Three retiring members of Allegheny County Council will join with two colleagues at the Dec. 16 meeting to sponsor a motion that “authorizes the County Solicitor to pursue legal action seeking a declaratory judgement from the appropriate court(s) against the Commonwealth holding that the Commonwealth’s Assessment Code is unconstitutional as applied to and within counties in Pennsylvania, ordering the General Assembly to remedy the clear constitutional deficiencies … in a uniform fashion that is applicable to all counties within the Commonwealth.”
The motion comes one week after Pittsburgh City Council passed a “will of Council” to urge the county to begin a reassessment.
The county is actively defending itself against lawsuits filed by Pittsburgh Public Schools and two separate taxpayers seeking a reassessment. The Department of Law might just find itself in the same courtroom on different days either urging change from the state or defending the county against doing the thing it seeks the state to change.
The department’s 2026 budget is $4.5 million and it will be interesting to see how much of that gets spent on reassessment litigation.
The proposed motion mentions the Supreme Court’s 2009 Clifton decision and how the court noted the General Assembly would have to amend the assessment laws. Currently, there is proposed legislation in a state Senate committee. Why urge legal action now?
Maybe the council members see the legislation’s prospects as very dim. A proposed council ordinance that would use statistical triggers to indicate when a reassessment is needed has been in committee since May 2024.
Five counties in Pennsylvania just wrapped up reassessments by certifying new values and adjusting millage rates. The range of years since the last reassessment was as far back as 1968 to as recently as 2011. It is anyone’s guess as to when there would be a follow-up.
Pennsylvania’s outlier status on this issue is well past due for a fix.
