A property reassessment is coming to Warren County now that a $1.7 million contract with Vision Government Services has been approved by the Warren County Commissioners.

It’s been more than 30 years since properties have been reassessed in Warren County, and an already outdated set of assessment data has been even further skewed by an increase in home sales in excess of assessed values. One could have argued whether or not a property reassessment was needed a few years ago, but the recent market makes the reassessment necessary, and this is a good time to do it if the market is beginning to cool off. What’s happened in the past few years makes it likely many property owners in Warren County are paying too big a share of the county’s property tax burden while others are paying too little.

That’s why a reassessment is needed.

Property reassessments are not popular. We’re sure county residents are going to be upset simply by the news that the long-discussed — and often set aside — property revaluation is going to be a reality as soon as Vision Government Services is finished with an ongoing reassessment in Clarion County. To those taxpayers, the most important thing to keep in mind is at the end of the process when they can contest the new assessment if they feel it is unfairly high. Keep documentation in order to make your case.

The goal of a property reassessment is not to raise governments’ tax revenue. The goal is to make sure everyone is paying their fair share of the county, school and local tax burden. And part of meeting that goal is making sure the reassessment team doesn’t go too far in changing a property’s assessment.

The topic has been discussed for many years. The time for talk is done. Commissioners have made the right call in selecting a firm and moving ahead. The best path moving forward is a more regular reassessment so the county isn’t waiting three decades to reassess properties — it’s a much smaller and less expensive job if reassessment is done fairly regularly and, frankly, it’s much more fair that way, too.