Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton The Warren County Commissioners including Jeff Eggleston, left, recognized retiring Grants Administrator Lorri Dunlap, right, for 24 years of service. “It’s been my honor,” Dunlap said, calling it “rewarding helping people.

The county commissioners have taken a tangible step toward reassessment by affirming a timeline proposed earlier this week.

But they continue to stress that the process will be revenue neutral and that, in the words of Commissioner Ben Kafferlin, the effort could be a “positive for homeowners overall.”

Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said the resolution “sets the schedule for county-wide reassessment” in 2023 and 2024 “after a series of collaborative actions.”

Those actions are approval of two county initiatives — a tax rebate program as well as a landbank proposal.

“There are a couple minor requests of the school board in this,” he said, “small pieces of legislation, one they have had åç 2019. We look at this as a collaborative effort to move this (issue) forward.”

He explained Wednesday’s action on the resolution “will set the stage and schedule for the administration to move forward with the process of initiating reassessment…. Although this is a challenging topic for a lot of folks, everyone agrees it is much needed in Warren County.

“As a result, our ratios and matrix related to assessment is out of whack and needs to be fixed. So this will do that.”

It’s expected the process could take between 18 months and two years to complete once a contract is approved. The contract has a target of early next year.

“This does not mean a tax increase universal,” Kafferlin stressed. “If it does raise your taxes, you’ve been paying under your fair share.”

He said more individual homeowners would see their taxes go down than raised and Eggleston added that the process has to be revenue neutral for the county.

Reassessment “resets the landscape so we don’t have the challenges to the assessments like we’ve had in the past,” Commissioner Tricia Durbin said. “That’s also a positive for the community and the county.”

LANDFILL CLOSED

Eggleston said that “right before this meeting” he received a letter via email from the Department of Environmental Protection “that they finally certified the closure of the Grunderville Landfill.”

He noted its been a five or six year project and he thanked County Planner Dan Glotz for “being an unbelievable resource” on the project.

The end result is that several hundred thousand dollars in a closure fund will revert to the county.

Kafferlin credited Eggleston’s “tenacity” and efforts “driving this.”