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.

$29.84M City tax levy — unchanged by reassessment

$53.50 → ~$51 Combined rate per $1,000 — barely moves
(reassessment to 85% of true market value)

~half / half Homes that would pay less vs. more — the burden shifts, the total doesn't

Reassessment shifts burden, it doesn't create money. The city sets its levy in the budget, and the rate is back-calculated to collect exactly that. Because Elmira's homes already sell close to their assessed values — per actual sales, not the state's flat 56% equalization rate — a sales-based reassessment barely changes the size of the tax base or the rate. What changes is the distribution: properties are taxed at their true relative values, so owners of under-assessed (mostly higher-value, appreciated) homes pay more and owners of over-assessed (mostly lower-value) homes pay less. The equalization rate also improves, correcting 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 total levy collected stays the same and the combined rate barely moves. 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 below are estimated from actual Chemung County sales ratios by price tier — which show Elmira homes already sell near their assessed values, so the base grows only modestly and the combined rate moves from about $53.50 to roughly $51 per $1,000. The real change is the redistribution shown in the table.

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	$1,543	−$597
Median Elmira home City median assessed value of $47K	$47,000	~$56,600	$48,100	$2,515	$2,466	−$49
Working-class home Under-assessed relative to market; owner has equity	$70,000	~$98,600	$83,800	$3,745	$4,297	+$552
Upper-middle home Significantly under-assessed; likely long-time owner	$100,000	~$172,400	$146,500	$5,350	$7,511	+$2,161
High-end home Heavily under-assessed; longest-frozen assessments	$150,000	~$326,100	$277,200	$8,025	$14,212	+$6,187

Market values estimated using actual Chemung County sales ratios by price tier. Bills use the combined rate (city + school + county ≈ $53.50/$1,000 now; ≈ $51/$1,000 after a sales-based reassessment, the same $29.84M levy spread over a modestly larger ~$582M base). The large increases on the $100K–$150K rows are real but apply to very few homes — 95% of Elmira homes are assessed under ~$76K — which is why the citywide rate barely moves even as individual under-assessed homes see big jumps. NY law allows phase-in over 3–5 years to soften abrupt changes.

See where you fall. The Fair-Share Map shows every City of Elmira residential parcel colored by whether it's assessed at a higher or lower share of its market value than the typical home — the same over- vs under-assessment this table illustrates, mapped block by block.

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 disproportionately the ones whose assessments have drifted farthest below market value — though a sale offers no guarantee of an update either, since only 1.9% of residential ownership transfers from 2021–2025 saw any assessment change at all. A reassessment would raise bills on whichever properties are currently under-assessed and lower them on whichever are over-assessed, regardless of how recently they changed hands.

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.
Updates are rare and arbitrary, not sale-triggered. Only 1.9% of residential ownership transfers from 2021–2025 received any assessment change — so the roll isn't cleanly split between "recent buyers, updated" and "long-time owners, frozen." It's closer to a lottery: whichever parcels happened to get touched, whenever that was, for whatever reason.

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's assessment roll is frozen and updates almost never happen — even at sale — most homeowners are under-assessed relative to current market value and have no reason to file a grievance; their bill is already lower than it should be, and filing could trigger a closer look at their property. The exception is anyone whose assessed value happens to sit above what their home would actually sell for today.

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 · [email protected] · 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