Regular state-mandated property reassessments would provide school districts with more predictable revenue streams from property taxes and ensure all property owners pay no more than their fair share, experts and local officials said Monday.
During a Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing in the Allegheny County Courthouse, officials urged lawmakers to require all counties to reassess property values for tax purposes every three years.
The hearing came amid a time of declining property tax revenue throughout the county. Successful assessment challenges have triggered steep declines in property values, most noticeably in Downtown Pittsburgh, but also in numerous suburbs.
As well, the county is trying to fend off a pending lawsuit by Pittsburgh Public Schools trying to force a countywide reassessment in an effort to avert what it says is a fiscal crisis.
Pennsylvania is the only state that does not require regular reassessments, leaving each county to decide on its own when to reassess properties.
Allegheny County last conducted a reassessment in 2012.
Other counties have gone far longer. Butler County hasn’t had a reassessment since 1969, and Westmoreland County’s last reassessment was in 1972, said Michael Suley, who sits on Allegheny County’s Board of Property Assessments and Appeals Review.
“Today, Pennsylvania has become the poster child for how not to run a property reassessment system,” state Sen. Wayne Fontana said.
Fontana joined fellow Sens. Katie Muth, Lindsey Williams and Jay Costa for a two-hour discussion of how to make the commonwealth’s tax system more fair and predictable for all involved.
“The tax assessment system in this county and in Pennsylvania is broken,” said Pittsburgh Public Schools Solicitor Ira Weiss, explaining that the current system leads to people paying uneven and unfair amounts in property taxes, based on whether their specific property has been recently reassessed and whether they have the wherewithal to appeal unfair reassessments.
Many people who purchase homes — especially new construction houses — face unexpected reassessments and tax hikes after buying them, while people who have lived in their homes for years may be less likely to be reassessed and pay more in taxes — even if their property values have skyrocketed, experts said.
John Petrack, executive vice president of the Realtors Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh, cited an example in Ross of what he calls the “newcomer tax.”
There were two houses side by side with the same square footage that were built in the same year. One sold in 2012 — the year of Allegheny County’s most recent reassessment — for $140,000. The other was assessed for the same amount in 2012, but faced a reassessment after it sold for $240,000 in 2021.
Now, Petrack said, the person who bought the house in 2021 pays 40% more in property taxes than their neighbor.
Homebuyers, he said, deserve a “consistent and equitable system.”
“This is not a fair system,” said David Vatz, head of Pro-Housing Pittsburgh, a group dedicated to housing abundance and affordability. “Why should some people pay unfairly high taxes while others get to skate by with an assessment that’s too low?”
Experts said that mandating regular assessments would ensure all property values are more accurate, and fluctuations from one reassessment to the next wouldn’t be too dramatic. They argued that this would be more fair for taxpayers, and it would help school districts and municipalities better predict how much tax revenue they can expect.
“People don’t mind paying their fair share in taxes — as long as they know everyone else is,” Suley said.
Recent reassessments that have seen property values dip have left some school districts and municipalities scrambling, local officials testified.
Pittsburgh — which recently has seen several Downtown skyscrapers reassessed dramatically lower — counts on property taxes for about 22% of its general fund, City Controller Rachael Heisler said, and relies on that money “for our city to function.”
About 60% of Mt. Lebanon School District’s budget comes from property taxes, Superintendent Melissa Friez said, making the record-setting $1.2 million in refunds it had to issue last school year particularly painful.
The district, she said, has been forced to raise taxes, reduce staffing and revise programming “to be more cost-effective.”
But a reassessment, she said, could create a more equitable and predictable system that would be fair for taxpayers and provide stability for schools and local governments.
Reassessing on a property-by-property basis, experts said, is inefficient, unpredictable and unfair. Property owners don’t always have the resources to appeal unfair assessments, officials said, and that process also is costly and time-consuming.
“You can’t appeal your way to fairness,” Williams said.
Julia Burdelski is a TribLive reporter covering Pittsburgh City Hall and other news in and around Pittsburgh. A La Roche University graduate, she joined the Trib in 2020. She can be reached at jburdelski@triblive.com.