13,100 appealed reassessment
When it was all said and done, 13,100 Fayette County property owners filed appeals in response to a recently scuttled countywide reassessment project. That figure slightly topped the 13,000 appeals that were filed when the county completed a reassessment project that went into effect Jan. 1, 2003 – the first reassessment implemented since 1958. The county has 77,280 taxable parcels of land, according to chief assessor James A. Hercik. Commission Chairman Vincent Zapotosky said Monday that the fact that more people filed appeals this year than in 2002 shows the process was flawed.
“The problem isn’t the 2009 reassessment. The problem is the numbers from the 2003 reassessment were tempered. This further substantiates my position to suspend the project,” Zapotosky said.
Zapotosky said the county went through a reassessment that changed property values from a base year of 1958 to 2001, or almost a half-century. He said the fact that there were more appeals seven years later, after less than one decade, shows that somewhere the numbers don’t make sense.
Exactly how many of the people who filed appeals would have followed through with them never will be known, however, because the project was stopped before the appeals hearings began.
Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites said throughout the process that he had encouraged people to file appeals if they felt their values were too high.
Commissioner Angela M. Zimmerlink said the number of appeals clearly shows the dissatisfaction by the property owners who were footing the bill.
She added that this “17 percent return doesn’t even take into account those who attempted to file before the July 31 deadline and were turned away, and those who didn’t file because they took the view that it would be useless.”
“As a commissioner, I am fully aware of my responsibilities and the issues of the many inconsistencies and inaccurate input of data resulting in such a disparity of values which remain to be addressed, and as long as these Harrisburg legislators pass the buck to the counties and levies property taxes I will take every step possible to ensure the assessments process is done right,” Zimmerlink said.
The Fayette County commissioners voted last week to officially suspend the three-year project that was set to go into effect on Jan. 1. With that decision, property owners soon will be notified that their assessed values will be reverting to the 2001 base-year amounts, instead of the new values (or 2008 base-year values).
As is the case every year, property owners can file appeals if they feel the value of their property is too high. Appeals will be accepted through Sept. 15.
Hercik said appeal hearings would be held in October. The independent assessment appeals board includes John Rogish, Lloyd Moser and Odilia “Dee” John.
Zimmerlink cautioned all property owners not to confuse the appeal period that ends Sept. 15 with 2010 reassessment project because this is the appeal process that always has been available to property owners on a yearly basis.
Hercik said after the commissioners decided to halt the reassessment project, his office received numerous calls from property owners whose values were going to drop, asking if they could file appeals based on that fact.
Hercik said property owners can file appeals based on what would have been a drop in assessed property values.
To file an appeal, property owners can either call the assessment office at the courthouse, the auxiliary assessment appeals office or download an appeal form from the Web site at www.fayetteproperty.org
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A total of 19,636 parcels across the county, or 25.4 percent, would have seen a decrease in value or would have remained the same if the reassessment were implemented.
Hercik said in a typical year between 300 and 400 property owners file appeals, but how many will file this year is unknown.
“These are such extraordinary circumstances that we don’t know how many we are going to get,” Hercik said.
By law, a taxing body such as a county, municipality or school district also is permitted to file an appeal if an assessed value is thought to be too low.
That, however, rarely happens. Hercik said he recalled one case about 10 or 12 years ago in which Newell Borough filed an appeal on the value of a chemical plant in the borough.
The commissioners unanimously decided to halt the reassessment project before undertaking the appeals process, citing concerns about the economy, the fairness of the process and the fact that the state Legislature has undertaken a one-year study on reassessment projects throughout the state.
One of the reasons given to not continue with the project was the fact that the real estate market has taken a downturn this year.
Vicites said his decision was because of the current downturn in the housing market that he said hasn’t yet hit bottom.
He said he recently spoke with county commissioners from other parts of the state, such as Bedford and Cumberland counties, who agreed that now is not the right time to conduct a reassessment project.
“I stand by my decision. I think it is not the right time to do this,” Vicites said.
Vicites said when the last reassessment was implemented, which set a base year of 2001, it was a “stable and increasing housing market.”
“It was stable when we started the process but the bottom dropped out in 2007 and 2008, and I still don’t think it’s done bottoming out,” Vicites said.
Before the commissioners opted to not continue with the reassessment, Hercik compiled a list of 234 real estate transactions that occurred in Fayette County in 2009, which he said included the “lion’s share” of the transactions that have occurred this year.
The total actual sale price of the 234 sales was $22,986,810, while the projected assessed value was going to be $19,481,070. Because the project isn’t being implemented at this time, the assessed value will likely be much less than even the $19 million figure because the properties will revert back to 2001 base-year values.
Throughout the county, the total assessed value of all taxable property was set to increase 36 percent. Because a reassessment isn’t designed to make revenue, by law the county, school districts and municipalities must reduce the millage rate so that the county doesn’t generate a windfall in revenue. However, by law, municipal taxing bodies are permitted to increase revenue by 5 percent in a reassessment year and school districts are permitted to raise revenue by 10 percent.
Countywide, about 60 percent of the property owners would have either seen a decrease in taxes or their taxes would have remained the same.
Only about 11,400, or 14.7 percent, of the taxable parcels in the county were set to increase more than 75 percent.
Hercik said most of the money, more than $600,000, that has been spent toward the halted project was for outside contracts and to upgrade the GIS system. He said it was money that would have been spent anyway but was put in with the reassessment costs.
Other costs included mailing and postage. He said during the project, the seven state-certified assessors in his office worked on both their daily work and the reassessment project.
Hercik said there was no question some mistakes were made, but said that is why there is an appeals process.
“You don’t do a project of this size without making mistakes. But that’s the Monday morning quarterback scenario,” Hercik said.
Hercik said mistakes have been found and corrected since the 2003 project.
An independent review of Fayette County’s reassessment process concluded that through the procedures in place “a fair and equitable reassessment was conducted.” Resource Technologies Corp. (RTC) of State College, an independent research, development and technical services firm, conducted the review.