Allegheny Co. tax appeal deadlines are unfair

On October 20, 2014, our school board will be voting to approve tax refunds for 70 Mt. Lebanon taxpayers.

List of Tax Refunds
– The list of tax refunds totals $80,364.27 for 70 refunds. The list has been reviewed by the solicitor’s office and is recommended for approval. The Superintendent recommends approval of this list.

Lebo Citizens reader and former manager of Allegheny County’s Office of Property Assessments, Mike Suley wrote this opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


Allegheny Co. tax appeal deadlines are unfair

No other county in Pennsylvania forces you to pay taxes before your tax assessment appeal is resolved

October 14, 2014 12:00 AM

Allegheny County is the only county in Pennsylvania that forces you to pay taxes before your tax assessment appeal is resolved. For example, the appeal deadline in Allegheny County is March 31, 2015, for the 2015 tax year, yet 2015 county, Pittsburgh and city school district bills will be mailed out before the appeals deadline. It’s not fair to pay first and appeal later. There are city residents still waiting on retroactive appeal decisions for this tax year.

Under home rule, the appeal deadline has been changed at least 20 times. In 2013 the county changed the deadline again to give property owners and taxing bodies a “second chance” to appeal for the same tax year because a prior county ordinance permitted appeals before the tax bills went out. This was done even though tens of thousands of the previous appeals were unresolved and awaiting disposition going into the 2013 tax year.

Allegheny County politicians have complained for years that the county’s citizens should be on a level playing field with other counties. We’re not. It’s time to have an appeals deadline with resolution before the tax bills go out.

MIKE SULEY
Mt. Lebanon

The writer, an assessment consultant, is former manager of Allegheny County’s Office of Property Assessments.

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

Here we go again with School District Assessment Appeals UPDATED

At the last Municipal Discussion Session, Dave Brumfield brought up school district assessment appeals. You may recall that Dave thought it would be a good idea to share the expense of appeals with the school district. This was when he was under the impression that the school district would be going after both underassessed and overassessed homes. Josephine Posti denied that she ever said anything about underassessed homes. Well, Josephine brought up appeals with Dave again. The most recent agenda shows that school district assessment appeals may be a topic for this Tuesday's Discussion Session. http://mtlebanon.org/archives/35/Discussion%20Session%2007-23-12.pdf  Dave had mentioned at the last meeting how he THOUGHT he understood the school district's plan to be going after underassessed homes next year, but now he is not so sure. Posti claims that they were never planning to go after underassessed homes. Interestingly enough, this letter went out to some of the commissioners today, which I was cc'ed, and ties in with the whole assessment topic.  Even though it was signed, he would rather not have his name published on Lebo Citizens. I am reprinting it with his permission. Here it is:

In today's Almanac in the deed transfers it shows Joe D's property recently transferred at $650,000. Though that conflicts with the sale price reported on the county site of the sale dated 6/18/2012 at $550,000. Don't misunderstand I'm not singling out Joe because I have a vendetta against him, today's paper only brought the assessment fiasco to mind and his property is a good example. It also appears to support James [Fraasch]and Tom Moertel's conclusions.

The 2013 assessed value on Joe's property is $345,000! Since the sale took place in 2012 and his 2012 assessed value is $187,000 the inequity of the system looks even worse. The difference being $463,000 (or $363,000 if the real sale was $550,000). Still the average home value is around $245,000!

So let's look at this another relative way. What does Joe's property have to do with me or any other homeowner. If the deed transfer is accurately reported in the almanac, if Joe's place were assessed at it's "fair market value" and isn't that what the reassessment is suppose to reflect, the $650,000 deed transfer IS the "fair market value." It is what a buyer is willing to pay and what the seller is willing to accept.

That means there is $305,000 of taxable value the school district and municipality is missing out on IN 2013 AND EVERY YEAR UNTIL NEW ASSESSMENTS. With a 27.13 SD millage rate that's approximately $8,300 in actual uncollected taxes each year from just ONE property. Looks like the muni misses out on approximately $1,600/yr due to underassessment. 53 homeowners wouldn't have to chip in $30/yr for Kelly's rec plan from just this one property if correctly assessed.

So, if you/they pursued that fair value they could essentially give say 15 senior citizen homeowners a $20,000 exclusion and still remain revenue neutral. They could give 30 homeowners a $10,000 exclusion. They could give 60 a $5,000 exclusion. Or 120 a $2,500 exclusion.

And how many high priced homes are paying less than their fair market value based on recent sale prices and reassessed values in Lebo?

I find it horrible that the school district will spend $150 arguing against a homeowner that may think his assessment is $20, 40 or $60,000 too high while there are properties that are underassessed by hundreds of thousands.

If the municipality undertook corrective action maybe we wouldn't have to charge stormwater fees, or borrow for street paving, or float bonds for pool upgrades.

Update August 10, 2012 3:45 PM The latest Commission Discussion Agenda is showing "School District Assessment Appeals" has been moved back to the August 27, 2012 meeting.

Is this the end of Kossman project?

In today's Trib, Allegheny County backs financing plan for transit project, Castle Shannon voted unanimously to support a TIF (Tax Increment Financing) to develop the Castle Shannon T stop by Ice Castle. From a traffic standpoint, this would be a traffic nightmare for the Kossman property.

We were talking about developing the air rights over the Mt. Lebanon T stop. I wonder if this will affect our plans. I believe we're asleep at the switch. Castle Shannon is moving forward while we talk about turfing Mellon field and going after tax appeals.