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<p>While property assessment challenges often force Luzerne County to pay refunds, the county will gain nearly $108,000 more from one that recently settled, records show.</p><p>The receipt stems from a $6.9 million assessment increase for the United States Cold Storage Inc. warehouse facility in Hazle Township&#8217;s Humboldt Industrial Park.</p><p>Exercising a process known as a reverse appeal, the Hazleton Area School District successfully argued the prior $16.6 million assessment was too low and negotiated a settlement with the property owner to raise it to $23.5 million this year, according to court filings.</p><p>Hazleton Area presented assessments of comparable warehouses to demonstrate the Hazle Township facility was under-assessed, said local attorney Raymond Wendolowski, who handles reverse appeals for Hazleton Area and several other school districts.</p><p>&#8220;The taxpayer was cooperative,&#8221; Wendolowski said. &#8220;There was a lot of give and take, and the resolution is fair.&#8221;</p><p>Like assessment challenges arguing values are too high, reverse appeal decisions are retroactive to the date they were filed, which in this case was 2014.</p><p>According to the court order cementing the settlement, the assessment was incrementally increased to these amounts: 2015, $17.6 million; 2016, $18.6 million; 2017, $20 million; 2018, $21.5 million; and 2019, $23.5 million.</p><p>As a result of these changes, the company received a retroactive bill from 2015 through 2019 owing the school district $191,632 and the township $13,630 in addition to the county increase, assessment records show.</p><p>In total, the company must now pay a combined total $419,318 in school, county and municipal taxes with the new assessment under current tax rates.</p><p>United States Cold Storage Inc. provides refrigerated warehousing and related logistics services throughout the country, online reports say.</p><p>The 32.57-acre Humboldt Industrial site is on North Park Drive and includes a structure measuring more than 400,000 square feet, assessment records say.</p><p>Earlier this year, the Hazleton Area School District obtained reverse appeal increases for the 25-acre Weis Markets commercial property in West Hazleton, the Sheetz property in Hazle Township and an apartment complex in Butler Township.</p><p>In addition to Hazleton Area, Wendolowski said he has been involved in pursuing reverse appeals for the Wilkes-Barre Area, Crestwood and Wyoming Valley West school districts.</p><p>Through reverse appeals, these school districts are fulfilling their responsibility to &#8220;make sure everyone is paying their fair share,&#8221; the attorney said.</p><p>Property owners have the right to file challenges annually if they believe their values are too high. But unless reverse appeals are filed, properties that are assessed too low will not be altered until the next countywide reassessment, Wendolowski said.</p><p>The county administration has argued a reassessment of all 167,800 parcels is not warranted at this time because the state&#8217;s outside analysis of sales data concluded the values are still accurate. The last reassessment took effect a decade ago, in 2009.</p><p>&#8220;Unless school districts pursue their rights, only the taxpayers get an assessment reduction. This helps balance the assessment system,&#8221; Wendolowski said of reverse appeals.</p><p>He stressed the reverse appeals are not a negative reflection on the assessor&#8217;s office, which he says &#8220;consistently does an incredibly good job at valuations.&#8221; The properties typically identified for reverse appeals are &#8220;very complex&#8221; and require extensive collection of additional data to demonstrate an increase is warranted, he said.</p><p>&#8220;Our work simply supplements what they do,&#8221; Wendolowski said, referring to the assessor&#8217;s office.</p><p>The county paid about $463,000 on assessment appeal refunds this year through October, requiring a $40,000 budget transfer to boost the $450,000 earmark to pay them, records show.</p><p>More large commercial reductions, some retroactive several years, are settling due to a push to resolve inactive cases, officials have said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wendolowski </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_Wendolowski-Ray-1-.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wendolowski </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jennifer Learn-Andes</p><p>jandes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Luzerne County receiving revenue from reverse tax appeal