On May 20 the State Tax Equalization Board (STEB) approved the 2025 Common Level Ratios (CLR) for Pennsylvania’s counties. The CLR “is a ratio that measures how a county’s Base Year Assessments compare with current Real Estate Market Valuations. The only use for this ratio is in the assessment appeal process.” The CLR is a median, not an average, ratio.
The CLR decreases as years pass between countywide reassessments, which in Pennsylvania can be decades. Of the five counties that reassessed for 2026 and now have a CLR of 100, the oldest reassessment dated to 1968, the newest to 2011.
Allegheny County has a 2012 base year. Its CLR had been decreasing but sharply dropped in May 2023 when STEB approved a reduction in the 2020 CLR from 81.1 to 63.5. This resulted from a court ruling over the county’s submission of sales data to STEB, and the legal proceedings have morphed into two separate lawsuits (here and here).
Allegheny County’s 2025 CLR is 49.3. For a property assessed at $100,000, the CLR implies a fair market value of $202,840. If a property owner feels the property would appraise for less than $202,840, a successful appeal could result in a lower assessment and lower property taxes. Allegheny County’s appeal period runs from July 1 to Sept. 1.
Calculating the CLR relies on monthly sales submissions by counties to STEB. In 2025, there were 30,489 sales in Allegheny County. The majority of these–24,565 were residential.
The CLR only uses valid sales, which are arms-length sales with “buyer and seller each acting prudently and knowledgeably and assuming price is not affected by unique stimulus.” Of the 30,489 sales, 9,477 (31 percent) were used to calculate Allegheny County’s CLR that will be used in appeals for all types of property—residential, commercial (including skyscrapers), industrial, etc.
Moving to a regular reassessment cycle would put an end to the CLR—again, a median value that is intrinsically unfair and leads to inequities—and likely a lot of appeal activity. On that front, Allegheny County Council has taken up an ordinance that would perform reassessments every three years, beginning in 2028, while a bill in the state Senate would mandate assessments at on a five-year cycle. A state House memorandum calling for “periodic reassessments” does not specify a cycle. Will one of those measures advance in order to put an end to the status quo of reassessment inaction in Allegheny County?
