Chermak to host reassessment town hall Monday
Republican Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak will host a town hall Monday afternoon on the county's ongoing property reassessment, an event that follows a series of eight reassessment information sessions held around the county in late February and early March.
Chermak's town hall in the Peoples Security Bank Theater at Lackawanna College, 501 Vine St., Scranton, also comes after residential property owners countywide received their tentative new assessed values pursuant to the reassessment the county initiated in 2022. That's when a prior board of commissioners voted 2-1, with former Democratic Commissioners Jerry Notarianni and Debi Domenick in favor and Chermak opposed, to hire the firm Tyler Technologies to conduct and complete the county's first reassessment since 1968.
Assessed values are what municipalities, counties and school districts use to calculate property tax bills. Reassessment is designed to ensure tax fairness by bringing assessed property values in line with market values.
But because it's been 57 years since Lackawanna County's last reassessment, which preceded the disco era and moon landing, the tentative assessed values county homeowners recently received are likely significantly higher than their old assessed values, especially if those values date to 1968. For context, the median price of a new single-family home in the United States that year was about $24,700.
Higher assessments don't necessarily mean one's property tax bills will be higher next year when the new values take effect, since tax rates will fall to ensure the reassessment is essentially revenue-neutral for taxing bodies as required by law. A general rule of thumb is that about a third of tax bills increase after reassessment, a third decrease and a third stay more or less the same.
But the calculated assessments have been a source of frustration for some homeowners who contend their new values are too high — an informal review process is already underway and formal appeals will be heard later this year — and others wary of the impact of reassessment more broadly. Several frustrated homeowners have voiced concerns at recent commissioners meetings.
Chermak hopes his town hall will mitigate some of that frustration and clear up confusion homeowners might still have about reassessment, confusion that persists despite Tyler and the county's many efforts to educate the public about the process. The GOP commissioner wants the event to be civil and informative.
'This is not a town hall to come and bash the county and bash the reassessment process,' he said this week. 'It's going to give people information on how this process is working, what you need to do if you have questions, how you do your (appeal) hearing, how you get your comparables. This is all just to inform the public on what they need to do if there's questions that they have.'
Attorney Howard Rothenberg will moderate the town hall, which will feature input from commercial and residential real estate attorneys, a professional appraiser and Chermak himself. The panel will provide guidance on appealing assessments, information on how they're calculated and potential property tax relief options available to qualifying homeowners, among other subjects, and take questions from the audience.
Doors open at 5 p.m. and the program begins at 5:30, Chermak said.
Unpopular as reassessment can be politically and otherwise, it's a process proponents contend the county would have had to undertake one way or another.
As part of finalizing the deal with Tyler several years ago, the prior board of commissioners also ratified an agreement postponing further action in a lawsuit filed by three taxpayers seeking to compel a reassessment on the basis of tax fairness. Those litigants specifically alleged the county's 1968 assessments had resulted in disparate taxes on similar properties, with some property owners paying more than their fair share and others paying less, in violation of the state constitution's Uniformity Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Had the then-commissioners failed to commence the long-overdue reassessment, the county court would likely order a reassessment anyway, proponents maintain.
Property owners who still disagree with the new valuations following the informal review process may file a formal appeal. All formal appeals must be filed by Aug. 1, and will be heard in August, September and October.
Final valuations used to calculate 2026 municipal, school and county taxes must be established by Nov. 15.
More information on reassessment is available online at lackawannacounty.org.
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