Yes, We Have No Enforcement

A column over the weekend pointed out that while state law spells out what has to happen to tax rates after an assessment in Allegheny County and its municipalities, along with school districts in Allegheny County and across the state, it is ultimately going to fall on the citizens-possibly with the help of elected officials that watch the public purse such as county and city controllers, the Auditor General’s office, etc.-to pay attention to what has happened to their millage rates thus far and what will happen soon as school budgets are adopted for the coming fiscal year.

The primary sponsor of the law that pertains to Allegheny County and its municipalities, Act 71 of 2005, noted "There’s nothing in law that says [local officials who don’t follow procedures] get thrown in jail…The whole purpose was not to let them hide behind these windfalls".

To reiterate, any non-school taxing body in Allegheny County would have to set their millage rate at a revenue neutral level, and then, in a separate action-which contrasts with the previous law-could take a vote to raise millage so that the taxing body could get up to 5% more in revenue. If they wanted more, they could petition the courts, which happened in Monroeville.

To the point of the column, we wrote about the question of "what happens if someone violates the law" in the February 2012 Brief mentioned above. We did note that "A serious shortcoming of the laws is that they don’t spell out who is in charge of ensuring that taxing bodies follow the requirement, nor specify what, if any, punishment should be imposed for refusal to follow statutory requirements…Clearly, refusal by elected officials to comply with state laws ought to be grounds for severe punishment, including possible removal from office".