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Thursday, January 17, 2002
Slow down and cool off. Allegheny County deserves better than government by anecdote. Barely a week after the first revaluations went out, members of both City Council and County Council are jumping the gun on the 2002 property assessments.
For one thing, not all property owners have received their updated numbers. For another, there's no way to know at this stage how many will be appealed.
On the basis of a handful of the 550,000 properties that were reassessed, elected officials are careening down Grant Street on a bandwagon of outrage and emotion. While there's a feel-good aspect to this for council members, acting in haste -- especially when lacking complete information -- will only come back to haunt the city and county later.
City Councilman Bob O'Connor wants to cut the city millage rate.
County Councilman Mike Crossey wants to cut the county millage rate.
City Controller Tom Flaherty wants to freeze assessments (shades of Dunn & Cranmer) and redo them every three years.
City Councilman Jim Ferlo wants to scrap the property tax.
County Council wants Common Pleas Court Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. to throw out the 2002 reassessments.
The judge should do no such thing.
The comprehensive reassessment of 2001 was historic, wrenching and, yes, imperfect. But given the past inaccuracy and inequity that had to be rooted out, it's hard to believe it could have gone otherwise. Although 90,000 property owners appealed last year's assessments -- a record high that the county should strive against replicating -- it's still worth noting that 84 percent of all property owners did not question their new valuations.
No doubt some errors were made in the 2002 assessments, too -- and they can be appealed as well. But the county, under Judge Wettick's oversight, took significant steps to improve this year's revaluations.
It replaced Sabre Systems & Service, which should have pleased those who roundly maligned the firm. It used sales of comparable properties, not to defend a reassessment, but to determine it. It divided the county into 76 real-estate markets, instead of the eight used by Sabre. It looked more carefully at low-value properties, which had been overassessed, and high-value properties, which had been underassessed. And it submitted to the oversight of an independent watchdog, Consad Research Corp., which said this year's reassessment, though not flawless, was an improvement over 2001.
On an issue involving people's money, people's real estate and a local tax system that just underwent a major overhaul, the public deserves calm, responsible leadership from government. What we've seen instead is a parade of officials vying to be Populist of the Week.
But populist grandstanding won't fix a bad assessment or reform a flawed appraisal system. It also prevents officials from admitting that, yes, some values have gone up because the market has gone up and, yes, some of the higher values belong to people who don't want to pay higher taxes.
While such taxpayer reaction is understandable, it doesn't prove that the assessment system is broken. If City Council and County Council want to provide effective leadership, then cooler heads -- and sound advice -- must prevail.
If taxpayers think they have been overassessed, they should appeal (even if it's for the second year in a row). If taxing districts are headed for a revenue windfall, their leaders should reduce the millage rate once they have solid numbers on which to base a decision.
If the assessment system appears to be malfunctioning, they should fix the part that doesn't work -- not scrap the whole program in a fit of political pique.
Fundamental to any property tax system is fairness, annual revaluations that track the market and the need for people to pay their fair share. Sometimes what is fair and justified doesn't match what a taxpayer wants to shell out. In that case, it's not the assessment that's in error -- and a strong leader will say as much.