The first phase of the countywide reassessment approved by the Lycoming County Commissioners at the end of last year has started as data collectors begin the job of visiting property owners in some municipalities to obtain the information needed to determine property values.

The last reassessment in the county was done in 2004 and property values have changed drastically since then.

“You’re talking 20 years of market fluctuations and changes and that fact would lead you to believe that the assessed values no longer represent fair and accurate assessments across the board,” said Steve Wise, senior project supervisor for Tyler Technologies, Inc., the company contracted to do the reassessment.

“The goal is to have a fair assessment, a fair market value. So when you have that long of a period of time between assessments, your uniformity is not where it should be,” he added.

Reassessments are done periodically in order to make sure that the tax burden is distributed fairly amongst taxpayers so that no one is paying more or less than what they should for their fair share of taxes.

Various trends and economic factors can affect market values.

COVID, Wise said, “changed the dynamics of how people work.”

“That was one of the big things, and that’s happened between the last reassessment and now, so we want to know how those economic factors have resulted in potential changes in the market value,” Wise said.

Once the assessment is completed the new assessed values will become effective in 2028.

“The information we’re gathering now is for down the road. It’s not for today, tomorrow or next week,” Wise emphasized.

“But the first step is we have to see what we have before we can assess and put a value on it,” he added.

Many people equate reassessment with having to pay higher taxes, but that is not always the case.

“A lot of that can be answered by the fact that the county operates on a revenue neutral reassessment which means the taxing jurisdiction budgets the exact same amount of property tax revenue in dollars for the upcoming budget year as they did for the current assessment,” Wise said.

What that means, is if a taxing body, such as the county uses a million dollars of property tax revenue in the current year, they can only use one million in the next year in order to be revenue neutral If they plan to use more tax dollars in their next budget year compared to the current year that would exceed the current revenue neutral and they would have to have a public hearing and get that approved in order to spend that amount.

“Reassessment does not increase or decrease tax revenues. The total tax burden is basically distributed across the board more fairly-that’s the point. A property’s annual assessment should reflect its fair market value,” Wise said, adding, “That’s our job.”

“The state mandates that we assess values that are in line with the market so our job is to make sure that we assess at a fair market value,” he explained.

As market values go up or down, assessed values may not reflect those changes.

“That means some of the taxpayers could be paying more than their fair share. They may be over assessed. A reassessment does not necessarily mean that your assessment will increase. If your assessment does increase, it does not necessarily mean that your taxes will increase” he said.

“You can have an increase in value and not necessarily represent an increase in taxes,” he said.

The market dictates the value of a home or commercial property. If there is a decrease in the value for a certain property class, then taxes would likely decrease. If it’s a similar to average change for that property class, the taxes would likely not change. However, if it’s higher than average for a particular property class, the property owner will most likely see an increase in taxes.

Another concern taxpayers have is that reassessment will encourage the government to spend more.

“The county, municipalities and school districts are capped by law on how much additional revenue can be generated from each assessment,” Wise said.

“Following the reassessment, property tax rates will be adjusted to ensure these taxing bodies do not collect more than allowed by statute. Millage rates will be adjusted to take into account the new assessed values,” he said.

He stressed again that reassessment doesn’t increase or decrease tax revenues, it only “apportions the total tax burden more fairly by setting new assessed values.”

“While the overall impact on a community is capped by state law, individual property owners may see their taxes increase, decrease or stay the same,” he added.

The new reassessment will also record new improvements to properties, but it will not be used to uncover code violations.