2001-02: Allegheny County did a market-value reassessment, with a parcel-by-parcel review in 2001 and updated with data analysis in 2002. Of the 180,000 appeals, 75 percent were decided in homeowners' favor. The 2001 reassessment cost $24.8 million. Public discontent over the reassessments helped Democrat Dan Onorato defeat his predecessor, Republican Jim Roddey, to become county executive in 2003.
2004-05: The county conducted a market-value reassessment in late 2004 and early 2005 that would have increased property values on average 19 percent. Onorato blocked implementation, saying it would raise property values too much. The reassessment cost $5.7 million, including $3.5 million for a computer system. The average value of a parcel, including commercial properties, was $135,560. Deb Bunn, the county's former chief assessment officer, later testified the system improperly valued some neighborhoods.
Dec. 21, 2005: Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. heard the first arguments in a lawsuit brought by two groups of property owners over the county's property valuation system. Onorato decided to peg all property values to the 2002 assessment to keep them stable. Attorney Ira Weiss represented several new homebuyers who claimed their properties were valued at 2004 or 2005 values instead of the lower 2002 figures. Attorney Donald Driscoll represented property owners in declining communities who claimed Onorato's plan kept their tax bills from being cut to reflect their real value.
Tim Puko is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7991 or via e-mail.
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Allegheny County officials yesterday agreed to perform a court-ordered countywide reassessment by 2012, but County Executive Dan Onorato pledged to keep fighting to change the property assessment system statewide.
The agreement sanctioned by a Common Pleas Court judge could resolve the county's three-year fight over reassessment. But without the urgency of an ongoing battle, state legislators likely would have little motivation to intervene with statewide reform, two state senators said.
"It certainly pushes back the enthusiasm to get one done," said Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, who as a county councilman was council's point man for reassessment issues. "The conversation will take place, but I don't know if it will have any legs. ... It's hard to get votes from legislators who represent areas that don't have to reassess."
County officials promised to reassess the 570,000 properties in the county, earning Senior Judge R. Stanton Wettick's approval. He and state justices previously ruled the county's system is so inaccurate that it is unconstitutional.
County officials said their plan creates a fair system to set property values. They'll do parcel-by-parcel reviews for properties not reviewed in 2005 — about two-thirds of the 570,000 properties in the county. The county and its contractors will perform field reviews, analyze property sales data and factor in building permits to create values to meet the Supreme Court's standards.
The 67 counties in Pennsylvania all choose a base year to use for several years in calculating property taxes. Allegheny County uses values from 2002. The state Supreme Court ruled against this system, because using old values overtaxes properties with declining values and undertaxes those with rising values.
"It is regrettable that Allegheny County has once again been court-ordered to perform a reassessment. But I want Allegheny County property owners to know that this battle is not over; it has only shifted to Harrisburg," Onorato said in a prepared statement.
He said the county would reassess within two years, "but I will also spend the next 24 months fighting to fix Pennsylvania's broken property assessment system and to protect property owners from back-door tax increases and court-mandated reassessments."
Wettick wrote a plan for reassessment, but said the county could use its plan if it reassesses by 2012. Any system for reassessing before 2013 likely would be flawed, county officials said Wednesday — two days before agreeing to comply.
To meet Wettick's deadline, the county plans to delay formal appeals for property owners until after tax levies are set for that year. It plans to use data from a 2005 reassessment that Onorato aborted after his top assessor said it incorrectly valued some neighborhoods.
County officials plan to hire a contractor by the end of March, though it might cost more to get one quickly, they said.
"It doesn't make any sense," Onorato's spokesman Kevin Evanto said. "But the court is making us do this."
Wettick's plan would have given the county until 2014 to fully reassess. But it would have separated the county into four regions and gradually implemented each region's reassessed values. The county would have had to lower taxable property values immediately on declining properties, but couldn't have raised the tax value on rising properties.
County officials believed those factors made Wettick's plan unconstitutional, so they decided to pursue their own plan, Evanto said.
County officials will have to evaluate a two-year backlog of property sales data and add it into the system within four months to keep the plan on time. They did not budget for a reassessment in 2010, and plan to hire a contractor who is willing to wait at least until the next year to get paid, according to the plan.
"For the county to divert staff who are already not able to keep up with their workload to do a reassessment, I think is unrealistic," said attorney Donald Driscoll, who represents a group of property owners who challenged the system.
"A couple days ago, the county's position was they can't do it ... and they're going to need more time. I'm concerned that, because they haven't put any money into this, this coming year that's what's going to happen."