TITLE
A Resolution of the Council of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, requesting that the Allegheny County Controller perform an update to his 2004 and 2006 "Review of Allegheny County Office of Property Assessments Policies and Procedures Related to the Assessments, Appeals and Valuation Processes for Residential Parcels" with all deliberate speed, and authorizing the Controller to undertake such an update.
BODY
WHEREAS, on June 21, 2004, the Allegheny County Controller released a performance audit of the Office of Property Assessment's policies and procedures, which included a review of the Office's procedures for adding newly constructed properties to the County's tax rolls; and
WHEREAS, that audit found, among other items, that "[a]s of February 2004, 650 lot plans, 7,313 residential building permits, 2,539 commercial building permits, 7,000 parcels to be data entered, and 1,400 interim assessment requests still need to be processed. The residential building permits and commercial building permits are valued at approximately $1,000,000,000, which results in approximately $4,690,000 in lost tax revenue"; and
WHEREAS, in addition, the Controller also noted that "OPA is not cross-checking the lot parcel identification number to the delinquent tax file maintained by the Controller's Office before the lot is subdivided and the original parcel number is deleted or the value is reduced to
zero. We identified 10 parcels out of a sample of 272 lot plans that had partially uncollected delinquent taxes totaling $15,558"; and
WHEREAS, on March 29, 2006, the Controller released an update to this audit, at which time he noted that "[o]ne very consequential recommendation not realized was the urgent need for the OPA to clear its considerable backlog"; and
WHEREAS, in his statement accompanying the release of the 2006 update, the Controller indicated that "[i]n its prior review, the Controller's Office revealed that approximately one billion dolla...
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