Fitzgerald Voids New Assessment Numbers, Certifies Last Year's Values

Allegeny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Thursday that property reassessment notices sent out by the county recently are "null and void," and that the county will not rely on them for 2012 taxing purposes. 

The county has, instead, certified the 2011 assessed values, the same values that have been used for nearly a decade.

The move goes against the court-mandated property tax reassessment that prompted the mailing of the recent notices. 

Fitzgerald said it over and over again during a press conference Thursday afternoon: When it comes to property tax reassessment, Allegheny County shouldn’t be singled out.

New notices were sent out Thursday, Fitzgerald said, and those are “the ones that matter.”

The county was ordered by Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. Nov. 10 to certify the new reassessments, which were ordered by the state Supreme court in 2009. The Supreme Court ruled then that the county's method of assessing properties, relying on a base-year assessment, over time violates the doctrine of equal taxation. 

The reassesment notices went out to Pittsburgh city residents and those in Mt. Oliver at the end of December, shocking many with the new values. A review of properties by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found wide discrepancies in values across several neighborhoods.

Wettick said on Thursday that he was considering a request to put off use of the new assessments until 2013. 

Despite the court order, Fitzgerald said he believes he is following all state laws and that the certification reports sent out this afternoon will allow officials in the city and with the school district to set their tax millage rates by the deadline they are required to do so. 

“Earlier this week, I took an oath to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth. The Second Class County Assessment Law and our own administrative code requires that certified assessed values be provided to taxing bodies on or before Jan. 15,” Fitzgerald said.

Characterizing the court-ordered assessment as “chaotic and disastrous,” he said his review of the new numbers disturbed him. 

“We’ve all seen the stories about the large numbers, substantial increases and shocking values from just the 119,000 residential properties. This is the first update of values in a decade and the increases are simply terrifying to some property owners. Imagine what the rest of the county may look like if we continue down this road,” Fitzgerald said.

“We cannot continue to allow Allegheny County to be singled out while counties around us have gone for decades without a reassessment. The stability that we have brought to (the county) over the last decade has shown results, and we cannot allow that progress to be jeopardized through a discriminatory practice.”

Flanked by city, school, county and state officials, Fitzgerald said he urged all taxing bodies to come together to support a moratorium on the court-ordered assessment.

Councilman Matt Drozd, who represents Ross Township and West View within District 1, was not one of those standing next to Fitzgerald. 

He said freezing the assessments temporarily was a good move, but that the county executive's announcement didn't provide enough of a solution to the problem.  

"It's not fixed. There's no resolution to the problem," he said. "This is more reactive than being proactive." 

Instead, Drozd said, the county is delaying the pain.

"The courts are going to come back at him," Drozd said. 

Grant Montgomery, president of the Ross Township Board of Commissioners, said he believed Fitzgerald did the right thing in order to meet the deadlines municipalities faced in setting the the tax rates. 

"I don't see how he could follow the court order, logically speaking," Montgomery said. 

Reassessment numbers for municipalities in northern Allegheny County have not been released and weren't expected by officials for at least a few more months. In passing its budget, Ross Township did not factor in any impact — negative or positive — by the reassessment, opting instead to cross that bridge when it had to, said township manager Wayne Jones. 

Fitzgerald, like the previous county executive, said he wants to stop the reassessment process altogether. He said he has the support of the largest school district in the county, the Pittsburgh Public School District. 

He also said letters are being sent to all 130 municipalities and the other 44 school districts in the county asking them to pass resolutions asking the courts to stop the reassessment.

Fitzgerald said he worried that if an assessment is forced, that residents and businesses would migrate to surrounding counties—setting back economic development gains Allegheny County has made over the years.