Vernon to keep up on reassessments by inspecting 20 percent of properties every year

Vernon. The Vernon Township Council agreed on Sept. 21 to pay $100,000 per year for annual property reassessments through 2024.

Under this plan, instead of doing a full revaluation after a decade, Associated Appraisal group will inspect 20 percent of the township’s home per year. After five years, 100 percent of the township’s homes will be visited.

The township’s chief financial officer, Donelle Bright, said the 2019 revaluation cost the township about $1 million. Under this plan, the town can get two revaluations for the same amount of money.

“Also, we’ll have the homes inspected twice over that period of time, instead of just one time for the same amount of money,” Bright said. “I think it’s a win-win for everybody. So, everyone knows that they’re not being over-assessed or under-assessed in any given year.”

Bright said during the 2009 revaluation, some homes were over-valuated and some homes were significantly under-valuated, which results in some overpaying and others underpaying on their taxes for a longer period of time.

“The idea when we do the annual reassessment is to make sure that everybody is paying what they should be paying,” Bright said. “We don’t want taxpayers overpaying for a long period of time based on a valuation that’s not accurate based on the current market. We also don’t want to have people go through the process of appealing those taxes and costing themselves a lot of money to go through that appeals process.”