Intentions
The purpose of this site is not to enable individuals to scrutinize their neighbors but to provide information and comparisons to ensure Clarion County acts in the best interests of its taxpayers. To focus on property values rather than individuals, we have removed names from the data obtained through the Right-to-Know process. Our goal is to highlight apparent issues with Clarion County's approach to tax appraisals.
There are a few key points to understand about the data maps. They are derived from a combination of reappraisal data and information obtained from the county’s GIS Parcel Viewer website.
(An interesting side note: Since we published our article on February 6th, “County Tax Burden by School District”, in which we mentioned extracting data from the county maps, the GIS Parcel Viewer website has been taken down. We’ll leave it at that—though we hope we don’t sound like conspiracy theorists.)
One major issue with the data is inaccuracies regarding the physical location of parcels. Many large farms, mineral exploration companies, and private camps have mailing addresses that differ from the actual parcel location. This location is commonly referred to as the Situs Address. However, neither the data obtained through our right-to-know request nor the data extracted from the Parcel Viewer website contain the correct situs addresses. As a result, some anomalies appear in the maps, where parcels seem to be located outside county lines. This occurs because, in the absence of a situs address, the plots are mapped to their mailing addresses instead. That said, the tab 1 labeled “Based on $ Change by District” accurately reflects the school district in which each property is physically located.
Both maps visualize data based on the actual dollar amount increase in parcel taxes rather than percentage increases. This approach better highlights the significance of the changes. In some cases, the bubbles or heat signatures represent multiple parcels owned by a single entity.
For example, one bubble represents a combination of parcels owned by the same entity, which experienced the following increases in county tax burden:
These figures exclude school taxes. Their current county tax burden stands at $3,970 and will increase by $14,020, bringing the total county tax burden to $17,900. Keep in mind that this amount does not include additional tax burdens from school districts and other municipalities.
Another noteworthy anomaly is the large parcel situated between Williamsburg and Wentlings Corners near I-80 on Boyd Run. Several parcels appear at this location due to inaccuracies in the databases regarding parcel addresses. It is likely that these addresses fall outside the county lines and are based on mailing addresses rather than actual situs addresses.
Alas, the maps. Please reach out and let us know if you would like any additional views of this data. Contact Us Here
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While we are awaiting the outcome of our appeal to the Office of Open Records regarding our latest RTK request for commercial data, we've been reviewing the residential data in the meantime.
It's important to clarify that this data does not pertain to school taxes. Instead, it reflects county tax revenue distributed by each school district. The dataset is a combination of information obtained through RTK requests and data extracted from the County Parcel Viewer (which you can explore to view property lines, similar to OnX Maps {Mysteriously, as of 7:40am 2/8/25, the county hosted map is offline. Thank goodness we already have the data}). We utilized this data to identify which school district each property belongs to.
The two main areas of interest are:
See the data attached below:
 County Tax Burden by School District.pdf | 61 kB | 133 Downloads | 2025-02-06 20:37 |
In Clarion County, Pennsylvania, the school district with the highest property tax rate is currently the Clarion Area School District, with a real estate tax rate of 65.73 mills. A mill represents $1 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed property value. This means that for each $1,000 of assessed property value, homeowners in the Clarion Area School District pay $65.73 in school property taxes.
By comparison, the Redbank Valley School District's property tax rate is lower, at 46.84 mills. It's important to remember that property tax rates can differ within the county depending on the specific school district and municipality. Therefore, the total property tax rate for a property depends on its location within the county.
For the 2024-2025 school year, the millage rates for school districts in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, are as follows:
A millage rate represents the amount of tax levied for each $1,000 of assessed property value. For example, a rate of 65.73 mills means that for every $1,000 in assessed property value, $65.73 is collected in school taxes.
Here's where the issue arises: If a home in the Clarion Area School District was assessed at $43,683 in 1975 but is now valued at $470,400, the school taxes would rise dramatically from $2,871.28 to $30,919.39 per year if you continue to use the current millage rate of 65.73. Clearly, such an increase is unsustainable, and the district would need to adjust the millage rate to reflect the new assessments. In this example, assuming no change in the county tax burden (meaning the county taxes remain the same despite the reassessment), the new school millage rate would be about 6.10 mills.
The formula for calculating millage rate is:
Millage Rate = (Taxes / Assessed Value) × 1,000
Applied formula:
6.1039 = ($2,871.28 / $470,400) × 1,000
With the majority of properties (78%, according to the provided calculations) facing an increase in county tax burden due to the new assessments, school taxes will also rise proportionally. In short, if you notice an increase in your tax burden, it's not just your county taxes going up—it may also affect your school and municipal taxes.
For more detailed information on the current millage rates, you can refer to the Clarion County Assessment Office's official documents.
| 2024 Millage Rates.pdf | 156 kB | 437 Downloads | 2025-01-20 14:37 |