36+ of 38 Municipalities Fail: A Ratio Study of the 2026 Reassessment

Context: The county has published more assessment and CAMA-style information on the public assessor site—certified values, land vs. building splits, assessor notes, and related fields. We wanted another analysis tied to that public record, so we ran the same IAAO-style ratio study using assessment data from the assessor site matched to recent sales in Tyler’s study window (January 2022–June 2024). What’s new on the public side is mainly the assessment / CAMA detail; the sales window is the one Tyler used for calibration. The study lets us compare Tyler’s original 2026 proposed values with what’s certified on the county site today after appeals.

Key results

The detailed verdict is below; here are the headline numbers. We looked at residential homes with a recent arm’s-length-style sale in Tyler’s accepted study window (January 1, 2022 through June 30, 2024), with sale prices of at least $10,000, and we used one sale per property (the latest qualifying sale in that window) so no house is counted twice.

Against Tyler’s original 2026 proposed assessments (before appeals):

COD (Coefficient of Dispersion) — whether similar properties are assessed similarly — is 67.22. The IAAO says it should be below 15 for residential property. That is roughly 4.5× over the limit.
PRD (Price-Related Differential) — a regressivity check — is 1.45. The IAAO band is 0.98–1.03. Outside that band.
PRB (Price-Related Bias) — a stricter fairness test across the value spectrum — is −0.39. The IAAO band is ±0.05. That is roughly 7.8× past the limit.

If we instead measure against today’s certified totals (what you see on the county site now), dispersion is worse, not better: COD 71.61, PRD 1.47, PRB −0.39. Appeals helped individual property owners; they did not fix countywide evenness.

Strict double-check: We also ran the study the way skeptics ask for—only homes, only sales of $75,000 or more, and trimming extreme outliers. COD lands near 28 (original proposal vs. certified) and PRB near −0.31—not a close call against IAAO standards.

By municipality: Among places with enough sales to measure fairly (at least 20 residential sales in the window), only Clarks Green Borough passes the residential COD test. Roaring Brook, Jefferson, South Abington, Newton, and Throop are among the worst outliers.

One pattern worth watching: Among about 8,800 qualifying residential sales, 982 properties show building value under 10% of total assessed value on the county record. That often lines up with land-heavy sales, timing quirks, or improvements that don’t match the sale—the kind of cases assessors and taxpayers argue about in appeals.

What this article is and what it is not

This article is a ratio study: it compares assessed values to actual sale prices using the same family of metrics courts and expert witnesses use in assessment disputes. The IAAO’s Standard on Ratio Studies defines how these tests work and what “passing” looks like.

We are not giving legal advice and not alleging fraud. We are showing what the standard tests produce when applied to official county data from the public assessor site (plus sales in Tyler’s stated window).

The three tests (in plain English)

1. Coefficient of Dispersion (COD)

Uniformity: Are similar properties assessed in the same ballpark? A high COD means assessments are all over the place—some far above sale price, some far below. IAAO residential standard: COD below 15.

2. Price-Related Differential (PRD)

Regressivity: Are less expensive homes taxed harder relative to value than expensive ones? IAAO standard: PRD between 0.98 and 1.03.

3. Price-Related Bias (PRB)

A regression-based fairness test across the whole market. A negative PRB points to systematic bias—cheap homes assessed high relative to sales compared with expensive ones. IAAO standard: PRB between −0.05 and +0.05.

These are the industry’s own benchmarks, not ours.

Countywide scorecard — residential homes, latest qualifying sale per property

We analyzed 8,774 residential sales in the window (before dropping a few with missing rollout values → 8,651 with a full “original proposal” figure). Exact counts can shift slightly depending on how sales are matched to assessment records from the county site; here we use one qualifying sale per property and certified values (and related CAMA fields) as shown on the public assessor site.

Lens	What we compared to	Homes in study	COD	PRD	PRB	Within ±20% of sale
Original 2026 proposal	Tyler’s rollout assessment	8,651	67.22	1.45	−0.39	55.1%
What’s certified today	Values on the county site now	8,773	71.61	1.47	−0.39	55.1%

Remember: COD should be below 15, PRD 0.98–1.03, PRB −0.05 to +0.05 for residential.

Even under strict filters, the tests fail

Filters: residential only, sale price ≥ $75,000, assessment-to-sale ratios trimmed to a reasonable range, latest sale per property.

Lens	Homes	COD	PRD	PRB
Original 2026 proposal	6,755	27.87	1.09	−0.31
Certified today	6,818	28.48	1.09	−0.31

Failing IAAO standards—not a rounding error.

What a deeper pass found

We didn’t stop at the countywide headline. A second pass looked at stability, neighborhood-type slices, and patterns in assessor notes (where the county records short explanations). Takeaways:

684 residential properties had two or more qualifying sales inside the same window. For those, the spread between “highest implied ratio” and “lowest implied ratio” can swing a lot for the same assessment—meaning which sale you pick can change how “fair” the assessment looks. At the 90th percentile, that spread was about 3.2 (ratio units)—a big hint that one sale per house is necessary, but not always enough, for messy real-world markets.
Assessor note keywords (on a sample of records): 79 with language like land-only / land assessed, 385 mentioning splits, moves, or combines, 141 demolition, 130 incomplete or under construction. Those are the kinds of flags taxpayers and boards hear in hearings.
Year built: Very small or “unknown year” buckets can show very high CODs—interesting for stories, but easy to over-interpret when there are only a few hundred sales.
Home size (square footage buckets): Every size bucket we tested showed COD far above 15. Uneven assessments aren’t just “because we mixed mansions and rowhouses in one pile.”
School districts: We can grade uniformity by district where there are enough sales (25+ per district in our cut). Where we had data, results missed professional standards.
Clean & Green / Act 319 overlap: Only 10 residential intersections in-window—too small for a firm countywide claim, but worth watching as data grows.

Fairness across sale prices (original 2026 proposal)

Sale price band	Homes	COD	Notes
Under $75k	1,888	99.0	Worst at the low end
$75k–$150k	2,193	38.4
$150k–$300k	3,419	19.3	Mid-market does not pass COD < 15
$300k–$500k	982	18.4
$500k+	292	26.3

Extreme cases

Among certified residential assessments with a qualifying sale over $25,000, we count 157 properties assessed at at least five times their sale price (assessment-to-sale ratio ≥ 5)—a large tail of extreme over-assessments relative to recent sales.

Appeals

Outcome	Count
Assessment reduced	3,288
No change	1,567
Assessment increased	28
Incomplete record in our file	85
Total appeals	4,968

Taxpayers who won reductions shed about $726 million in assessed value in the aggregate (sum of before-minus-after where the assessment went down).

Note: If you need one “no change” number to match another outlet’s published tally, the 85 incomplete rows are listed separately here—that can shift headline counts by a small amount compared with a single rolled-up figure.

Other property types (certified values, same sale window)

Commercial and land-heavy property types have looser IAAO COD guidance than homes—but these numbers are far beyond typical benchmarks.

Type	Sales used	COD
Residential	8,773	71.61
Commercial	737	96.95
Industrial	156	108.04
Large-lot / acreage-style	208	81.94

How we did it (short version)

Sales window: January 1, 2022 – June 30, 2024 (Tyler’s stated calibration window).
Minimum sale price: $10,000 for the main tables (stricter $75,000 cut for the “conservative” table).
Assessment ratio (ASR): assessed value ÷ sale price.
COD / PRD / PRB: standard IAAO ratio-study definitions applied to that ratio.
Residential: county taxable residential class in the public data.
One row per property: latest qualifying sale in the window (if tied, latest date, then higher price).

At a glance

Topic	Figure
Residential sales analyzed (main cut)	8,774
With original 2026 proposal on file	8,651
COD — proposal vs. certified	67.22 / 71.61
PRB — both	−0.39
Conservative COD — proposal vs. certified	27.87 / 28.48
Municipalities passing residential COD (enough sales to test)	1 (Clarks Green)
Homes assessed ≥5× sale (certified, sale > $25k)	157
Appeals filed	4,968
Reductions	3,288
Assessed value removed on reductions (approx.)	~$726.4M
Parcels in county export we used	~101,000