What you are about to read is incredible but true. Early in 2002 a property with a single residence on it was purchased in Lower Saucon Township for $185,000. The stately 1848 stone house was over 2500 square feet in size and the land measured about 1.8 acres. The property had about 200' of frontage on the Saucon Creek and was privately situated in a very desirable area of the township.

If you recently purchased property in Lower Saucon you would realize that the price for the property was quite low or there was something about the property you didn't know. In this case, the house was completely gutted. There were no internal walls, the house was in need of complete rewiring and plumbing and could have used a new roof. There was only one bathroom sorely in need of work and no kitchen. Did I mention that 37 acres of prime land adjacent to this property sold as a single building lot for $695,000 but were only assessed by Northampton County for $277,000 after the sale?

Over the course of the next couple of years the new owners poured money into the property all the while taking out the proper permits for all the improvements made to the home. In the fall of 2005 they had a small addition built and again they took out a permit for the work which has since been completed.

When the property was originally purchased the "fair market value" that had been assigned by Northampton County was $151,400. The "fair market value" today is also $151,400. That is, although the owners completely renovated the inside of the 2500+ square foot home and applied for and received all the necessary permits for the work, and even though Lower Saucon Township officials mailed copies of all the permits to the Assessment Office of Northampton County, and even though I called the Assessment Office of Northampton County to inform them of the renovations over two years ago, the officials in Northampton County have done NOTHING.

So, of what consequence is this nonfeasance? Well, let's assume for the moment that the property has a real fair market value of $300,000 now that the work is finished. The difference between the County's "fair market value" and the real fair market value is $148,600. For the sake of this discussion it's safe to say that the improvements cost at least that much so the $300,000 real fair market value is a very conservative estimate. The millage rate back in 2002 and 2003 was $37.53 per $1000 of assessment. The millage rate is multiplied by 50% of the County's "fair market value" to determine the school taxes for the Saucon Valley School District. (Why 100% is not used is a question no one really knows the answer to. I asked an employee in the Assessment Office about that and that's what I was told. They also said, "We've just always done it that way.") So the district, really the rest of the taxpayers, lost out on $2788.48 just for each of those years. But realize also that the millage rates have been increasing thanks to the real cost of residential development, so actually the loss for this one property is increasing all the time. Check out the chart below.

Year	Millage	"Fair Market Value"	Assessment since 1995	Loss of Revenue
2002	37.53	$151,400	$75,700	$2788.48
2003	37.53	$151,400	$75,700	$2788.48
2004	40.01	$151,400	$75,700	$3028.76
2005	47.06	$151,400	$75,700	$3562.44
2006	49.61	$151,400	$75,700	$3755.48
			5-Year Total	$15,923.64