Back on Track: Property Value Update Community Engagement Campaign

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

The Back on Track program was a first-of-its-magnitude community outreach campaign to promote citizen understanding and engagement in Montgomery County, Ohio’s 2017 assessed property value update. This campaign had an estimated 1.5 million impressions on Montgomery County residents and was able to reach the county’s 180,000 property owners an estimated 4-6 times each. It reached Montgomery County residents through a comprehensive effort with six strategies: video advertising, earned news coverage, community outreach events, countywide mailings, property owner phone hotline, and one-on-one property value review meetings. These efforts were carried-out between December 2016 and March 2018 and promoted a consistent message: Montgomery County property values are “Back on Track.” The program gave property owners an understanding of the property value update process, its results, and the appeal opportunities available. This addressed two major challenges: property taxes are very complex and property owners did not understand the assessment process. On top of that, Montgomery County was particularly hard hit during the Great Recession and subsequent housing market crash. After drastic property value decreases in the previous two property value updates, property owners were not well informed about the relationship between increasing values in the 2017 update and property taxes.