Who the Assessment Freeze Protects

What Reassessment Would and Wouldn't Do

A common misconception: reassessment doesn't raise taxes. It realigns who pays what.

$557.7M Current taxable base

$742.9M Projected taxable base at 85% equalization
(residential only, commercial unchanged)

+$185M Increase in taxable base (+33%)

Reassessment shifts burden, it doesn't create money. If the taxable base grows 33%, the city's tax rate drops proportionally — the levy stays the same. But two important things change: (1) properties are taxed at their true relative values, so owners of undervalued properties pay slightly more and owners of overvalued ones pay slightly less; (2) the equalization rate improves, which corrects the state-level calculations that distribute school and county tax burden across jurisdictions.

What reassessment can't fix is the exemption burden. The $355M of exempt value doesn't become taxable with a new assessment. The prisons, hospitals, and college would still pay nothing. Reassessment addresses equity and accuracy; the exemption burden requires different tools — most notably PILOT negotiations with the largest exempt institutions. See the full PILOT analysis →

Who Wins and Who Pays More

If Elmira reassessed every residential property to 85% of its market value — bringing the city roughly in line with neighboring Horseheads — the taxable base would grow and the tax rate would fall. The total levy collected stays the same. What changes is who pays it.

The 85% target is used here because Horseheads, Elmira's closest comparable, assesses at 88% of market value. It's a realistic goal, not a theoretical maximum. Market values in the table below are estimated from actual Chemung County sales ratios by price tier. Current combined rate: $53.50/$1,000. New rate on the larger base: $40.17/$1,000.

Household	Current Assessed Value	Est. Market Value	Reassessed Value (85%)	Current Bill	New Bill	Change / Year
Distressed home Over-assessed relative to market — vacant-adjacent or severely deteriorated	$40,000	~$35,400	$30,100	$2,140	$1,209	−$931
Median Elmira home City median assessed value of $47K	$47,000	~$56,600	$48,100	$2,515	$1,932	−$583
Working-class home Modestly under-assessed; owner has equity	$70,000	~$98,600	$83,800	$3,745	$3,366	−$379
Upper-middle home Significantly under-assessed; likely long-time owner	$100,000	~$172,400	$146,500	$5,350	$5,885	+$535
High-end home Heavily under-assessed; longest-frozen assessments	$150,000	~$326,100	$277,200	$8,025	$11,135	+$3,110

Market values estimated using actual Chemung County sales ratios by price tier. Bills shown are city combined rate (city + school + county ≈ $53.50/$1,000). New rate derived from the same $29.84M levy spread over the larger $742.9M taxable base. NY law allows phase-in over 3–5 years to soften abrupt changes.

Estimate Your Own Bill

Enter your current assessed value to see what your bill might look like under the 85% reassessment scenario. City of Elmira properties only.

Your current assessed value ($)

Market value override (optional, $)

Why the Freeze Persists

A stale assessment roll is a political choice, not an accident.

Mass reassessment is legal, feasible, and routinely done by other NY municipalities — but Elmira has not done one in many years. The reason isn't technical or financial. It's political: a reassessment redistributes the tax burden. Long-time homeowners, who tend to vote in higher numbers, are the ones whose assessments have drifted farthest below market value. A reassessment raises their bills. Recent buyers, who paid market-rate prices and were assessed accordingly, would see their relative share go down — but they are a smaller and less politically organized constituency.

Reassessment has upfront costs. The city must hire contract assessors, notify every property owner, and staff an appeals process for the inevitable challenges. For a city with budget pressure, this looks like a significant investment for a politically painful outcome.
The "reassessment doesn't raise revenue" framing obscures who it helps. It's technically true that a mass reassessment doesn't change the total tax levy — the city sets a rate against the new base to collect the same amount. But it does raise taxes on specific households (those with stale, low assessments) and lower them on others. The winners are largely invisible; the losers are loud.
Rate increases are politically easier in the short term. Rate increases spread the pain across everyone proportionally. The city can point to rising costs and a fixed rate of assessment growth. The cumulative inequity is diffuse and hard to mobilize around.
The perverse incentive compounds. Properties that sell get reassessed toward market value; properties that don't sell stay frozen. This creates a quiet tax penalty on economic activity and mobility — active buyers pay proportionally more than long-time owners who are staying put.

What a Reassessment Actually Takes

The "it costs too much" objection has a concrete answer: New York State subsidizes reassessments and provides direct technical assistance.

NYS ORPTS — the Office of Real Property Tax Services — runs a Reassessment Assistance program specifically to help municipalities like Elmira. The state reimburses a portion of reassessment costs and provides technical support, including access to statewide sales data and appraisal methodology guidance. The upfront expense, long used as a reason to delay, is partially covered by the state that mandates the equalization system in the first place.

The typical process for a NY municipal mass reassessment:

Decision and budget appropriation. The City Council approves funding. This is the gating step — without a budget line, nothing moves.
Hire a mass appraisal contractor. The city issues an RFP and selects a licensed appraisal firm. These firms have experience with NY municipal rolls and know the ORPTS certification requirements.
Data collection and field work. Assessors visit and photograph properties, update condition records, and gather sales data. For a city the size of Elmira (~9,600 residential parcels), this takes several months.
Preliminary roll and owner notification. Every property owner receives a notice of their proposed new assessed value, typically 30+ days before the formal grievance period opens.
Grievance Day and Board of Assessment Review. Property owners who disagree with their new value appear before the Board of Assessment Review. A higher volume of challenges is expected in a reassessment year — this is normal and built into the timeline.
Final roll and state certification. After appeals are resolved, the final roll is filed and certified to NYS ORPTS, which updates the equalization rate. The city sets a new tax rate on the larger base to collect the same levy.

A full mass reassessment in a city the size of Elmira typically takes 18 to 24 months from budget authorization to certified final roll. NY law allows the city to phase in the resulting value changes over up to five years, which limits the size of any single year's increase for households whose assessments rise significantly.

Van Etten and Veteran — two small Chemung County towns — both completed mass reassessments to 100% of market value in recent years. Their equalization rates now sit at 100% while Elmira remains at 56%. The tools and precedent exist within the same county.

Who Has to Act

A mass reassessment doesn't happen automatically. It requires deliberate decisions by specific people in Elmira city government.

The Assessor cannot order a mass reassessment alone. The city assessor is a mayoral appointee responsible for maintaining the roll on an ongoing basis — updating individual parcels when they sell, handling grievances, and certifying the annual roll to the state. A mass revaluation of all ~9,600 residential parcels requires a budget appropriation, which means it requires authorization from the Mayor and City Council.

The Mayor proposes the annual budget and sets the administration's priorities. No reassessment has been included in Elmira's budget in recent memory. It would take a mayor willing to absorb the political backlash from long-time homeowners whose bills would rise.
The City Council approves the budget and could add a reassessment line item or instruct the administration to apply for ORPTS assistance. Council members represent ward-level constituencies where frozen assessments disproportionately benefit older, longer-tenure residents who vote reliably.
NYS ORPTS can pressure municipalities through the equalization process — a chronically low equalization rate signals assessment decay — but cannot compel a city to conduct a mass reassessment. The state sets the rules and subsidizes compliance; it cannot force the political decision.

The assessment freeze is, at its core, a decision made by elected officials who are more accountable to homeowners with stale assessments than to recent buyers or renters paying inflated taxes indirectly through landlord pass-through. That constituency imbalance doesn't resolve itself without organized pressure.

Grievance Day

Every year, Elmira property owners can formally challenge their assessed value. Most people shouldn't — but a specific group almost certainly pays more than their fair share.

Because Elmira assessments are frozen, the city's roll has split into two groups: long-time owners with stale low assessments, and recent buyers whose assessments were bumped to their purchase price at sale. Long-time owners are under-assessed and have no reason to file — their bill is already lower than it should be, and filing could trigger a closer look at their property. Recent buyers are a different story. Their assessed value was set at or near what they paid, while their neighbors in identical homes might be assessed at half as much.

If your home is assessed at $40,000 or below, you should file a grievance. At that level, Elmira's own sales data suggests the typical home is worth less than its assessed value — meaning you are already over-assessed. A house assessed at $40,000 has an estimated market value of around $35,000. You are paying taxes on $5,000 that doesn't exist.

How to file

Confirm your assessed value at the Chemung County real property portal (chemung.sdgnys.com) or on your tax bill.
Gather evidence. Recent sale prices for comparable homes on your street are your strongest argument. Condition issues (structural problems, vacancy nearby, deferred maintenance) also support a lower value.
File Form RP-524 with the City of Elmira Board of Assessment Review. Forms are accepted after July 1 and on or before the third Tuesday in July each year. Available from the City Assessor's Office at City Hall, 317 E. Church St.
Appear on Grievance Day — the third Tuesday of July, 4:00–8:00 PM. Appointments are recommended. The hearing is informal; you present your evidence and the Board decides.
If denied, appeal to SCAR. For owner-occupied one- and two-family homes, the Small Claims Assessment Review is a simplified proceeding before a state hearing officer. Nominal filing fee, no attorney required.

City of Elmira Assessor's Office: 607-737-5670 · assessor@cityofelmira.net · 317 E. Church St, City Hall (Mon–Tue, Thu–Fri 8:30–4:30). NYS ORPTS grievance guide: tax.ny.gov — Contesting Your Assessment.

Who the Assessment Freeze Actually Protects