Schuylkill County residents will be getting a preliminary reassessment of their properties in the mail by the end of April.

That’s the next step in the county’s reassessment process, said the author of the reassessment.

Tim Barr, of Vision Government Services Inc., the firm the county hired to do the reassessment, told about three dozen people who came out for a meeting Tuesday night at the Tamaqua Middle School that the process that began in 2023 will come to fruition this year in time to take effect in 2026.

By the end of April, proposed valuations of properties will be sent to property owners, and informal reviews will be held.

Barr said the informal reviews are held for the purpose of reviewing information on which the proposed assessment was based, not to debate the proposed valuation.

The formal change of assessments will be mailed on or before July 1, and then formal appeals will be held between July and October.

Once the official changes are sent, property owners will have 40 days to appeal the reassessment. Then the county will have 20 days to schedule a hearing. But the burden of proof to disprove the reassessment falls on the property owner, Barr said.

Barr said many people fear their taxes will go up. While some property owners’ taxes will go up, the reassessment is meant to make taxation fair. The reassessment will be “revenue neutral” meaning they if taxes go up, property tax millage will be reduced a like amount.

As an example, Tioga County, which did a reassessment recently, yielded 41% whose taxes changed $150 or less; 27.8% whose taxes went down $150; and 32% whose taxes went up $150.