. 23 article, “Figures show tax value shifts.”