“[I]t is further the judgment of Council that there is a significant likelihood that the County will be forced to conduct another court-ordered reassessment if no corrective action is taken, and that the unpredictable timelines and specifics of court-ordered reassessments inure to the detriment of the County’s property owners while presenting logistical and budgetary difficulties for the county itself…”
This passage from an ordinance introduced in March leapt off the page and into reality at a Sept. 14 meeting of the committee considering the proposal. After a summer of public hearings on the ordinance that would mandate a three-year cycle of reassessments beginning in 2028 and the release of assessment recommendations by the Government Review Commission, council members are now wondering what their role is and how the process will play out following an August court ruling mandating a reassessment that is to be underway by next July.
Among the questions raised: will the council have influence over the selection of a contractor, or will it be up to executive branch? Will the reassessment be computer driven, involve workers visiting homes and businesses or both? How much will it cost? Can county departments handle the workload? Why will it take until 2032 to finish the reassessment? If the ordinance is amended, must it be identical to the court order?
When the discussion focused on a recurring reassessment timeline—the intent of the ordinance—there was debate on the merits of three- or four-year intervals. Concerns about a flood of appeals when the next set of values goes into effect—it could be 19 years between updates—and how long it might take to resolve them seemed to make the four-year option palatable.
The court order’s timeline means possibly five more years of millage rate decisions, Common Level Ratios and appeals tied to the 2012 base year affecting county, municipal and school district budgets. If new values go into effect at the start of 2033, the first county-initiated reassessment might go into effect in 2037.
This could have been avoided if a reassessment schedule was set and adhered to many years ago, an action the Allegheny Institute has long recommended.
