Recently we wrote about the preliminary data and information we gathered on the Washington County reassessment, the County’s first in 35 years. We have written numerous times on the need for the state to reform its assessment laws to have some type of regular interval between reassessments.
Two eastern Pennsylvania counties, Lancaster and Monroe, indicate that they are undertaking reassessments that will go into effect in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In Lancaster’s case, the county adopted a resolution twenty years ago setting up an eight-year cycle for revaluation and last performed a reassessment in 2005. Final notices for values are to be mailed June 1st of this year. Based on the County’s financial report it has $32.2 billion in taxable real estate value currently and the County budgeted $117 million in property tax collections for the current year.
Monroe County has gone significantly longer, last reassessing since 1989. It is still using a pre-determined ratio (ratio of assessed value to market value) of 25%, so a new reassessment will be similar to Washington County’s in that there will be an update of values and also a change in PDR to likely reflect a 100% ratio. In its current budget year the County projects collecting $40 million in property taxes.