Preparing for Change: How Allegheny County's Property Reassessment Will Affect Homeowners and Communities

Allegheny County is facing the daunting task of reassessing property within its jurisdiction for the first time, comprehensively, in more than a decade. When such a long time lapses between comprehensive reassessments, issues of assessment accuracy, uniformity, and tax equity get magnified. Notwithstanding that some taxpayers over time have paid less than they should have, while others have paid more, the looming actuality of higher assessments–and higher taxes, at least for some–causes genuine consternation among the residents, businesses, and governments within Allegheny County.

With that in mind, The Heinz Endowments commissioned Reinvestment Fund’s Policy Solutions Group together with May 8 Consulting and Chicago’s Center for Economic Policy Analysis to address three issues:

1. Develop an understanding of the legal landscape within which property tax assessment occurs in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and of the existing measures to buffer residents from tax increases;
2. Develop an understanding of where in the county homeowners are more likely to experience increases in taxes as a result of the reassessment;
3. Taken together, develop a set of recommendations for actions the County and other local governments and school districts can take now, in anticipation of a reassessment, and in the future, recognizing that some of the best policy responses may require legislation and may perhaps engender legal challenge.

We recommend that policy and implementation strategy prioritize three things:

1. Create and roll-out a comprehensive public education campaign related to the property tax assessment process;
2. Ensure that the County’s vendor (responsible for creating countywide assessments) conduct a high-quality, transparent, and verifiably accurate job with ample room for appeals to ensure inaccuracies are fixed before taxpayers are impacted;
3. Affirmatively market (particularly in areas identified by the quantitative analysis as home to lower income, ALICE, and elderly householders) and expand some of the existing tools, notably the Homestead Exemption, to buffer residents from the economic shock of the reassessment.

Property taxes are a critical source of revenue for local governmental entities that provide services all residents need (e.g., police and fire protection, public education, trash pick-up and street maintenance). Property taxes paid by residents and businesses alike need to be transparent, predictable, and affordable. Allegheny County needs accurate assessments that form the basis of that critical revenue stream and a system of assessment and taxation that is maximally accurate, uniform, economically equitable, and manageable for the County’s residents.