A deal on the table between the city of Warren, Warren County School District and Warren County means a parcel owned by Whirley Industries will not see a tax decrease for 2024.

Prior to the upcoming Warren County property reassessment, Whirley Industries had begun a Real Estate Tax appeal in 2023 in an attempt to lower its tax assessment for 2024 on property that houses a warehouse n Harmar Street. After two years of negotiations – and an April 2025 court hearing – a formal offer from Whirley’s legal counsel proposed what is known as a walk away, which would leave the assessment “as is.”

“The county commissioners and the Warren County School District have indicated they wish to accept the offer,” said Andrea Stapleford, city solicitor. “If the settlement is not accepted the matter is scheduled to go to trial, which could expose the city to further legal expense and we would be at the mercy of the judge ruling for an even greater reduction in the tax assessment.”

The city, school district and county were represented in the case by the Knox Law Firm. Councilman Jared Villella, an employee of Whirley, asked if he had to recuse himself from the vote on the settlement, with Stapleford saying he did not because he will not benefit personally from the settlement.

“They made a tax assessment appeal and went through the process but didn’t get to the point where they change anything and decided basically to drop it,” said Mayor Dave Wortman. “They’re not going to pursue it any further. So nothing has changed other than the due diligence to figure out where things were at.”

The settlement was approved unanimously by the council. The deal was also on the agenda for Wednesday’s Warren County Commissioners meeting, with commissioners unanimously agreeing to the deal as well.

Nathaniel Schmidt, county solicitor, said part of the negotiations was a two-day hearing earlier this year that included extensive cross-examination and examination of the expert witnesses for both the company and local governments. Schmidt said the transcript and proposed findings of fact helped prompt the walk away proposal.

“This is a really positive result for the county because it preserves the value for the property that was in place,” Schmidt said. “I think there were probably a number of factors um including the upcoming reassessment but I also think um in litigating we were able to find some weaknesses in their expert report. No expert’s ever going to be perfect, but we did get a result that probably couldn’t be more favorable to the county at this point because we have

preserved 100% of the tax base that we came into the appeal with.”