About 4,200 land and building owners have appealed the new property values developed during Lackawanna County’s first reassessment since the 1960s, county officials said.
That’s fewer than half the 10,000 appeals that county assessment director Patrick Tobin planned for and fewer than the 8,692 informal appeals that people requested earlier.
The final number could rise as formal appeals mailed before the last Friday deadline arrive this week, county spokesman Patrick McKenna said in an email.
Leader OK with fewer appeals
Tobin said Monday he’s happy owners filed fewer appeals than he expected. The county’s informal appeals process probably reduced the number, but other factors could have played a role, too, he said.
“I think it's a combination of people either not knowing about the reassessment, totally not understanding the reassessment, and just some people, I think, are just willing to wait for their tax bill in March,” Tobin said.
The county, school districts, cities, townships and boroughs will use the new values to set new, lower property millage rates used to calculate taxes. Tax bills for 2026 won’t start arriving until late winter, well after the current assessment appeal process ends on Halloween.
The informal appeals represented about 8.4% of all 102,685 land parcels. The formal appeals equate to about 4.1% of all parcels. Once the tax bills are out, the county could see just as many assessment appeals next year as this year, Tobin said.
Appeal hearings underway
Five assessment appeals boards began hearing appeals Monday in a first-floor storefront at the Marketplace at Steamtown.
The hearings are scheduled to continue on weekdays through Halloween or whenever the last hearing takes place. Tobin said he thinks the residential appeals should be done well before Halloween because the number is lower than expected.
Appeals on approximately 600 commercial buildings won’t begin until October because most require private appraisals, he said.
Final new values due in November
The county plans to deliver final values by Nov. 14 so local officials can determine new tax rates.
By law, tax rates will drop because the new values are much higher than the existing values and taxing bodies can’t raise more revenue next year than this year.
For individual taxpayers, taxes could rise, stay about the same or drop, depending on each property’s new assessed value.
The county Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 on May 18, 2022, to approve a $5,178,088 contract with Tyler Technologies Inc., of Plano, Texas, to carry out the reassessment. For decades, the county has relied on assessed values that date to 1968, meaning they are far lower than current market values.
