Lackawanna County property owners anxious about the impact of the county’s reassessment on their 2026 tax bills can begin calculating what that impact might be, at least in terms of their county taxes.

The county assessor’s office certified last month new assessed values stemming from the county’s first comprehensive reassessment since 1968. It was essentially the final step in the yearslong process of bringing assessed values used to calculate property tax bills in line with market values, a process that’s designed to achieve tax fairness.

Because reassessment must be revenue neutral for taxing bodies, tax rates set by the county, municipalities and school districts will fall precipitously next year when new assessments take effect to ensure those entities collect essentially the same amount of property tax revenue after reassessment as they did before. The county has already released its reassessment-adjusted millage rate for 2026.

Property owners likely won’t at this point have all the information they need to quantify their total 2026 property tax burden since many local taxing bodies have yet to release their adjusted rates. But, by doing some relatively easy math, they should at least be able to quantify their 2026 county tax bills and compare them to past years.

The same math can be used to calculate municipal and school tax bills once those rates become available.

The numbers

Property owners should have received mailers this year advising them of their property’s new assessed value, which should reflect the market value of the property as of July 1, 2024. Those new assessed values will likely be considerably higher than the old ones since the county hadn’t reassessed in nearly 60 years and properties cost much more now than they did in 1968.

Tax rates, meanwhile, are expressed in mills, a mill being a $1 tax on every $1,000 of assessed value. Next year’s millage rates will be significantly lower than this year’s.

Lackawanna County’s overall millage rate, for example, is dropping next year from 89.98 to just 5.79 mills to ensure the reassessment is revenue neutral as required by state law.

To calculate a 2026 tax bill, a property owner will need to know their new assessed value and the 2026 reassessment-adjustment millage rate set by the taxing body, in this case the county.

The math

Property owners can calculate their post-reassessment county tax bill by multiplying their new assessed value by the county’s new millage rate and dividing that figure by 1,000. Doing so will produce a number they can compare to their pre-reassessment county tax bills.

A general rule of thumb is that tax bills for about a third of properties increase after reassessment, a third decrease and a third remain more or less the same.

Consider the case of a hypothetical property owner assessed at $13,000 before reassessment and $225,000 after.

That property owner’s 2025 county tax bill would be $1,169.74, the result of multiplying 13,000, their old assessment, by 89.98, the county’s 2025 millage rate, and dividing by 1,000.

The same property owner’s 2026 county tax bill would be $1,302.75, the result of multiplying their new assessment, 225,000, by the 2026 millage rate, 5.79, and dividing by 1,000.

Reassessment for that hypothetical property owner will have caused their 2026 county tax bill to be $133.01 higher than in 2025.

Another hypothetical property owner assessed at $10,000 before reassessment and $150,000 after would see their 2026 county tax bill go down modestly, by $31.30, compared to this year’s bill.

That’s because multiplying 150,000 by 5.79 and dividing by 1,000 equals 868.5, expressed in dollars as $868.50. That would be their 2026 county tax bill.

Multiplying 10,000, the old assessment, by 89.98, the 2025 tax rate, and dividing by 1,000 equals 899.8, or $899.80, the amount of the 2025 bill.

Subtracting $868.50 from $899.80 equals $31.30, making their 2026 bill that much less expensive than the bill owed in 2025.

Property owners can use the same mathematical process to calculate and compare their municipal and school tax bills as those taxing bodies release their adjusted millage rates.

Officials at the Scranton School District, which operates on a calendar year budget as opposed to a traditional July-to-June school district fiscal year, estimate the district’s adjusted millage rate will be about 9.53 mills next year. Pat Laffey, assistant to the superintendent for finance and operations, said that number is subject to potential changes prior to final passage of the district’s 2026 budget later this month.

The district’s 2025 rate was 147.85 mills.

Scranton City Council, meanwhile, introduced Tuesday an ordinance setting an adjusted single city millage rate of about 6.35 mills for 2026. The city is switching next year to a single millage rate and ending its longtime practice of levying one rate for land and another for buildings, a change that makes comparing Scranton’s 2025 and 2026 millage rates more difficult.

The county assessor’s office will publish a list of adjusted municipal millage rates for 2026 once the municipalities finalize those rates, county assessment Director Pat Tobin said.

School districts that operate on a traditional July-to-June fiscal year will set their adjusted rates next year when preparing their 2026-27 budgets, he said.