A controversial state plan to adopt a countywide assessing system is continuing to engender opposition from Kenosha-area officials.

They — and any other interested residents — will have the opportunity to speak out Jan. 6 in Waukesha.

The 10:30 a.m. to noon event at Waukesha County Technical College, 800 Main St., is the state Department of Revenue’s only countywide assessing town hall session scheduled in southeastern Wisconsin.

Paris Chairman Virgil Gentz plans to be there.

“I just think it’s a very poor idea,” Gentz said recently.

Local municipal officials and Kenosha County Executive Jim Kreuser are questioning how they would pay for the state’s proposal.

Specifically, the state is proposing to require each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties to create property assessment operations that would supplant a patchwork of municipal assessors.

Full revaluations of all properties would be required each year, with appraiser walk-throughs mandated at regular intervals.

A Department of Revenue official has said the goal is to explore economies of scale — nearly 2,000 municipalities now fund their own assessment operations — while bringing Wisconsin in line with the vast majority of states that use countywide or statewide assessing systems.

If all properties are assessed each year, the state would also be able to cease the annual practice of calculating equalized values for all municipalities, a tool aimed at achieving property value parity across municipal lines.

Unknown, however, are the true costs of the state program and just how much assistance, if any, counties would receive from Madison.

“With all the things going on in the state of Wisconsin and the lack of money and other things, I just feel that this is not the time to look at Kenosha County being the big brother when it comes to assessing,” Gentz said.

Randall Chairman Bob Stoll said he is waiting to hear more details about the proposal. Stoll said it appeared to him the state was trying to off-load some of its own expenses onto counties and local authorities.

Randall is now a part of a multi-jurisdictional assessing consortium led by Pleasant Prairie Assessor Rocco Vita. It’s a longstanding arrangement with which Stoll is satisfied.

“I would like to see it stay just the way it is,” Stoll said. “Rocco does an excellent job of keeping us informed. He comes to our meetings at least once a year with an update, and he answers all of our questions.”

Kreuser has been critical of the state’s proposal, calling it “a Cadillac program” that he believes is unnecessary for the Kenosha area.