Andy Close
WARREN, Pa. – It’s been over 40 years in the making, but Warren County is finally closing in on property reassessment.
During Monday’s work session, Commissioner Jeff Eggleston confirmed that a study from both the assessment values in the county and the Council of Governments (COG) committee both support reassessment.
“The county has had a longstanding conversation about reassessment,” Eggleston said. “The report is pretty emphatic that the county should execute a reassessment. COG has pushed for reassessment as well.”
Eggleston detailed a prospective schedule with fellow commissioners Tricia Durbin and Ben Kafferlin in the hopes of approving the schedule during Wednesday’s regular meeting.
“I think we should adopt the schedule so everyone is on the same page,” Eggleston said. “We’ve reviewed all of the previous proposals. This schedule is based on those reviews. It’s not set in stone. The schedule will be decided by whatever proposal we adopt.”
Eggleston also explained how the county approving reassessment would require the Warren County School District to sign off on a landbank initiative as well as a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) program.
“I read the resolution and am comfortable with it,” Kafferlin said. “But it’s unfortunate that they (school district) have to put the carrot in about LERTA and the landbank. Those two things should stand on their own.”
As far as reassessment goes, Eggleston has already had conversations with many of the county municipalities.
“I’ve already had conversations with them,” Eggleston said. “There’s several I can think of off the top of my head that we can count on for support.”
The goal moving forward is to make reassessment a more frequent process.
“It is a large undertaking, given the length between county reassessments, but the goal moving forward is to have them every seven years so there isn’t as much cost incurred,” Kafferlin said.
“They get cheaper the closer they are because you are not changing very much,” Kafferlin added. “It’s recommended that we do a reassessment every year for a county of our size.”
