Jun 3, 2015 2 min read

Once Washington County residents begin receiving new property assessments, their natural inclination if they hope to have their assessment lowered may be to head for the courthouse or Courthouse Square office building.

Neither of these buildings, however, have extra space to handle potentially thousands of informal reviews or appeals, so the county commissioners expect today to enter into a rental agreement for local office space at the Chapman Building for 10 months beginning in January.

Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency, Inc., 351 W. Beau St., will be providing 2,833 square feet of office space at a total monthly cost of $1,744, the sole proposal received.

The agency is sub-leasing space with permission from its landlord, Chapman Investment Limited Partnership, according to information submitted to the county.

There are 52 parking spaces in the lot adjacent to the building, so people who schedule reviews or appeals of their property will not have to pay for parking.

“That’s more than ample space,” said Wesley Graham, project supervisor for Tyler Technologies Inc. He has been working out of the county’s former Youth Development Center across from Washington County Fairgrounds since late summer 2013, but the building in Arden has just 13 parking spaces. This parking lot is considered inadequate for the number of vehicles associated with property owners and attorneys who are expected to schedule either informal reviews or appeals of property assessments.

Tyler Technologies, of Moraine, Ohio, was the successful bidder in August 2013 for the $6.96 million computer-assisted mass appraisal of 118,000 properties in Washington County, and it completed initial data collection for commercial properties throughout the county. Tyler employees will be making second visits in some cases to re-check business properties.

Data collectors are still working on residential properties in several communities, including Peters, Cecil and Jefferson townships, McDonald Borough and several blocks in the borough known as the McDonald Annex. Residential data collectors will be going Monday to Hanover Township and then, to Robinson Township.

Data collectors will be re-checking some of the properties, revisiting some where construction may have taken place after data collection began. When Tyler completed its data collection in a municipality, it sends what it calls a “data mailer” to homeowners who have an opportunity to check the information Tyler has on file.

Tyler employees will be verifying sales of property and grouping properties until mid-July, and they are scheduled to finish this task countywide by the end of July.