The lawyer for taxpayers who sued Lackawanna County to force a reassessment has rejected a county request to delay the effective date of new property values.
The new values are scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, and attorney Marielle Macher wants the county to certify the values on time so unfair taxation of many lower-valued properties ends.
“We do not consent to delaying implementation of the reassessed values, and we expect the reassessed values to be certified by Nov. 15, 2025,” Macher wrote in a letter dated Wednesday to attorney John Dean.
Nov. 15 is Saturday. The county must certify the values so the county, school districts and local governments can set new property tax rates for 2026.
Dean defended the county in a 2018 lawsuit filed by three taxpayers to force reassessment. Macher is a lawyer for the Community Justice Project, the organization behind several suits that forced Lackawanna and other counties to reassess to update property values used to calculate taxes.
What the suits said
The suits alleged the owners of lower-valued properties pay an unfair share of property taxes because higher-valued properties are assessed at values too low compared to market prices.
Macher and Lackawanna County agreed to a settlement that forced reassessment to begin in 2022.
For months, county assessment director Patrick Tobin defended the reassessment and planned to certify the new values by Nov. 15. A change in the composition of the county Board of Commissioners and Dean’s request for a delay has raised questions about the county’s intentions.
Commissioner Brenda Sacco, a Democrat, was sworn into the job Oct. 22 and joined Commissioner Chris Chermak, a Republican, in a new cross-party board majority.
Chermak sought delay
For months, Chermak called for delaying the new values, claiming errors in values the reassessment company, Tyler Technologies, developed and fear among taxpayers. At her first commissioners meeting, Sacco said she needed to study the issue more, but Dean asked Macher her position on a delay in a letter Monday.
Dean said the county wants the delay because county notices of new values mailed to taxpayers did not include existing values, and local governments never received any notices of new values. Both are required by state law.
No justification
In her reply letter, Macher said the notice defects don’t justify a delay. The notices referred to 2025 tax bills, which contained the existing property values “so virtually all property owners already had notice of their 1968 values,” she wrote.
She said Tyler Technologies’ evaluation of the new values shows they are far more accurate than existing values. Tyler Technologies, which the county hired for $5.1 million, conducted the reassessment.
“To ensure that owners of lower-value properties are no longer forced to bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden, it is vital that Lackawanna County implement the reassessed values without further delay,” Macher said.
She has publicly threatened to go back to court to enforce the settlement that suspended the lawsuit. County Commissioner Bill Gaughan has warned a delay could cost the county $2.5 million.
Under the settlement, the new values must go into effect Jan. 1.
Repeated efforts to reach Sacco, Chermak and Tobin this week were unsuccessful.
