Gotta love 'em UPDATED 2X

There is a new rule on assessment appeals, in case you haven't heard.

The rules -- passed last month by the Board of Property Assessment, Appeals and Review -- allow only lawyers to charge a fee to appear at an assessment challenge, arguing they can be held more accountable than the average schmo off the street http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/reassessment/new-rule-on-assessment-appeals-drawing-criticism-on-allegheny-county-council-681744/#ixzz2PJXxM7VZ

What makes this even more interesting is that the District hired Dominick Gambino to represent them in assessment appeals. According to his bio listed on The Law Office of Ira Weiss website,

Mr. Gambino is a Certified PA Evaluator and the founder/owner of “Diversified Municipal Services, Inc.” – a firm providing a variety of services and products related to local taxation and property assessment. He also served as Manager of the Office of Property Assessments in Allegheny County from 2001 – 2003. In 2002, his department conducted its first in-house computer assisted mass appraisal; and, the following year, his office facilitated the conversion of 1.8 billion bits of property data to the county’s present system. Under his guidance, Allegheny County’s real estate Web site was enhanced to include an interactive GIS mapping system and a sophisticated search engine allowing the complex queries of assessment data. During his time at the county, over 100,000 assessment appeals were completed. Mr. Gambino also prepared special reports and audits for the Allegheny County Controller’s Office. Over the years, he’s served in several elected positions including local councilman and tax collector; he’s also held a variety of local and state-wide board positions.

I don't see that Gambino is an attorney, do you? The PG article continues with:

He's also challenging a rule allowing school districts and other taxing bodies to cut deals with property owners outside the hearing, which he believes gives an unfair advantage to local governments.

What was that? School districts cutting deals with property owners? Is that why we have some underassessed properties on Standish, Vernon and Arden, for instance?

Update April 2, 2013 3:01 PM I got a response from President Cappucci concerning the fourteen questions I emailed the board.  Here is her response.

Mrs. Gillen,

Most of the questions you have asked have been answered during previous meetings and Board discussions.  All of our past and current budget information is on the District's website.  You can also attend or watch tonight's budget discussion for further information.

For the Board,

Elaine Cappucci
President, Mt. Lebanon School Board
ecappucci@mtlsd.net

My response at 3:05 PM

Elaine,

You know that isn't true.  The list is below. I asked fourteen questions that I have not been able to get answers. Please answer my questions.

Elaine

April 3, 2013 8:30 AM   Allegheny County Council on Tuesday vetoed a proposed rule change in the way property owners are represented during assessment appeals.

Council voted 12-1 — with Councilwoman Heather Heidelbaugh, R-Mt. Lebanon, against — to scrap a plan from the Board of Property Assessment and Review that would have required property owners who hire someone to appeal their assessments to use an attorney.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/3770106-74/council-property-assessment?showmobile=false#ixzz2PP3MnaHj

Is the School Board President accusing County of mismanaging property assessments?

Josephine Posti updated her blog the other day with this post, Property Appeal Information. Posti writes:

The Board did decide, however, to send representatives to all commercial and residential appeal hearings, so that the appeal results would only be based upon valid evidence.

Is Posti accusing the County of basing appeal decisions on "invalid" information? According to her, is the County incompetent? Does she know that evidence other than "VALID evidence" is being considered?

Posti takes a shot at the Commission:

We need to better understand the Municipality's position on helping to pay for the current practice that the District has been fully funding on its own for six years.

Josephine continues about Commissioner Fraasch's ward:

How would homeowners in the other wards feel if they knew that a large number of homeowners in one ward are appealing their assessments and the Municipality and District aren't sending representation? 

Sounds like she is pitting one ward against another. Class warfare? The majority of Commissioner Fraasch's ward falls in the range as identified on Blog-Lebo and in James Fraasch's letter to Judge Wettick here.

Finally, Josephine's parting words:

I'm looking forward to hearing more discussion from the Commission on this issue as well as the issue of whether they would like to re-implement their practice of appealing recently sold residential properties that sell for substantially higher than their last assessment.

Nice try, Josephine. In a Commission meeting, Dave Brumfield said that you were going after the under assessed properties next year. It is rumored that you have no intention of doing that.  Which is it, are you or aren't you?

No contract for appeals!!!!!

David Huston filed a Right To Know on June 14, 2012 asking for the most recent version of the contract with Diversified Municipal Services. This is the company hired to represent the School District during the OVER assessed appeal hearings as reported in this post Wouldn't this be a cheaper way to go for everyone? UPDATED David's RTK was granted today. Right to Know response To summarize, there is no contract!

Let's go back to last night's school board meeting.  David Huston asked our solicitor about the appeal process. Link to podcast Listen to the tail end of the meeting. It is in the Questions or Comments from Residents portion of the meeting.

In an email to Tom Peterson, David wrote this:

Mr. Peterson,
  According to the P-G, attached,  "Shortly afterward, (March 2006) the school board decided to hire the firm Diversified Municipal Services to represent the school board at appeal hearings."

My RTK request revealed there is no agreement with DMS.

How can the District use their services without any written agreement?

David was able to locate the meeting minutes that included the agreement.

From the 18-SEP-2006 meeting minutes:

It was moved by Garson and seconded by Rose that the Superintendent [Wilson] is authorized to retain representatives for representation of the District at residential tax appeal hearings before the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review.

ROLL CALL For: Campbell, Garson, Remely, Rose, Silhol, Walton, Rodella

Abstained: Posti

Against: None

MOTION UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED

Posti and Remely were the only current directors on the board at the time. Wilson was two superintendents ago. Posti abstained because she was in the process of appealing her own assessment. Does this authorization extend six years, two boards and two supers later? At Monday's meeting, Peterson referenced the authorization of 2006.

Other Districts, such as West Jefferson, hire DMS on retainer at $1000 a month. Their agreements are online. Ours is $100-$150 a case because we have more appeals. There is no written agreement for ours.
I want to know if there have been any recent appeal hearings in which DMS was not present. Any feedback from readers?
Listening to Elaine Cappucci's report, she really took a shot at the commissioners for not sharing the expense of the appeals. Rumor has it that Josephine Posti has no plans to go after the underassessments. Of course not.

Wouldn't this be a cheaper way to go for everyone? UPDATED

At the May 29, 2012 commission meeting, a motion was tabled to pay the Schood District 17% of the actual costs billed by Diversified Municipal Services.

Consideration to financially participate in the Mt. Lebanon School District’s involvement in property assessment appeal hearings.

Diversified Municipal Services, Inc. (DMS) represents Mt. Lebanon School District at first-level Allegheny County property assessment appeals. DMS develops evidence in support of sustaining current values on owner-filed appeals and appears at hearings to present the evidence. DMS charges the school district $150 for attending a hearing at which the owner is present and $100 for appearing for a hearing at which the owner does not attend.

It is proposed that the municipality participate in funding this effort.

Recommended Action: Move to direct the Municipal Manager to reimburse the Mt. Lebanon School District for 17% of the actual costs billed by Diversified Municipal Services in representing the taxing body at residential reassessment appeal hearings for the 2012 appeal year.Move to direct the Municipal Manager to reimburse the Mt. Lebanon School District for 17% of the actual costs billed by Diversified Municipal Services in representing the taxing body at residential reassessment appeal hearings for the 2012 appeal year.

Diversified Municipal Services is owned by Dominick Gambino. Doing a Google search, I found this PG article about Mr. Gambino. Get ready: Assessments are coming next week

Mr. Gambino strongly differs, saying reassessment will lift an existing unfair tax burden on residents of poorer communities. Elected leaders, not a county judge, should have launched and directed the project on their own, he said. Mr. Gambino, who worked for the county for 25 years, now runs a consulting firm called Diversified Municipal Services Inc.

As Tom Moertel and Commissioner Fraasch demonstrated, there is an unfair tax burden on certain wards in this community. To counter this "unfair tax burden," Diversified Municipal Services provides this service to assist individual property owners, businesses and governments in analyzing property data in Allegheny County. http://countypropertyanalyzer.com/about.php

The County Property Analyzer is another service provided by Diversified Municipal Services, Inc. It can be a useful tool for individual property owners, businesses and governments in analyzing property data in Allegheny County.
Diversified has represented clients in literally thousands of property assessment appeal hearings. The County Property Analyzer unleashes the power for anyone to create sales comparison evidence for submission in property assessment hearings.

On their home page, Diversified Municipal Services reads:

Welcome to the County Property Analyzer

The product you are about to preview is an amazing tool for anyone in search of property information in Allegheny County. It will invite you through the door to explore the property data for over 550,000 properties.

But more remarkably, this tool allows you to analyze the data even further by exporting and saving the results of your search - over twenty-five different bits of information including property and mailing addresses, sales validation information, assessed values and numerous land and building characteristics - onto an excel spreadsheet.

The countypropertyanalyzer will also be a valuable resource in calculating property values by easily and efficiently helping you acquire comparable sales and granting you the ability to create and prepare sales comparison reports in a pdf format.

This is a product that has a wide variety of functions and uses. It was developed by the former Manager of the Allegheny County Office of Property Assessments specifically to allow the analysis of property data. Sales ratios studies, Comparable Sales Reports and mail merge capabilities are just a few of the possibilities.

Countypropertyanalyzer is a "must-have" for any real estate professional or property owner.

The best part about the product is the cost. Sign up for a "free week trial period" by clicking on "SIGNUP". After the trial period, you can continue having access to this fantastic tool for only $75 per month!

So my questions are:

1. Couldn't a homeowner use this service for free during the trial period for their reassessment hearing? 
2. Why is the District willing to pay $150 per assessment hearing when they could use this service for $75 a month?
3. More importantly, why is the Municipality are Commissioners Brumfield and Linfante willing to fork over 17% towards this charge?

Update June 2, 2012 6:15 PM With James Fraasch's permission, I am sharing a link to a letter he sent to the Honorable Senior Judge R. Stanton Wettick, Jr on May 30, 2012 concerning the reassessment. It just might blow your mind! It did for me. I hope our elected officials (at all levels) read it VERY carefully.

Commissioner Fraasch writes about the Muni's involvement in the appeal hearings - UPDATED

Take a look at Kelly Fraasch's blog, Muni involvement in property assessment appeal hearings… As I had written in a previous post and commented at last night's meeting, there was an item on last night's agenda, where the motion was made, but not seconded for Consideration to financially participate in the Mt. Lebanon School District’s involvement in property assessment appeal hearings. 


From reading Kelly's blog, it appears that the Commission never discussed this. Dave Brumfield said that it was his idea.  Kristen Linfante made the motion, so it looks like the school board liaison is all for it too.

Make sure you see the link Kelly provided to Tom Moertel's map on Blog-Lebo which illustrates the large concentration of over assessments in Ward 5 as well as Ward 1.


Update May 31, 2012 11:18 pm To be fair, here is a link to Kristen Linfante's blog, Why I voted "no" (anyone hear "Dueling Banjos" playing in the background?) She writes:

The commission met this past Tuesday night and had a lively discussion about a variety of issues.  One such issue was a propsal [sic] that Kelly Fraasch and Matt Kluck jointly proposed with regards to spending money out of our undesignated fund. 

She goes on to say:

It is my hope that we will come to a consensus that a bond is not only necessary, but the right thing to do.

As well as:

A bond, (and I'm not talking a huge bond, but a bond) along with a portion of our undesignated fund could address these concerns.

Her previous post was about Field Signs/New Revenue

...it is the responsibility of the commission to find new revenue sources for the municiaplity [sic]. 

 I am confused.  Is a bond, not a huge bond, but a bond a way to find new revenue sources?

This feels so wrong

On tonight's Commission agenda:

Consideration to financially participate in the Mt. Lebanon School District’s involvement in property assessment appeal hearings.

Diversified Municipal Services, Inc. (DMS) represents Mt. Lebanon School District at first-level Allegheny County property assessment appeals. DMS develops evidence in support of sustaining current values on owner-filed appeals and appears at hearings to present the evidence. DMS charges the school district $150 for attending a hearing at which the owner is present and $100 for appearing for a hearing at which the owner does not attend.

It is proposed that the municipality participate in funding this effort.

Recommended Action: Move to direct the Municipal Manager to reimburse the Mt. Lebanon School District for 17% of the actual costs billed by Diversified Municipal Services in representing the taxing body at residential reassessment appeal hearings for the 2012 appeal year.Move to direct the Municipal Manager to reimburse the Mt. Lebanon School District for 17% of the actual costs billed by Diversified Municipal Services in representing the taxing body at residential reassessment appeal hearings for the 2012 appeal year.

As was pointed out to me in an email:

The municipality is using tax dollars to fight taxpayers who are using their own resources to defend their property value against an inflated tax dollar funded assessment.

"By unlawfully delegating general authority to staff members (to file the appeals) the commission of Mt. Lebanon unlawfully discriminated against the intervenors and those property owners similarly situated in an attempt to require them to bear an unlawful and disproportionate share of the tax burden of Mt. Lebanon"
-Raymond Cromer on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. William Anderson Jr. of 749 Gypsy Lane, published in the Pittsburgh Press 19-MAY-1976 on page 3.

In yet another email:

Where are the Lebo taxpayers who will suffer as a result? Why is there no injunction being filed against the District & Muni by those being affected? Why, why, why, ? ? ? ? Why have we become a herd (not a community) of sheep??