A Common Pleas judge’s ruling ordering Allegheny County to begin a full property reassessment no later than July 1, 2027, might not be The Great Panacea some are making it out to be.
In fact, it might only exacerbate the problem.
On Monday, visiting Armstrong County Judge Kenneth Valasek ordered the reassessment, the first since 2013, must happen by 2032.
But as Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute, notes:
“Five years to do a reassessment? The early valuations will be out of date by the time it is complete.”
And while an initial county statement claimed that the decision also ordered mandatory assessments every five years thereafter, the Tribune-Review’s Paula Reed Ward says that’s not the case.
It still will be up to the county to legislatively make that decision. A County Council proposal would mandate reassessment every three years (which we believe to be prudent) while a Government Review Commission is recommending four-year intervals.
Perhaps the court order will be the impetus to pass such legislation. But past being prologue, foot-dragging still could win the day.
Speaking of the county, Chief Executive (ACE) Sara Innamorato, who said the county will abide by the court’s ruling, was quick to absolve herself –and, by proxy – two past ACE administrations for not taking any reassessment action.
“In an ideal world, Pennsylvania would join other states and require regular reassessments statewide, rather than leaving individual counties to navigate this issue on their own,” Innamorato said.
But the county has always had the power to order its own reassessments and repeatedly declined. Political expediency is a powerful corruptor of sound public policy.
A rah-rah-sis-boom-bah 25th anniversary story in a local newspaper about Acrisure Stadium does an absolutely fantastic job of glossing over the absolutely wretched behavior of the politicians of the day who absolutely ignored the public’s absolute rejection of using tax dollars to build the thing.
The story even describes then-Mayor Tom Murphy as laughing when recollecting his administration’s “Regional Destination Financing Plan,” with a $1 billion-plus price tag (for two new stadiums, a tripled-in-size convention center and paying off the debt of and paying for demolition of Three Rivers Stadium).
Said Murphy in the Sunday story: “We had no idea how we were going to pay for it.”
Laughing, mind you, over disgusting public policy behavior.
Equally disgusting is the fact that the only voices in the story are those that sing the praises of the highjacked and perverted process, tout the supposed (and quite dubious) grand, macro-economic gains from the football stadium – along with sweetheart-deal developments between what first was Heinz Field and baseball’s PNC Park — and set the stage for what likely will be yet another raid on the taxpayer kitty to pay for major upgrades to Acrisure or, perhaps, a total replacement.
This “news story” is nothing but a sickening piece of boosterism and revisionist history all wrapped into one that does a grave disservice to the facts, then and now, and taxpayers, who had their pockets turned out by the barons of sport and their toadying political allies.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
