A blog from January noted “property assessments will be a dominant issue for [the Government Review Commission].” At the Aug. 12 commission meeting, a property assessments and taxation draft report was released. It states “[r]eassessment remains a source of significant public anxiety while post-COVID changes in commercial real estate, housing demand, and development patterns are affecting the property tax base, and, in turn, shaping the fiscal environment in which local governments make decisions about their budget, tax policies and service delivery.”
The report states “Allegheny County should keep its assessment roll reasonably aligned with the underlying property market through reassessments conducted at regular intervals. The precise interval is a policy choice …”
The policy choice is the critical issue since Pennsylvania allows counties to use a base year or current market value for assessing property. Given the fear of costs and political ramifications, most counties reluctantly do one and some only after being ordered by a court.
From 1986 to 2026, 54 counties conducted at least one reassessment, with two dating to 1986. Twenty-two counties reassessed either two or three times, with years elapsed between reassessments ranging from two to 37. Allegheny County’s court-ordered reassessments went into effect in 2001 and 2013.
The commission endorsed the proposal introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate in July 2025—getting all counties except Philadelphia on a five-year schedule. But that legislation has been in committee since its introduction and a recent news article quoted the sponsor as saying “[n]obody wants to touch it” and that “some proponents would rather see them happen every eight to 10 years.”
Failing state-level change, or if the county seeks flexibility, the commission recommended that the county “ … adopt a regular reassessment schedule that would begin in the first year of each County Executive term.” The goal is to remove political considerations—no word on how the County Council seats that would be on the ballot two years into the process would feel. The initial reassessments might even take five years while the county prepares for the process. The commission mentioned, but did not support, the three-year cycle proposed in a County Council ordinance.
The report’s other reassessment recommendations—public education, clarity on notices and bills, using statistical tools—are all good, but will do little if years continue without a reassessment and there is no decision on when to do a subsequent one.
Deciding between three, four or five years (this was touched upon at the commission’s meeting in April) should not delay what should have been a regular occurrence for many years. A court ruling could also alter efforts to get on a schedule. Pennsylvania is an outlier on the issue of updating assessments. Taxpayers deserve better.
