The Monroe County commissioners were once again confronted by residents with questions about the new real estate property reassessments.

At their meeting on Wednesday, state Rep. Tarah Probst, of Stroudsburg, spoke during public comment. She said she’s been “bombarded by constituents” with questions about the issue.

Probst said it would be helpful if the commissioners could give a breakdown of why the tax increase was 37% and why they are doing a reassessment again. She would like to have a standard answer for people.

“Honestly, I’m as outraged as they are to be honest with you. I don’t like it either. Our houses were just reassessed in 2019,” Probst said. “Right now, my county taxes are as much as my school taxes. I should not be paying $5,500 in the borough of Stroudsburg for just the county. I mean, that’s crazy.”

Probst said she is concerned that a higher assessment this year will cause problems down the road if in 10 years, for example, there is a recession. People could find the value of their houses being half of what it is in the reassessment.

Commissioner John Christy, the chairman of the commissioners, said a flier will be published soon explaining why the common level ratio is at 4.75, and the current assessment values.

“All we’re trying to do is bring the current values into place,” he said.

Houses are selling for much more than they were even five years ago, and the current assessed values and actual market values are “out of whack,” Christy said.

“So what we’re just trying to do is right the ship,” he said. “It’s revenue neutral. In other words, some go up, some go down, some stay the same.”

As for property values being too high and it hurting people down the road, Christy said real estate values typically only go up.

“The only way housing values go down is through a recession or a depression, and we don’t want to see that,” he said.

Chief clerk Robert Gress said a page about the assessment would be up on the county’s website soon. He also said the county did send out notification in January to residents explaining the tax increase.

Gress said the county website shows the county’s costs and where it gets funding, including from the federal and state budgets, and what that funding doesn’t apply.

“We get no money from the state or federal government for corrections,” he said, and added that the correctional department costs the county $22 million.