Oct 17, 2002 By Paul Sunyak 4 min read

The Fayette County Tax Assessment Appeals board refused to change the 2003 assessed valued of Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa on Wednesday, leaving the value of 17 Wharton Township parcels at a combined $69 million. The board’s decision flies in the face of a settlement agreement approved in August by the Uniontown Area School Board, which signed off on setting the resort’s assessed value for 2003 at $39 million.

Wednesday’s appeal hearing included nine of the 11 parcels covered by the school board settlement agreement. Of the two that weren’t included, one is in Henry Clay Township and is valued at $554,260, while the other is in Wharton Township and is valued at only $3,600.

In making its unanimous decision, the appeals board comprised of Jim Killinger, Joe Dorazio and Lloyd Moser upheld the values placed on Nemacolin properties by Cole Layer Trumble, the firm that conducted the first countywide reassessment since 1958.

The CLT values for Nemacolin were based on construction costs, since there are no comparable properties by which to judge recent sales. The cost method differs from the income/expense approach that the resort and school district agreed to in August, as a means of concluding a court battle that stretched back to 1998.

School district solicitor Donald Walsh and resort attorney Gregory Lotz, who sat side by side at the table reserved for appellants, presented the case to the appeals board.

Lotz submitted an appraisal report on behalf of Nemacolin that he said had been “shared between the parties” in the ongoing legal matter. While the school district took the lead in that civil court case, Fayette County and Wharton and Henry Clay townships have also been involved.

Lotz said the “real intention” of Wednesday’s appeal and hearing was to protect the interest of his client regarding the resort’s 2003 assessed value.

Basically, now that the appeals board has rejected the resort’s request for a change in its 2003 assessment, Nemacolin has the option to appeal that decision to Fayette County Court, where the parties involved apparently have the ability to negotiate that figure. It’s the same path that was taken to determine the resort’s assessed value for tax years 1999 to 2002, which are also spelled out in the settlement agreement.

However, Uniontown attorney Herbert Margolis, a former Uniontown school board solicitor, questioned whether a school district has the legal ability to negotiate an assessed value for any township property.

“Under what law does the school district have the authority to determine any assessment?” asked Margolis after the hearing record had been closed. “The negotiation can only come from the county … I don’t know what the court is doing, with the school district trying to negotiate the assessment.”

Margolis said that he would forward to assistant county solicitor John Cupp, who also attended the hearing, a copy of the relevant legal statute for Cupp’s review.

During the hearing, Killinger said that the appraisal Lotz submitted on behalf of Nemacolin pegged the resort’s value at $23.4 million, as of January 2002.

He asked Walsh if the school district had an appraisal of its own. Walsh said that it had, and that the school district’s appraisal as of 2002 was approximately $45 million.

Given those two extremes, Killinger asked where the settlement agreement figure of $39 million for 2003 that he had read about in the newspaper had come from. Killinger was told that there had been “settlement figures” developed between the sides for the various years, which prompted him to ask, “How could it be negotiated for tax year 2003 when it hasn’t come before the board (until today)?”

Lotz said that the resort’s hope is that when the case is concluded, the assessments for all the tax years in question will be set.

He added that in terms of legal precedent “there’s not a case that clearly states what happens” to agreed-upon figures in a year in which a countywide reassessment goes into effect, as will occur here in 2003.

Walsh said it’s his legal determination that “when an appeal has been taken into court, the court shall determine” the tax years covered by any settlement agreement.

Sources familiar with the appeal have said that the scenario most likely to play out would see Nemacolin taking the 2003 case to court after the appeals board rejection, and asking that it be consolidated into the case covering tax years 1999 through 2002.

Once in court, those source say, the parties would be free to negotiate the resort’s 2003 assessed value, even if that means rubber-stamping the $39 million already agreed upon and formally approved by the school board.

Although it was not part of the official settlement agreement, a $100,000 contribution to the school district by Nemacolin owner Joe Hardy was part of the deal, according to a letter authored by the school district solicitor.