A Lackawanna County judge quickly denied the county’s request on Friday to delay the effective date of new property values developed during a three-year reassessment process.
President Judge James Gibbons denied the request for a one-year delay without further comment in a one-sentence order filed less than two hours after the county made the request.
The denial could clear the way for the certification of the new values by Saturday as planned by county assessment director Patrick Tobin.
The county must certify the new values so the county, school districts and local governments can set new property tax rates for 2026.
In his request for a delay, attorney John Dean, the county’s lawyer, said the county wanted the delay because 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.
In a letter to Dean dated Wednesday, attorney Marielle Macher, who represented two taxpayers who sued the county in 2018 to force reassessment, 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.
The new values are scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, and Macher wants the county to certify the values on time so unfair taxation of many lower-valued properties ends.
Dean defended the county in a 2018 lawsuit filed by 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.
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 and for the new values to go into effect Jan. 1, 2026. The county hired Tyler Technologies of Plano, Texas, to conduct the reassessment for $5.1 million.
For months, Tobin defended the reassessment and planned to certify the new values by Nov. 15 and the county planned to let him. A change in the composition of the county Board of Commissioners and Dean’s request for a delay 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.
For months, Chermak called for delaying the new values. At her first commissioners meeting, Sacco said she needed to study the issue more. She hasn’t commented publicly since, but the county asked Dean to go to court Friday to seek the delay.
Commissioner Bill Gaughan has delaying unnecessary and pointed to a Tyler Technologies evaluation that said the reassessment was highly accurate. Delaying it could cost $2.5 million, Gaughan said, citing a Tyler manager’s estimate.
"Commissioner Chermak and Sacco’s desperate attempt to blow up reassessment and cost the taxpayers of Lackawanna County $2.5 million dollars next year has failed," Gaughan said in a statement Friday. "And now, with their political stunt rejected in court, we are moving forward and on track to certify the values as required by law."
Repeated efforts to reach Sacco, Chermak and Tobin this week were unsuccessful.
