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To continue with the reception on the evening of Tuesday, July 23, Dan Sullivan retold the story of how Pittsburgh lost its two-rate tax in 2000; the city had been taxing land at roughly six times the rate applied to buildings, although this unfortunately did not apply to school and county property taxes.
There was an assessment scandal, with four whistleblowers, one of whom was the eighty-third assessor from the bottom in seniority for Allegheny County. People were sent to jail, and the most senior assessor not to go to prison then hired a private company, Saber Systems and Services, to lay off 85 people, and use their own crew to do the reassessment. If only 83 assessors had been laid off, maybe something would have happened to save the whistleblower, or perhaps it would have been too obvious that the goal was to get rid of her, but laying off 85 left a margin for error and obscurity.
Saber Systems used appraisers, not assessors, and utterly botched the reassessment. Neighboring properties in Pittsburgh with similar land areas could have land assessments differing by a factor of nine. This was more or less deliberate on the part of the then County Commissioners, who didn’t even bother to Sabertage the assessments for the other little towns in Allegheny County that had two-rate property taxes; Pittsburgh was the main target. So Pittsburgh went to a one-rate property tax,
The current County Commissioner isn’t implicated in the Sabertage, but doesn’t want a reassessment. Reassessments are not popular with property owners.
Dan Sullivan gave his conclusion: We can’t win; enough other people can.
Bill Batt spoke up to say that Saber Systems and Services had reassessed Albany, New York, and attributed 15% of the value of every property to land.
To be continued.
There was an assessment scandal, with four whistleblowers, one of whom was the eighty-third assessor from the bottom in seniority for Allegheny County. People were sent to jail, and the most senior assessor not to go to prison then hired a private company, Saber Systems and Services, to lay off 85 people, and use their own crew to do the reassessment. If only 83 assessors had been laid off, maybe something would have happened to save the whistleblower, or perhaps it would have been too obvious that the goal was to get rid of her, but laying off 85 left a margin for error and obscurity.
Saber Systems used appraisers, not assessors, and utterly botched the reassessment. Neighboring properties in Pittsburgh with similar land areas could have land assessments differing by a factor of nine. This was more or less deliberate on the part of the then County Commissioners, who didn’t even bother to Sabertage the assessments for the other little towns in Allegheny County that had two-rate property taxes; Pittsburgh was the main target. So Pittsburgh went to a one-rate property tax,
The current County Commissioner isn’t implicated in the Sabertage, but doesn’t want a reassessment. Reassessments are not popular with property owners.
Dan Sullivan gave his conclusion: We can’t win; enough other people can.
Bill Batt spoke up to say that Saber Systems and Services had reassessed Albany, New York, and attributed 15% of the value of every property to land.
To be continued.
