The last time Blair County conducted a property reassessment, Alaskans were waiting for statehood.
Blair County's 1958 base year stands as the oldest in Pennsylvania, according to the State Tax Equalization Board, a state agency that monitors the accuracy of county assessments.
That means Blair County assessments are based on what property was worth in 1958. They are so out-of-date, the county property tax -- at the state ceiling of 30 mills -- generates just $19 million of the county's $61 million budget, said County Commissioner Barry W. Wright.
"Our real estate tax program is not fair," Wright said.
County officials statewide are watching a court case in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court in which Judge R. Stanton Wettick ruled last week that base-year systems -- which every county uses -- are unconstitutional. If his decision is upheld by appeals courts, counties would be forced to conduct overwhelmingly reassessments, which are very unpopular with property owners.
When Jim Roddey -- then Allegheny County chief executive conducted reassessments ordered by Wettick in 2001 and 2002 -- he lost his job in the next election.
Wright had campaigned in May for a reassessment. After a bruising Republican primary in May, he'll be looking for a new job next year.
Westmoreland County hasn't reassessed since 1972, and doing so now would cost as much as $15 million, said Phil Light, a Westmoreland County commissioner. Since the property values assigned by the reassessment would again be out of date after a few years, "I have a tough time telling citizens I'm going to spend their money to do this," Light said.
Yet, he acknowledges that basing property taxes on assessments more than 30 years old is not fair.
"From a purely philosophical view point, yes. There's no question uniformity and equity have suffered over 30 years," Light said.
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Wettick ruled the base-year assessment system violates the state Constitution's requirement of equal taxation. Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato said he plans to appeal to the state Supreme Court. A ruling there would apply to every county.
Local politicians, including Onorato, have decried Wettick's ruling, even though many say the base-year system has produced unequal taxation in their counties. The prospect of fixing those inequities, though, is daunting: It would cost each county millions of dollars, lead to wild fluctuations in homeowners' tax bills and leave officials vulnerable to voters' wrath.
County officials who support the base-year system say reassessments can get home values wrong, too. Onorato has pointed out that 180,000 appeals followed Allegheny County's last two reassessments in 2001 and 2002, 75 percent of which were settled in homeowners' favor.
But supporters of base-year property systems acknowledge that the valuations need to be periodically updated.
"If you let it go for 40 years, then it only makes sense that, yeah, it would be out of whack," said Armstrong County's chief assessor Michael Renosky.
Even the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, which has pledged to support Onorato's appeal, supports mandatory reassessments, said the association's executive director, Doug Hill.
The solution, though, has to come from the state, Hill and others said. They want the state to consolidate the six laws governing assessments -- each applying to different-sized counties -- into one code, and apply it to everyone.
"The problem with the property tax system is it's now become as complicated as the federal income tax. Nobody likes it because nobody can understand it," Light said. "The Legislature needs to step up to the plate. If they want true tax reform, they need to look at this. ... There's no reason someone's property in Philadelphia should be considered different than someone's property in Westmoreland County."
Then, if the state requires regular reassessments, Harrisburg has to help counties pay for it, Light said.
"We absolutely have to recognize there is a big cost to this," said state Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline.
The former real estate broker and county councilman said the assessment problems across the state have been building so long, Wettick's ruling might have been necessary to fix them.
"It's such a controversial issue, people just ignored it and hoped it would go away. Judge Wettick is making the issue move."
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