The county continues collecting data to go into the upcoming sixth-year property evaluation with about 7 percent of taxpayers opting to provide information online.

Recently the county auditor’s office sent out forms to allow taxpayers to update their properties, if changes have been made, or to verify if current information at the auditor’s office is correct.

“We have had a great response from folks sending them back in, bringing them in by hand or online,” Lawrence County Auditor Jason Stephens said.

Allowing updates to be made online is a first not only for the county, but also for the state, the auditor said.

Approximately 4,000 forms out of 55,000 sent out were returned online.

“We are trailblazers,” Stephens said. “It worked really well.”

Photographers are still in the field documenting properties that, with the data forms, will go into determining the valuation of parcels on Jan. 1, 2016.

“The ones who have responded, we will double check those and if no changes, we will go forward,” he said. “If we don’t have anything on the property, we will send inspectors out or try to contact them. What we are trying to do is get the measurements of the building, what type of roof, is it a brick or frame house? Do you have the age of the house, the kind of foundation correct?”

When all the data is gathered, the auditor’s office, working with Appraisal Research Corporation of Findlay, will begin analysis of the real estate market.

“We want to develop an overall formula that puts a value on the property in Lawrence County, all 55,000 parcels, at one time,” Stephens said. “It is a pretty big task. What the real estate market does in the next nine months will have an effect on the overall value when people pay their taxes in 2017.”