When the Warren County Commissioners approached the Warren County school board more than a year ago, they had a proposition.

The commissioners were attempting to bring the board on board with a tax abatement program.

Board members were interested, but were concerned about the fairness of the county’s taxes as a whole.

They countered with the possibility of a county-wide reassessment to level the field.

On Monday, the board revisited that idea.

Board member Arthur Stewart said he met with Director of Business Services Jim Grosch and Solicitor Chris Byham to talk about reassessment.

“There has not been a county-wide reassessment since 1989,” Byham said. “When you go that long without a reassessment, the values that were put in place no longer reflect the current market values.”

“I have the belief, that because of all the tax appeals, the people that are filing the tax appeals are paying less than their fair share,” Stewart said. “It’s a loophole because of the antiquated assessment.”

And that results in “every other taxpayer… carrying more and more of the tax burden,” he said.

“In the past, the board has talked about and considered assessment and reassessment,” Byham said. “The goal is to create fairness and create equity. The goal is not to increase revenue or to burden any particular taxpayers.”

Stewart brought some options to the finance committee and the rest of the board, should they decide to move forward.

The issue is a difficult one for commissioners — a reassessment would cost $1 million or more.

“I’ve never heard a commissioner come out and say, ‘I’m for a reassessment,’ because they’d also be saying they want to spend a million dollars,” Stewart said.

The reassessment has to be revenue neutral — tax revenue after the reassessment must be the same as before. So, if the value of property in the county has doubled since the last reassessment, the millage rate would be cut in half. Some property values would go up more than the average for the county. Those owners would see higher taxes. Some property values would go up less than the average and those owners would owe less.

The committee general favored moving forward with a request for more information.

Stewart suggesting asking the commissioners for that information, then moving to a Right-to-Know if the commissioners did not cooperate.

He suggested the board could take steps in-house, hire a third party contractor, or hire legal counsel to get the information they need to move forward.

“Let’s ask if they’re willing to share the information,” Board President Donna Zariczny said. “If we run into a brick wall, we go back to our option 1 here.”

“You and the finance committee have already been polite and nice,” board member Jeff Labesky said to Stewart. “None of the information that you were requesting was difficult to come up with. I find it extremely unprofessional that an elected party like the commissioners would not even respond. Their request for us to pass LERTA prompted this discussion. When we request more information, we get ignored. It’s a complete embarrassment for the commissioners not to respond.”

Stewart pointed out that there is a different board in place now than there was at the end of 2019 and suggested starting by giving them a chance to cooperate — possibly with “a very short time-frame for a cooperative exchange.”

If the commissioners do not voluntarily conduct a reassessment, the school board might be able to force them to.

“There is an avenue,” Byham said. “The board could file a lawsuit compelling to county.”

Given how old the current assessment is, “I think that type of litigation would have a very strong likelihood of success,” he said.

Committee members agreed to discuss the issue again at their February meeting and possibly prepare a plan for board approval in March.