Monroe reassessment to be finished for 2020 taxes Mailers heading to homeowners to review property data

Monroe County tax bills will be based on the new assessment in 2020.

The county commissioners provided an update to the ongoing assessment on Wednesday.

The reassessment began almost two years ago and is expected to be complete in November of 2019.

The data collection phase, which consisted of state level photographing of properties and a home visit to collect additional information is complete. This phase took longer than originally planned due to extreme winter conditions and Tyler Technologies, the company hired to do the reassessments, difficulty in hiring sufficient employees to collect the data.

The second phase is underway with mailers going out to homeowners. All but a few townships have already received the mailers. The letter that includes all of the information Tyler collected, a street-level photograph and information, such as how many square feet of living space and number of rooms.

Residents are asked to review the information on the mailed copy and return it with any corrections to Tyler at the address included on the mailer.

“This is the first opportunity that residents will have to correct and of the information collected by Tyler Technologies,” said Commission Chairman John Moyer. “This is an important first step in determining if the collectors were accurate.”

Moyer said that only about 40 percent of the residential mailers sent out have been returned so far. Only about 10 percent of the commercial ones have been returned.

The third phase is just beginning. This is the Preliminary Valuation Phase and it is when the first valuation of properties will take place, according to Moyer.

The collected data and qualitative data regarding land values will be combined, and the preliminary valuations will be reported on a website. Homeowners will receive notice of preliminary valuations by April of 2019.

“In an effort to be as transparent as possible, homeowners will be able to see their property value and that of other properties similar to theirs,” Moyer said.

The website will make it easier for property owners to determine if the valuation of their respective property is “fair” related to other similar properties location in a common location.

Moyer said once the preliminary valuation and website are complete, an informal review will take place from April 1 to June 1, 2019. On July 1, 2019, certified value will be sent to property owners.

The period of formal appeal before the review board will take place within 40 days of the date of the certified valuation. And it must be complete by Nov. 15 in order for the 2020 tax bills to be sent out. The townships have to have the correct tax information to determine the budgets and correct millage rates. These budgets will be formalized from Nov. 15 to Dec. 15. This will be the first time that property owners will see the impact of the reassessment.

According to Moyer, historically property owners usually fall into one of three categories, a third have traditionally gone up, a third down and a third have stayed the same.

Moyer said that the difference at this time may be that the preliminary information seems to indicate that commercial properties in the county have been greatly unvalued during the 30 years since the last major tax assessment was undertaken.

“There has been tremendous commercial growth in the last 30 years,” Moyer said. “Hopefully, commercial properties will be bearing a greater portion of any tax increases.”