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An ordinance of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amending Article 210 of the Administrative Code of Allegheny County, entitled “Assessment Standards and Practices,” §5-210.03, entitled “Established predetermined ratio; common level ratio,” in order to codify applicable standards for validating sales data to be used in calculating the County’s annual common level ratio.
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Whereas, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s State Tax Equalization Board (STEB) was initially established as an independent state administrative board by the act of June 27, 1947 (P.L. 1046, No. 447), commonly known as the State Tax Equalization Board Law. STEB is currently governed by the provisions of Chapter 15 of the Community and Economic Development Enhancement Act, the act of June 27, 1996 (P.L. 403, No. 58); 71 P.S. §§ 1709.1501, et seq.; and
Whereas, one of the most critical functions of STEB is to annually establish the Common Level Ratio (CLR) of assessed value to current market value for each county in the Commonwealth utilizing statistically acceptable techniques, including sales ratio studies; and
Whereas, STEB is required to publicly disclose its methodology in computing the ratios and publish this information in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, and prior to July 1 in every year, STEB must certify the CLR ratio to the chief assessor of each county; and
Whereas, the annually certified CLR is vitally important in counties utilizing a base year assessment system (as Allegheny County does), because the CLR is utilized to represent current property sale prices in the equivalent base year dollars during the assessment appeal process; and
Whereas, in determining the annual CLR, the various counties are to conduct calculations utilizing data regarding valid sales (i.e. sales that are at arms’ length, between fully informed buyers and sellers, involving property on the open market for a reasonable time, and without special or unusual financing or sales concessions by either party), and ignore data from invalid sales (e.g. sales that are not conducted at arms’ length, such as sales for nominal consideration between family members); and
Whereas, as recently revealed in litigation captioned as Gioffre v. Fitzgerald, et. al., GD-21-007154, Allegheny County’s Office of Property Assessments (OPA) incorrectly coded a significant number of sales in multiple tax years as “valid” or “invalid,” to the point that the County’s CLR was calculated to be significantly higher than it should have been in those tax years and adversely affecting thousands of property owners in those years by establishing inaccurately high property values via the assessment appeal process; and
Whereas, STEB from time to time publishes a Sales Validation and Submission Operations Manual, which establishes best practices for sales validation, including validation and rejection codes and standards; and
Whereas, the most recent STEB Sales Validation and Submission Operations Manual, published in May of 2024, expressly references and adopts guidelines from the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) publication Standard on Verification and Adjustment of Sales; and
Whereas, the IAAO publication, last revised in April of 2020, contains much more detailed guidance and standards for evaluation and coding of real estate sales than the less lengthy STEB publication; and
Whereas, no existing provision of County law requires the County’s Office of Property Assessment to follow either the STEB or IAAO guidelines with regard to coding property sales for the purpose of accurately calculating the County’s CLR; and
Whereas, it is the judgment of Council that consistent, accurate coding of sales for CLR calculation purposes is of paramount importance to the integrity of the County’s real estate tax system, and that the County’s property taxpayers deserve nothing less than the County’s best efforts to ensure that inaccurately inflated CLR values are never calculated again; and
Whereas, it is further the judgment of Council that part of these efforts should include establishing coding standards to be utilized by the Office of Property Assessments in County law, and that these standards should be consistent with both STEB’s guidelines and the IAAO guidelines to the greatest extent possible;
The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby enacts as follows:
SECTION 1. Incorporation of the Preamble
The provisions of the preamble to this Ordinance are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference herein.
SECTION 2. Amendment of the Code
Article 210 of the Administrative Code of Allegheny County, entitled “Assessment Standards and Practices,” §5-210.03, entitled “Established predetermined ratio; common level ratio” is hereby amended as follows:
§ 5-210.03. Established predetermined ratio; common level ratio.
A. The Office of Property Assessments, at the direction of the Chief Assessment Officer, shall assess all objects of taxation within the County at a value based upon 100% of the actual value, subject to base year equalization in years between County-wide reassessments, beginning with the Certification for the 2001 tax year and all succeeding tax years; provided however, that the Chief Assessment Officer through the Office of Property Assessments shall assess all objects of taxation within the County based upon a common level ratio whenever the use of a common level ratio in the County is required in order to conform with the requirements of the State Tax Equalization Law or other successor state laws.
B. In collecting and analyzing sales data for the purpose of validating it for inclusion in any calculation relating to the County’s common level ratio for any tax year, the Office of Property Assessments, at the direction of the Chief Assessment Officer, shall adhere to validation standards established in the most recent State Tax Equalization Board Sales Validation and Submission Operations Manual (or successor document) and the most recent International Association of Assessing Officers Standard on Verification and Adjustment of Sales (or successor document). In the event that there is an irreconcilable conflict between these two standards, such conflict shall be resolved in favor of the most recently published State Tax Equalization Board’s standards. Under no circumstances shall the Chief Assessment Officer or Office of Property Assessments code any sale as valid or invalid contrary to the standards established in this Subsection.
SECTION 3. Severability. If any provision of this Ordinance shall be determined to be unlawful, invalid, void or unenforceable, then that provision shall be considered severable from the remaining provisions of this Ordinance which shall be in full force and effect.
SECTION 4. Repealer. Any Resolution or Ordinance or part thereof conflicting with the provisions of this Ordinance is hereby repealed so far as the same affects this Ordinance.