The Warren County Commissioners intend to proceed with a county-wide property reassessment.

It’s been a subject kicked around for years as the county was last assessed in 1989.

However, the results of a recent study commissioned to provide data on the situation produced results that are clear.

Commissioner Ben Kafferlin said the report outlined “a major problem, bad enough we want to act.” He acknowledged that a property reassessment has a “usually negative connotation.”

“We can’t increase the overall amount of money we bring in,” he stressed, noting that a reassessment is “equalizing” property taxes.

He acknowledged the litany of corporate tax assessment appeals — Walmart, Lowe’s, Hampton Inn and Northwest — that have been filed in the county in recent years.

Kafferlin said the county is “so sure we would lose the case” that settling, which results in those entities paying less in taxes, is the result.

He speculated that roughly one-third will see their taxes go up as a result of reassessment, one-third will go down and one-third will remain the same but the end result is “everyone on an equal playing field.” He added that residential taxes may decrease some because of the businesses being reassessed.

“It’s been talked about for years,” he said, explaining he always viewed it as a “gray issue” without hard data to justify action.

That’s where the ratio study came in, concluding — based on international standards — that some are paying twice what they should be while others are paying half.

The report, Kafferlin said, provided a “very definitive answer.”

He said the school district had hired an attorney to sue the county and force its hand and that the study said the county would lose, resulting in a court-mandated reassessment.

“We wanted to keep as much control over the process,” Kafferlin said, noting that the county, school district and municipalities “do all agree (reassessment) does need done” and are “working together pretty well.”

Reassessment will be expensive. And it will take time.

Kafferlin said a request for proposals would be put out with the goal of selecting a firm by the fall and having the staff on board to do the work, which will take a year, by next summer.

He speculated the first adjusted tax bill will likely be 2025 or “at best” 2024.