We find it continually amazing how Allegheny County officials spend so much time, energy and taxpayer money doing everything they can to avoid establishing a regular regimen (we prefer every three years) of property reassessments.
That lack thereof – it’s been more than a decade now and that last one was court-ordered – continues to violate the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Uniform Taxation Clause.
And it has only cemented gross unfairness into a system in which those with higher property values have been able to skirt paying their fair share of property taxes while those with lower property values have been paying more than their fair share.
But, hey, park your consternations, dear taxpayers. Allegheny Council has unleashed its member mice to nibble around the edges of the problem.
As the Post-Gazette reports it:
“A County Council committee approved two bills [last week] aimed to streamline the process related to property assessment appeals, which what one supporter said will create a ‘cradle to grave’ process that will be more efficient for property owners.”
Sorry, but the greatest operational efficiency would be to overhaul the broken assessment system, not to streamline the process to appeal the consequences of the long-broken system.
Why is this so difficult for so many levels of government bureaucrats to comprehend?
Speaking of the property assessments mess, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), which is suing Allegheny County to force a reassessment, has shot back at a judge hearing the case who, parroting a county claim, said the district could go a long way in remedying its complaint simply by raising taxes.
As the P-G reported on the district’s latest court filing:
“Tax increases, it told visiting senior Judge Kenneth Valasek, are ‘not a viable long-term solution’ to fix an Allegheny County assessment system that it describes as ‘broken and inequitable.’
“School attorneys made the argument in objections … after Judge Valasek notified the district and the county in December that he may take into account the district budgets from 2022 through 2025 in deciding whether the reassessment lawsuit should proceed.”
Further from the PPS filing:
“As the Downtown commercial tax base continues to erode, these projected operating deficits will likely increase over time,” it added, noting that the district is limited by Act 1 on how much it can raise taxes, the P-G said.
“Tax increases also do not bring stability or predictability to the overall tax base, which are necessary for accurately setting annual budgets,” the district filing stated.
Exactly. Yet the self-anointed geniuses, in county government and on the bench, somehow believe that jacking up school taxes, while the assessment system remains broken, is a solution.
Covering one’s behind never has been a “solution,” and never more putrid.
As with case the first, as with case the second: Simply put, reassess. Follow the law. And quit playing such juvenile games.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
