It's up to Allegheny County property owners who challenge the values placed on their real estate to prove those new assessments are wrong.
That was the message representatives from the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review brought to members of county council last week. The board, known as B-PAAR, is the quasi-judicial, independent agency that handles formal property assessment appeals.
With the county in the final weeks of completing the first property reassessment in 10 years, the appeals board is gearing up to hear thousands of challenges to the new numbers.
Following court orders, the county will continue to use 2002 base-year numbers as the basis for property tax bills this year, with the new values going into effect in 2013, after most appeals have been decided.
David Montgomery, the appeals board solicitor, told council that hearing officers must assume that the values county assessors place on real estate are correct. It is up to property owners to provide evidence that the new assessments are incorrect, he said.
"People have to do their homework before they arrive for their appeal hearings," appeals board chairwoman Phillis D. Lavelle told council.
A certified appraisal may offer the most persuasive evidence, council members were told. Recent sales of comparable properties also can persuade the hearing officer that an assessment should be modified, Ms. Lavelle said.
A sale within the past one or two years carries more weight than a transaction several years earlier, she said. The more similar the physical dimensions of the properties being compared and of the neighborhoods in which they are located, the better the "comparable," she said.
Ms. Lavelle and Mr. Montgomery were invited to discuss assessment appeals at council's committee on economic development and housing. Council is considering a motion proposed by Councilman Matt Drozd, R-Ross, asking the appeals board to make its operations more transparent.
While Ms. Lavelle and Mr. Montgomery were able to explain the basics of making appeals, they told committee members they could not answer questions on the methods assessors used to calculate the new property values.
That response did not satisfy Councilman Bob Macey, D-West Mifflin. "A lot of people have been shocked by these new assessments," he said. "We need someone here to explain how the company got these new numbers ... how the home of an 89-year-old widow in Duquesne could double in value."
The company Mr. Macey referred to is Cole Layer Trumbell, the consultant hired by the county to assist with reassessment. The consultant, a subsidiary of Tyler Technologies, is using more than two dozen mathematical models, along with on-site visits and sales information, to calculate new values for almost 600,000 parcels across the county.
Committee members plan a follow-up meeting, this time inviting representatives of Cole and the county's Office of Property Assessment.
The appeals board operates with a core staff of 20 to 30 hearing officers who listen to assessment cases. They then make recommendations to the board, which has the final say on value adjustments.
Common Pleas Court Senior Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr., who is overseeing the court-ordered reassessment, has said he would like all appeals of new values heard during 2012 -- before the assessments are used to calculate taxes.
In an effort to meet that goal, the appeals board is doubling the number of hearing officers to 60. That number eventually could rise to as many as 100 temporary positions, Mr. Montgomery said.
Hearing officers, who are paid $225 a day for presiding over appeals, are real estate professionals or attorneys with experience in real estate law.
Property owners in Pittsburgh, Mount Oliver and the county's eastern suburbs have until April 2 to request formal appeals of their new assessments. Those same property owners have until Wednesday to request informal hearings.
New assessment numbers are to be mailed to property owners in the southern suburbs by Feb. 20. Residents of municipalities to the west and north of Pittsburgh will get their new values on March 2.