June 4, 2025 --Lackawanna County will conduct an expected large number of assessment appeal hearings in the Marketplace at Steamtown, 300 Lackawanna Ave., Scranton. Commissioners Bill Gaughan and Chris Chermak approved a lease for the space at Wednesday’s regular commissioners meeting.

The county is conducting its first comprehensive reassessment of property valuations since 1968. Valuations are the basis for property taxation by the county, municipal governments and school districts.

County property owners already have received new tentative valuations for their properties. The informal appeal process, in which about 9,500 property owners questioned their tentative valuations, has concluded. Letters informing property owners of final valuations will be mailed by June 20, according to Patrick Tobin, director of the county Department of Assessment. Those letters will include instructions on how to file a formal appeal.

Appeal hearings will begin Aug. 1 and continue, five days a week, through Oct. 31. To accommodate the expected large number of appeals, the commissioners have appointed four auxiliary appeals boards to assist the permanent county Board of Assessment Appeals. All boards will conduct appeals in the marketplace. The permanent board will handle all commercial property valuation appeals.

The space is on the first floor, between the Electric City Aquarium and Lehigh Valley Health Network. It is large enough to enable all five reassessment appeal boards to hear cases simultaneously. Under the terms of the lease agreement, the space will be occupied by the assessment appeals boards from Aug. 1 to Oct. 31 and will cost $3,700 per month, which includes the cost of the space and its utilities. The county will validate garage parking to ensure that it is free.

Brian Jeffers, county chief of staff, emphasized that the space in the Marketplace at Steamtown allows for convenient parking and accessibility.

“We scouted a bunch of locations and this is actually the best one,” Jeffers said.

Once all appeals are resolved, the new valuations will be used by local governments and school districts to set 2026 property tax rates. Tobin noted that the new valuations are not relevant to current 2025 tax bills, and that the new valuations cannot be used to estimate 2026 taxes, which will be set when local governments and school districts adopt their 2026 budgets.

-- Brittain Banull, Lackawanna County Staff