- If you want to add value to your house, add a roof to your front porch. Spending $50,000 to update your kitchen and having the Post Gazette write about it, is not investing wisely.
- If you have lakefront property in Mt. Lebanon, your house will go down in value.
- If you support a commissioner's dream and present it at a Commission Discussion Session, you will reduce the value of your home to below 1988 prices.
- If you are related to any highly paid municipal staff, your home already assessed at $40,000 less than the 2004 purchase price, will be reassessed an additional $113,400 less.
- If you are a commissioner, the value of your home may be significantly less than your neighbor's. This may also hold true if you are a school board director, past or present.
- You can work for Diversified Municipal Services and still be on the Community Relations Board and be a member of the ad hoc committee to change our municipal constitution, the Home Rule Charter.
- On a square foot basis, the larger the home, the less your home is worth. Invest in small houses. In the low rent district.
- If you are a school district finance director, move out of Mt. Lebanon to avoid the taxes.
- Real estate agents work for the seller, not the buyer.
- Take advantage of the Homestead Exclusion.
- Pay attention to deadlines.
- Start attending commission meetings and school board meetings.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Lessons learned - not an April Fools joke
Yesterday was the deadline to appeal reassessments. We have all learned quite a bit about the process. I decided to make a list of what I have learned.
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48 comments:
All so true. A couple of others you missed.
• There is no equality in the present system of establishing values.
• You have to watch our politicians like a hawk.
• Don't believe a word they say during election campaigns or after they get into office.
And one important one—
• The school district put kids first.
Correcrion:
• The school district [DOESN'T] put kids first. (Paychecks are the first priority!)
• Former school board directors homes assessed at half a million, on the market for over double.
A Former 3rd Ward Commissioner well known in the City declaring the Homestead Exclusion using a business address.
Good one, 10:03 AM. We did have a former commissioner in Ward One claiming two homestead exclusions. It was an honest mistake.
9:35 AM, yes, that is true, but the house has been on the market for over a year. They can ask anything they want, but it isn't priced to sell.
Elaine
Also, 9:35 AM, you don't have to go that far back with former school board directors to find underassessed properties.
Elaine
Real simple Elaine. Vote NO for any Home Rule Charter changes.
eliminate the regressive property tax -- this is the only way to control "bottomless well" syndrome....
demand that elected officials and senior appointees volunteer to have their homes re-assessed, just for the appearance of fairness...
just stop spending when you have exceeded your revenues....
3:20, the State of Indiana is a debt-free state. When one of my alma-mater's, Purdue, built a new football stadium, the university paid cash.
In fact, Indiana has a citizen legislature. All the business of the state is transacted during the legislative session that extends pretty much for the first two months of the year - and that's it. The budget is spent and there is no borrowing.
Former OMB Director, former Indiana governor and the current president of Purdue, Mitch Daniels even made the courageous and bold act of decertifying the teachers union so that he could get control of these terrible people.
We can learn a lot from Indiana.
In the meantime, isn't social media great?
Would MtL ever present the facts like Elaine so eloquently presented for us?
Another lessoned learn for me. Not only do you get a break for making a presentation in favor of a commissioner's pet project, you are also given amnesty for being the first to donate toward it.
Elaine
I am learning so much today. Some homes on Standish depreciate at an alarming rate.
Elaine
We should be giving 7.5% cost of living decreases.
Elaine
We are to ourselves — as we pay taxes tthat enable public employees to get 7.5% raises.
Elaine you need to move to Crystal Drive and become Brumfield's buddy. Double lots pay the same as singles and "certain" buddies even get put on select boards so they can work around regulations. Location... Location... Location! Wonder why that K-5 school over there isn't getting turf?
It's in our power to change any of this...
Maybe we should change the tax policy in Mt Lebanon? Wouldn't it be better to increase the earned income tax while reducing the property taxes? When you think about it, some of the people on the list that Elaine posted would get the same gift that the Newcomers received - a big fat tax increase. We can make it their turn to pay rather than the rest of us.
A plan that increases the earned income tax and reduces property taxes would do two things: (1) shift the tax incidence towards the beneficiaries of school services and (2) produce a wealth effect where residential property would increase in value due to a lower property tax rate.
Then there is the matter of public employee pensions. If you've ever become angry, as I have, with the big ignorant mouths of our school district and municipal employees, then this is your chance to send them your regards as they head off into their sunset years...
I don't think that our public school teachers or our municipal employees need those big fat pension checks for the rest of their lives. It seems excessive to me. Wouldn't society be better off if we spent our hard earned tax dollars on our youth? Maybe it would be a better expenditure to improve our dwindling infrastructure so that our children will have an economic future?
Now, isn't it a better use of your hard-earned money?
Mr. Kendrick, there are proposed solutions on the table in Harrisburg that are stunning similar to your suggestion.
The big question is why our county executive, state representatives and the governor aren't even mentioning assessment reform as they hold their little meetings with constituents.
Could it be they don't want to fix an expensive system of taxation that everyone acknowledges is broken!
How many millions of dollars are spent assessing and then appealing obviously bad and inequitable valuations? It is ludicrous!
http://www.ptcc.us/solution.htm
The Pennsylvania Association of Realtors supports SB 76.
http://realreform76.com/myths-vs-facts/
To all the new Lebo Citizens readers, welcome! You are really getting put through a baptism by fire. I have been asked many times about the commission meetings. The next commission meeting is April 8, 2014. There are three meetings held; the executive session, discussion session, and commission meeting. Executive session is for the commissioners, manager, and solicitor to discuss legal or personnel matters. Residents are not permitted. The discussion session normally begins around 6:30 PM, depending on agenda items needing to be covered. That meeting is held in Room C, first floor, in the back of the municipal building. Residents and visitors are welcome to attend, but are not permitted to speak. We then move to the commission chambers for the 8:00 commission meeting. Citizens comments follow Call to Order – Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag – Roll Call. Speakers are limited to five minutes. There is a time clock near the windows. Sign up sheets are on the table when you first enter the commission chambers. You will be called up to speak, if you signed the paper. After the last speaker has been called, the president will ask if there is anyone who did not sign up to speak but wishes to do so. The meetings are televised but residents are never shown. You must state your full name and street address before you begin your comments. There is no clapping or booing permitted.
President Linfante will be present for the April 8 meeting, but just as last month, will be missing the meeting at the end of the month. Meetings are held the Second Tuesday and fourth Monday of each month.
All meeting agendas are posted here on the municipal website or here on my website, Lebo Citizens.
Hope that helps.
Elaine
I should add that the location of the commission chambers is on the right, as you enter the municipal building on Washington Road, across from Sesame Inn.
Elaine
Just a curiousity...
I wonder how many of those parking ticket scofflaws also are living in underassessed homes?
Or overassessed, 8:50 AM. Let's not complicate things.
Elaine
Now for something a little different, because you'll never see our PIO or her magazine offer information like this to Mt. Lebanon residents.
Dr. G. Terry Madonna & Dr. Michael L. Young
Viewpoint – End property taxes for schools now
Originally Published June 5, 2012 in the Reading Eagle
"What about the simple property tax is so atrocious, so flawed and so defective that we ascribe to it most of the contemporary problems of financing public education? That’s a good question, one to which a lot of thought has been given.
The (very) short answer produced by legions of public-finance experts is that the property tax is grotesquely unsuited to modern times. It is unfair, expensive to administer, difficult to assess accurately, disconnected from the modern economy and politically repugnant to most taxpayers. Of all America’s major taxes, including the income and sales taxes, the property tax is the worst by any measure you care to use.
But bad as the property tax is, its egregious faults are only part of the problem. Even worse is that we are using this most flawed of taxes to finance perhaps the most important function of government: education. We are trying to educate our children on the back of a creaky 19th century antique that barely did the job then, faltered badly in the 20th century, and now is failing spectacularly as we move through the second decade of the 21st.
Must we watch helplessly as our proud tradition of public education withers away, the victim of inert political leadership and ossified public policies? Absolutely not!
Two things seem eminently sensible.
First, we should adopt expeditiously a tax system that finances 21st century education with a 21st century tax. One of the most promising concepts being discussed now is the Property Tax Independence Act, of which Rep. Jim Cox, a Spring Township Republican, is the primary sponsor. The bill would replace the school property tax by increasing the state’s personal income tax to 4 percent from 3.07 percent, and expanding and increasing the state’s sales and use tax to 7 percent from 6 percent."
http://www.ptcc.us/pdf/essay.pdf
8:14am,
Nice to meet you!
I wasn't aware of the proposals, but I am concerned that the sales tax may become SO high that it would stifle consumption, perhaps leading to a decline in revenues. It may be possible to begin taxing some items that other states tax don't tax, like clothing, where the effect may be more inelastic than a hefty across the board increase for those items that are currently taxed; but I think that a blend of several tax sources may be the best approach as it would minimize tax distortions.
I like the neutrality concept. Maybe we can do some things immediately at a local level? Perhaps a change in the Mt Lebanon earned income tax from a flat-rate to a progressive structure?
We seem to have a lot of Napoleon's marching around town flaunting and flashing all of their money and pumping up our taxes while their taxes decrease. Many of these folks are the same ones who advocate expenditures on items that are not "governmental in nature". So, let's let them pay for it!
We have the means at a local level to cut the millage rate for our school district tax in half while increasing the wage tax via a progressive tax structure that would drop a bomb right in these Napoleons's laps!
If they don't want to pay, then they have the same deal that they gave the Newcomers - tell the Napoleon's to sell their homes and move!
What's nice about my approach is that we'll eliminate several problems simultaneously.
Thank you for sharing the links with me.
Best regards,
-John
I want to add two additional thoughts:
1. We need to lean-out our schools after we align PA Economic Policy with PA Educational Policy. Let's make sure that we are effectively and efficiently spending our hard-earned money on what we need, when it's needed and with the price and quality that is acceptable to all of us.
2. Mt Lebanon needs a residency rule for School District and Municipal employees. We moved here in 1976 and I am fed-up listening to the hired help telling us how stupid we all are to pay their lavish salaries while they park their fat rears in the next municipality! If they want to work here, then they can pay some of it back!
10:41
This issue with the proposal is that a state income tax increase would force local school districts to give up local control. There is a reason there are 500 school districts in this state. They all want local control.
If you can figure out how to balance that plan while still allowing for local school taxes to "supplement" education (be it income or real tax), then the plan might be adopted tomorrow.
Mr. Kendrick from the PTCC link below:
"IMPORTANT FACT
If your school property tax is $3,500/year and is completely eliminated by HB/SB 76, you would have to spend $50,000 annually on newly-taxed products and services to equal the amount of property tax eliminated."
http://www.ptcc.us/solution.htm
Why not concede local control? Our current autonomous stance has resulted in a trajectory is leading us to financial Armageddon!
Seriously, why doesn't Mt Lebanon take State Gambling Tax revenues? It's easy money and all that we'd have to take are three simple concessions, like forcing a referendum before taxes increase - and that's something that we all want anyway!
But that's why I think that a blended source of revenues is the best approach. How would the brothers of a certain large law firm who has advertised their massive paychecks for decades like to wake-up and learn that to finance all of the projects that they want will cost them 20% of their top-line income or they can sell their house and move?
11:42, here is the answer to issue.
From the PA Association of Realtors link below:
MYTH:
"SB 76 is a threat to the local control we want to empower our school districts with."
FACT:
"School districts not only get to keep their authority to levy taxes to fund their school system. School districts receive funds each year through SB 76’s income tax and sales taxes increase that come with no new mandates or strings attached on how to use those dollars. No new mandates on designing curricula or subject matters or testing criteria. No requirements to change current or future collective bargaining agreements between districts and teachers. And no new mandates or limits on how to spend or not spend those dollars year to year.Local control of local schools is not under assault with SB 76. The only thing that changes is that homeowners will no longer be punished or rendered homeless by out-of-control property taxes. SB 76 accomplishes this long-sought goal while keeping taxing and spending authority in the hands of school districts – and with the taxpayers who live in those districts."
As I understand the bill local tax hikes by the districts would have to be approved by voter referendum. So if we as a community wanted to spend more on education than Dormont, Bethel or USC we still could. It'd just have to have a majority wanting it.
http://realreform76.com/myths-vs-facts/#.Uzw0Hid5mc0
John, in a perfect world, your idea would work. Presently, we have a Home Rule Charter being reviewed by an attorney who is being paid to rape the newcomers, while ignoring high level staff and commissioners, at the same time serving on the Community Relations Board who believe there are residents with mental health issues who don't get along with their neighbors. I think it is a chicken and the egg situation. Offensive articles written by community relations members or taxing residents who don't have connections in Mt. Lebanon could be contributing factors. Seems to me that the Community Relations Board members are the ones who have trouble getting along with neighbors.
Elaine
Hi Elaine,
I completely agree with you! In fact, I'd eliminate the Community Relations Board (CRB) completely. Now they want to expand to relations between neighbors? WOW! Let me ask you this, "Do you feel comfortable with the idea of the Mt Lebanon Community Relations Board as a Shepard who will watch over us?" Let me extend the thought to ask how comfortable our community feels about an inflammatory PIO even having contact with people who are supposed to calm everyone down?
The CRB should be eliminated along with many other useless commissions like The Traffic Commission and The Economic Development Commission. One member of The Economic Development Commission told me that it took them eight years to draft the language to modify the intersection at Bower Hill and Greenhurst because all that all of the attorney's did was constantly argue about the language of their draft!
What a waste! Our tax dollars at work, huh?
Mt Lebanon has tremendous potential but suffers under the weight of poor policies from inept governing bodies.
Residency rule? I haven't seen too many residents that would or could do the work of a good janitor or grounds worker for the pay they receive. I know there are a couple of township workers that do that work with pride and live in the township, but they are the exception and not the rule.
1:33, I agree with no residency rule.
As much as I dispise Klein for bailing out of the community while suggesting tax hikes that will put money in her pocket, we shouldn't be forcing people to live here.
After all— isn't everyone dying to live in Lebo? Or so they want us to believe even though people living in the $500,000 and up McMansions according to the assessments are losing value in their homes.
Kendrick suggestion on eliminating all of those boards isn't a bad idea.
Wasn't it Brumfield or Linfante that said they weren't required to heed the advice of the boards.
Plus, didn't the commissioners do an end around on the Zoning Board when they entered into a parking agreement so the HS project could proceed?
Mt Lebanon does take gambling revenue. I saw it in a recent budget outline.
I agree that almost all of the boards should be disbanded. I hate to be a cynic but the boards seem to be a way the muni keeps the residents busy and hopeful while doing nothing.
Take the traffic board: they literally line you up to beg for stop signs and some folks have begged for their stop signs for YEARS. I
n normal places, the necessary stop signs, cross walks, etc., are there. No begging required.
I want all of you to think about this scenario...
I've been an amateur radio operator since 1980. It's my hobby. Not something that most women like, but it's my hobby.
Anyway, amateur radio operators have done some pretty incredible things. The late Senator Barry Goldwater, the late King Hussein of Jordan and many interesting people have been hams.
Children learn a lot about electronics, radio theory, radio propagation and world geography in this hobby. Many have careers later in life with engineering and science and apply some of what they learned from the amateur radio service. In fact, the Amateur Radio Service was developed for Civil Defense and remains the backbone for emergency communications during natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, floods, etc when all other communications have failed. Many local residents in Pittsburgh may not be aware that the only radio communications link to the 1994 US Air crash was made via ham radio as police radios were ineffective - and since some hams find a pathway in life as career military, well, you might say that it's just patriotic! 8)
So how about this...? Since it's my little hobby and I enjoy it I will get some friends together (if I had any friends) and we'll find a way to get elected to the Commission. Once we get our candidates in place, we're going to identify a site and then we're going to build the world's largest ham radio shack. It will cost the community $10,000,000.00 - and we'll have those big towers and radio antennas with flashing strobes that everyone in the neighborhood loves! I may even want to fly a flag from the mast just to show how much I love America!
Now, this is where it gets interesting...
Who's going to pay for it? Well, since ham radio is for geeks like myself and geeks tend not to be those big magnificent hunk of a lawyer that we all have read about for decades (ab-nauseam) in MtL we're going to pass the bill to those larger than life hunks with the $10,000,000(+) incomes from the big law firm! That's right - because we're going to use our authority to tax these SOB's with a progressive 20% top-tier tax rate that's going to hit them right between the legs! THat means if you're practicing law down at the firm of ew-la-la-la and your wife has bucks to burn you can sleep at night knowing that 20% of that $10,000,000(+) earned income is going to be funding my hobby!
Let me guess... the idea is unpopular? Well, yes, maybe it is...
But is it any different than what the athletic supporters have done to us?
4:15 you are correct. On page 7 of the 2013-14 Budget Report it specifically addresses Gaming Revenue coming to MTLSD.
Just want to remind everyone that this is about the municipality hiring Diversified Municipal Services to appeal assessments going back to 2006, and figuring out how to go back further than that.
The next commission meeting is April 8, 2014. Let's deal with government in its present form. We can all dream of better days, but for now we are stuck with with five commissioners making the decisions.
Elaine
Has anyone investigated the demographics of the 150 homes that were targeted in the 2011-2012 sales? Are there any signs of a bias of targeting people by age, gender, race, etc?
For example, was the age of the targeted group biased towards a younger white demographic?
Sorry...but this is Lebo and the white demographic is almost all we have here. I was shocked how little diversity there is in our schools when we moved here.
When I was targeted in 2005, they simply went after all sales that were in excess of the current assessment. So the only bias was against newcomers. I did discover, however, people that were connected politically didn't get targeted. In fact, one house on Longuevue had its assessment reduced dramatically even though it wasn't an arms length transaction. (Family sold it within the family for 1/2 of market value.) So even though it was one of my comps it didn't matter. But then again, literally the ONLY piece of "evidence" that can be introduced at the hearings is your purchase price and any improvements you may have done on your house. (We hadn't done any.) Comps don't matter. I pulled out an analysis of comps at my hearing and was immediately told to put them away.
Net net...I don't think there is bias toward any group other than newcomers.
I am finding a bias. Looking at the mother of Right To Knows, I have been looking up assessments of those who wrote in to support artificial turf. Amazingly, most are underassessed. In fact, one home is assessed $341,300 LESS than the purchase price! I have already mentioned a few addresses of artificial turf supporters.
The criteria used, allegedly, is a) sales over $100k b) assessment is 85% or less than sales price c) assessed vs sales value is at least a delta of $58k.
I would like to add d) position on artificial turf
Elaine
We really don't know what the motivation was and it needs to be investigated. Talk is cheap and political rhetoric has zero credibility.
What if there was an age bias? Could the Commissioners be held liable personally?
Please don't look for bias where none exists. Our home is assessed for the appraisal amount we received a few years ago (coincidence?), and yet I support installation of turf in Mt. Lebanon. The bias still seems to be against homes whose value is on the lower end of the scale, as I believe has been proven before. It's a lot easier to bear the tax burden when we all share it equitably. The system is so obviously broken, as anyone that looks at sales prices from any year before 2010 can see. The county has no desire to be accurate in estimating the community's values.
Kim- you do realize your home appreciates EVERY year, right? An appraisal from a few years ago is meaningless --appraisers look at sales in the past 3 months. Would you sell your home today for that amount? If your home is assessed at the same figure you were appraised at a few years ago, then you are UNDER assessed. Why don't you volunteer to have the municipality increase your taxes to help pay for the turf then? It's only fair that we all pay our share, right?
Yes, you are right. I should. (Perhaps I will send that tax difference directly to the turf fund!) However, the increase in my home's value is minimal; I would not expect to add more than 10% to its current assessment to reach an appropriate selling price for my home. As our tax code is structured, it is certainly still the responsibility of all to pay at least NEAR the current market value, correct? And that is obviously not the situation at hand. Your suggestion to me does not fix the system.
No, of course it doesn't. But neither does appealing the homes of a teensy percentage of the population. And 10% is 10% --why shouldn't you pay on 100% of your market value as the newcomers are doing? Why do you get to pay only 90% of your homes market value?
And I think a lot of people m
NEAR would be nice. Newcomers are asked to pay 100% of market value.
Kim - sounds like someone struck a nerve? Why do you always defend these people?
Once again, you only chose what you wished in my response. I agree that I should pay taxes on 100% of my home's value, just as everyone should whether a newcomer or a life-long resident. My original comment addressed the idea that certain people may be receiving special treatment due to their support for the turf project. I did not in any way say that I agree with only choosing to assess new homeowners on their true market value. We all should be assessed properly if this is the tax structure we are to use to fund our communities. Perhaps the commission's extension of analysis into purchases back to 2006 will correct some of the inequities that you have discovered in searching homes of directors and commissioners, perhaps not. But when are we going to argue for a better system rather than just point fingers? Go back and look at Tom Moertel's thorough analysis of the assessment results - that is the issue here.
And 5:23, I again dared to think that my opinion would be met with respect rather than derision and ridicule. Too many commenters seem to go for the anonymous quick jab rather than real discussion. I will return to being a quiet reader.
I know how you feel, Kim. I get lots of anonymous jabs, as well. I appreciate you signing your name. It does show that you are made of stronger stuff.
Elaine
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