I think it’s time for another countywide reassessment.
What’s that you say, didn’t Lawrence County just finish one of those?
Yes, that was about six year back — not very long as these things go. But the way I figure it, if we start talking about reassessment now, it will still take decades before anything actually happens.
More than 40 years separated Lawrence County’s last two reassessments. Folks who have lived around here that long surely are aware of changes in the community during that time.
Back in the early 1960s, New Castle was a hustling, bustling community, dominant in commercial and industrial activity, as well as in population. But today, it’s a different story, with any growth, development and desirable property found in the surrounding townships.
We can thank expanded sewer systems and other infrastructure growth for this situation — as well as an unwillingness among generations of city officials to fight to attract people and business. But this shift in where people want to live and engage in commerce explains the fundamental unfairness of outdated property assessments.
Even though relative property values skyrocketed in many townships, and plummeted in the city, this generally was not reflected in county assessment records. The result was that people living in struggling, declining neighborhoods in New Castle were subsidizing the property taxes of people living in much more affluent areas.
Any reassessment is a cumbersome and imperfect process. There were lots of complaints and problems the last time around. But there were also mechanisms that allowed for appeals and corrections.
I bring all of this up because reassessment is in the news again — at least in such places as Allegheny County and Harrisburg. Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato is asking the state Legislature to weigh in on reassessment because of issues he has with the process.
Those issues stem from a series of court decisions that are forcing the county to conduct reassessments and do them accurately. A lot of property owners (many of whom were probably underassessed for decades) are unhappy with the results.
As a general rule, you never hear from people whose taxes go down after a reassessment, only from those whose taxes go up. So Onorato — a leading contender in the next Pennsylvania gubernatorial election — is trying to appease them.
Onorato’s basic argument is reasonable: Reassessment is inequitably practiced in Pennsylvania. While Allegheny County is under tough court scrutiny, other counties have gone 40 or more years without updating their property valuations.
That’s because state law does not specify a time frame for reassessment. It’s left in the hands of local officials. Hah!
The solution is to create some sort of schedule for counties to reassess — perhaps based on size and population. But I’m not sure that’s what Onorato really wants, and he’s a smart enough politician to know his brethren in Harrisburg won’t take that sort of tough, clear stand.
Instead, he wants lawmakers to ban court-ordered reassessments until the state House can study the issue and come up with a different system.
If such a law were to be passed, Harrisburg’s track record suggests reassessments would be in limbo indefinitely. Of course, that’s what some people want, especially politicians who wish to avoid the issue.
But outdated property assessments hurt the poor and benefit the rich. And they condemn hard-luck neighborhoods to further decline.
Reassessment isn’t merely about numbers. It’s about justice.
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