Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato refuses to certify the assessment roll for 2006 submitted by his Office of Property Assessment, arguing that it would result in serious inequities and a huge tax increase for most taxpayers. He is right; it would.

		Raymond L. Richman is professor emeritus of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and has been a real estate tax consultant to the city of Philadelphia, the State Tax Equalization Board and other public bodies (rayrwtcr@aol.com).

But the inequities did not begin this year. The 2001 and 2002 assessments were full of inequities. These resulted in a record 170,000 appeals. The same people using the same flawed technique -- computer-generated assessments -- produced the 2006 assessment roll. Why should anyone have expected it to be any better?

To make matters worse, as a result of another foolish political decision -- freezing the 2002 assessments for three additional years -- the average increase in valuation was reported to be over 19 percent. Annual increases would have been less than 6 percent a year. Mr. Onorato's proposal to freeze property values at their current (or 2005) levels will not eliminate the inequities, which include the overassessment of poor municipalities, the underassessment of expensive properties and an unacceptable lack of uniformity. All the conditions for a taxpayer revolt similar to Prop 13 in California and "Save Our Homes" in Florida are brewing. Add the 100,000 appeals that can be expected and watch the sparks fly.

Former county Commissioners Larry Dunn and Bob Cranmer have voiced their support for Dan Onorato's proposal to keep assessments at their current values. They are the very ones who precipitated this mess when in 1996 they voted to freeze assessments and fire 42 assessors. The freeze was found unconstitutional by Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. and in 1999 he ordered the reassessment of the entire county for the tax year 2001. An outside mass appraisal firm, Sabre Systems Inc. of Ohio, was hired to do the reassessment.

The 2001 reassessment cost county taxpayers about $30 million, about 20 to 25 times the cost of 42 assessors. Before the roll had been certified 60,000 appeals were heard by Sabre's staff, and after the roll was certified an additional 90,000 taxpayers filed appeals, an unheard-of one in every six taxpayers. These appeals cost the county additional millions of dollars. As I wrote at the time, the appeals went a long way toward correcting the inequities of the 2001 assessments.

Unbelievably, then-County Chief Executive Jim Roddey decided to reassess the entire county again for 2002, hiring another mass appraisal firm, Cole Layer Trumble of Ohio, which used the identical methodology and cost more millions of dollars. Another 80,000 appeals were filed! The number would have been much greater had Judge Wettick not ordered the 2001 appeals to remain effective for 2002. Most of the taxpayers who succeeded in getting their 2001 assessments reduced found the 2002 assessments to be even greater than their original 2001 assessments and their 2006 assessments greater still. No wonder many taxpayers think we don't have an Office of Property Assessment and that the county is playing pin the tail on the donkey.

Neither the 2001 nor 2002 assessments met acceptable assessment standards and, in spite of the millions spent, were little better than the 2000 assessments they were intended to correct. An analysis of the 2001 sales and of 7,400 sales in 2002 showed that a majority of properties sold were overassessed and that the average assessment ratio differed widely between municipalities and between higher-valued properties and low-valued properties in all three years.

The traditional method uses statistical analysis as a tool in making good assessments, very much like statistical quality control in industry. It identifies each sale where the assessment-sales ratio falls outside acceptable limits. The assessor then has to determine why it did so. The sales that need to be reviewed number about half of the 15,000 residential sales per year in the county. Forty-two assessors should be able to do the job. Assessment is a continuous process with assessors recommending changes every working day. The assessments on record on the last day of the year become the assessment roll for the following year. That's the way assessment used to be done in Allegheny County.

So what can we do now?

We need to involve the taxpayers in the solution by allowing informal appeals before certification of the rolls. This was what Sabre did before it submitted the 2001 roll. It held formal hearings, but formal hearings are not necessary. Taxpayers unhappy with proposed valuations should be requested to submit a statement indicating what they believe to be the fair market value of their properties and to identify comparables and their recent sales prices, if any. Using this taxpayer input, assessors could change the proposed valuations or leave them unchanged. The entire real estate community could be involved in the process. If there is the will, this can all be done before the assessment roll needs to be certified early in 2006.

Long term, we can return to the traditional time-tested assessment procedures we had before 1996. Then the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review was in charge of assessment. It certified the rolls and the county commissioners didn't interfere. Or we could consider a more drastic permanent solution.

We can remove assessments from administrative discretion entirely as California and Florida have done. In Florida assessment increases are limited to 3 percent or the rate of increase in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater. In both states, newly purchased properties are assessed at their sales prices.

The great benefit, besides eliminating most of the cost of administering the tax, is that owners and buyers know with certainty what their next year's taxes will be. Compare that with the assessment lottery we have been experiencing, where no one can be sure what he will be assessed at next year. It doesn't appear to have had any negative economic effects at all. The principal complaint is the lack of uniformity; the longer you own your home the lower your relative tax burden. That is why it was called the "Save Our Homes" initiative in Florida.