Pa. lawmakers OK bills on assessments, pensions
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HARRISBURG -- The state Senate Finance Committee yesterday approved two important bills, one that would have a major effect on Allegheny County's property reassessment situation and one affecting the city of Pittsburgh's underfunded municipal pension system.
House Bill 1661 would prevent any Pennsylvania county from carrying out a court-ordered property reassessment until June 30, 2011. That delay would give the Legislature a chance to do a study of problems that many counties are having with the existing property reassessment system. The study would also deal with whether the state, rather than individual counties, should perform the reassessments. Allegheny County is now facing a court order to reassess.
Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, said he had serious doubts about the bill, which has already passed the House, but voted for it yesterday "to keep the process moving.'' He said it may be unconstitutional for the Legislature to tell counties to ignore court orders on reassessment.
"It is blatantly unconstitutional,'' said Sen. Pat Vance, R-Cumberland. She and Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair, voted against the bill, but the other nine committee members voted yes.
The full Senate could vote on it as early as tomorrow. If approved, it would go to the governor for signature.
Mr. Ferlo said it would be an 18-month "waste of time'' for the Legislature to do another study of reassessments. He said the state should simply take over the reassessment process from the counties, some of which haven't revalued their properties in years, or even decades.
Also yesterday, the committee unanimously approved a revised House Bill 1828, which would create four categories for the health of municipal pensions. Pittsburgh's pension system, funded at only 28 percent, would be in level 3, the worst category. It's for systems which are less than 50 percent fully funded. The top category, level 0, is for pensions that are funded at 90 percent or more.
Any municipality with such a poorly funded pension system would have its system taken over by the Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement Board.
The bill also would freeze the Pittsburgh parking tax at 37.5 percent. It would dedicate 6.75 percent of the parking tax revenue to pay the city's minimum municipal pension obligation. It also would allow Pittsburgh to impose an additional 2.5 percent parking tax if the city sells or leases its parking garages, as Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has talked about. All of the money from the additional 2.5 percent parking tax must go for pension costs.
Mr. Ravenstahl said yesterday evening that he did not believe the emerging pension bill would help the city. He said that besides forcing the city to cede control of its retirement funds to the state, the bill would give public safety employees higher pensions and push the city's required pension fund payment dramatically higher.
"It will create a very, very difficult situation for us in Pittsburgh in which we'll have to come up with $25 million next year, either in service reductions or tax increases," he said. "These aren't scare tactics. This is the reality of what this bill does.
"There would be, in the out years, a very real possibility of the city simply defaulting in its obligation to the state" if higher pension payments are mandated, the mayor said.
That bill could also go to the full Senate tomorrow but would have to go back to the House for more action before going to the governor.
First Published August 25, 2009 12:00 am
