Corrupt assessments should be prevented
In the bottom of a dusty file cabinet, in the back of an old records room at the Fayette County Courthouse a book developed in 1958 stayed buried for decades. The rate book is important in that its discovery shed light on just how corrupt the county’s property assessment system has become. And if any doubt lingered that the county needs to reassess property values, it was blown away during two days of testimony last week. Revelations as to the book’s discovery, implications as to what it meant and how convoluted the county’s current assessment system is came out during a hearing before the state Board of Real Estate Appraisers. The county’s chief assessor, Jim Hercik, was hauled before the board under allegations (prompted by complaints lodged by state Rep. Larry Roberts) that he knowingly and willingly created inaccurate assessments of properties. If the hearing officer John F. Alcorn believes the allegations, Hercik could lose his state license.
We hope that Alcorn recognizes Hercik was set up as the whipping boy to take the fall for a system that was skewed while he was still in high school. If anyone should be held to answer for the irregular values assigned to properties throughout Fayette County it is Hercik’s predecessors as chief assessor, including state Sen. Richard A. Kasunic and former state Sen. Gene Porterfield. Dick Bitner was also a chief assessor prior to Hercik.
The county is expected for the 2003 taxing year to start with new values for all 78,000 parcels. The last time a countywide reassessment was adopted was in 1958. Under state law all values must be uniform, meaning in Fayette’s case the market value of property for that year. However, testimony showed that Porterfield in 1971 created a manual that was then passed along to Kasunic and eventually to Hercik, to be used in calculating values. Hercik said that he assumed the Porterfield manual used the 1958 base year, and it wasn’t until Roberts began pushing for information during an appeal of his property in 1997 that he learned otherwise. Hercik found the 1958 rate book and saw that it was markedly different than the manual he had been using. He knew then that a computerized system created in 1985 under Bitner when the county attempted, but failed, to undertake a reassessment was also flawed.
Hercik kept the discovery hidden from the public until he and county officials could decide the next step. For how long, we do not know, but the staff was retrained to use the 1958 values and there was no testimony that he continued to use wrong numbers.
To his credit, Hercik for many years attempted to convince several boards of commissioners of the necessity to reassess. But the political willpower didn’t exist until the current three commissioners voted unanimously to repair the damage. He didn’t possess the power to order a reassessment although Alcorn said during the hearing that “this case may be one to test that water.” We would hope that was merely a momentary comment and not an indication as to how Alcorn is leaning.
How long would Hercik have kept his job if he had “ordered” a reassessment? If he had been entrusted with that type of power, then every chief assessor in the state could do so. None has. Either courts order it as in Allegheny County or county commissioners find it wiser to do so than face a court challenge.
State law does not require counties to undergo periodic and regular reassessments. Until it does there is nothing to prevent this same corruption creeping back in. There is no way to go back and correct the decades of wrong in Fayette County. The new reassessment should get values back in line. And as a prevention tool, Rep. Roberts and Sen. Kasunic can champion legislation that requires regular reassessments.