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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 conce...
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