Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] has filed a lawsuit against Allegheny County to compel a county-wide reassessment of properties.
The filing comes after the school board unanimously voted last month to authorize district solicitor Ira Weiss to take legal action. The lawsuit names the county and County Executive Sara Innamorato in her official capacity as defendants.
PPS officials said they would approach the county executive’s office to consider a voluntary reassessment, but two weeks later that window is closed, according to Weiss.
“We have provided the county executive with a reasonable time to consider our request to order the reassessment,” Weiss wrote in an email statement. “She has replied with the same general statements about more ‘review and study.’ The time has passed for that.”.
Abigail Gardner, spokesperson for the county executive’s office, wrote in a statement that the administration is gathering data to analyze the implications of a reassessment.
“Any reassessment must be revenue-neutral and not a backdoor tax hike for the people of Allegheny County and should protect seniors and low-income homeowners in the process,” she said, echoing Innamorato’s campaign position. “Ideally, reassessments would be state-mandated, mundane, regular occurrences and not once-per-decade shocks to the system. Our preference is to work with stakeholders to build a more predictable system for everyone.”
The county assigns tax values to properties, which are used in county, municipal and school district property tax bills. Property owners, municipalities and districts can appeal those values.
The lawsuit states that the county’s assessment scheme violates the state’s Uniformity Clause that requires taxing bodies to evenly tax and assess properties within their jurisdiction.
The district’s decision to sue follows appeals filed by Downtown property owners to reduce the assessed values on major commercial properties in the wake of the 2020 pandemic.
In addition to plummeting commercial values, the district’s tax base has also suffered from a drop in the Common Level Ratio [CLR] from 87.5% to 54.5%. The CLR is a metric used to value properties reassessed after the base year. The revised ratio resulted from a 2022 lawsuit brought by property owners, and made appeals more favorable to owners.
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