A financial technology company has done an evaluation of the value of property taxes per county in Pennsylvania, ranking each county on the biggest bang for your tax bucks.
SmartAsset measured property tax rates against the benefits they produce, especially in terms of education and public safety. It studied school rankings (based on scores for math and reading & the language arts), violent crimes and property crimes per 100,000 residents, the number of households, median home values, and property tax rates to calculate a “community score”.
Indiana County ranks 24th in the state, with a school ranking of 7 out of a possible 10 and a crime rate of about 1,800 per 100,000 residents. According to SmartAsset’s scoring, Indiana County’s effective property tax rate is 1.73 percent.
Right behind Indiana County are Clearfield and Cambria, at numbers 25 and 26. Westmoreland County ranks 15th, and our region places two counties in the top ten: Armstrong at number 9 and Jefferson at number 4.
Union County has the top score in the state, followed by Somerset and Sullivan. The worst score in the state is Lehigh County’s, with Philadelphia and Delaware counties only slightly better. Cameron County did not have information available, so SmartAsset only ranked 66 of the 67 counties.
