The chair of the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review in Allegheny County is raising concerns about staffing and funding levels for tax assessors and the board itself.
This comes ahead of what he says will be a busy appeals season — and a potential court-ordered countywide reassessment within the next few years. The most recent such reassessment was conducted in 2013.
Mike Suley, BPAAR chair, was the subject of a recent interview in which he raised alarms about the county assessor’s absence during recent hearings. Suley told TribLive the board itself is facing other challenges, such as limited staffing levels and pay.
“What we do is very important,” Suley said. “We average 6,000 to 8,000 appeals a year, and I want to prepare the appeals board.”
Suley has long been vocal about the issue of assessment, including in past TribLive op-eds. He previously managed the county’s Office of Property Assessment and consulted with plaintiffs on a 2021 lawsuit challenging the county’s methods.
Suley says the process has been hampered by low staffing levels.
“Fifteen years ago, I managed the assessment office and the appeals division of the assessment office was 14 people. Now it’s seven. Now they’re telling me to go in the next year with three.”
Suley also said he feels the $20-per-hour salary listed in current county assessor job postings are too low to attract the best candidates.
Abigail Gardner, an Allegheny County spokeswoman, said that salary range was in line with similar postings at the county level and noted this reflected a pay raise instituted under Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato. Regarding a countywide assessment, Gardner said she couldn’t comment, given the county’s role in pending litigation.
The BPAAR has heard some 6,000 appeals this cycle and resolved 5,900 of them, by Suley’s estimates. He said the appeals process before the independent board, whose members are not appointed by the county executive, is one of the only avenues of recourse for property owners facing a changed tax bill after reassessment.
The issue of tax assessment has become a political hot potato in Allegheny County and Pennsylvania at large, with lawsuits and postponement becoming the local norm. While appreciating home values can sometimes mean a higher property tax bill for residents, higher-value commercial entities have rushed to appeal for a lower valuation following a pandemic-induced shift in working habits, costing local governments millions in revenue.
Some state-level leaders have said the commonwealth’s lack of a consistent process for reassessment leaves Pennsylvania “lagging behind the rest of the nation in tax fairness.” The issue of property taxes was also central to a Commonwealth Court decision that held the state’s school funding mechanism to be unconstitutional.
Suley said he’s talking to the media in part to draw attention to a fraught internal situation that may have a downstream impact on Allegheny County property owners.
“There has been miscommunication between the administration and [BPAAR],” Suley told TribLive, “and I hope we can resolve these issues sooner rather than later.”