BUTLER TWP — Township officials say that homeowners could face increasing insurance premiums for their buildings because of Pennsylvania’s out-of-date uniform construction code.

The news came Monday night at the township’s regular commissioners’ meeting, with township officials saying they received a letter in January from the ISO, an organization that reviews and rates municipalities’ building codes and fire protection efforts, and issues ratings that assess property and personal risk on a scale of one for the best to 10 for the worst.

Butler Township’s previous ISO ranking was 4, but in January the township’s ranking was revised to a 9 by the company — something township zoning officer Jessie Hines said is cause for concern.

Hines said that’s not a sure thing, but it’s possible that homeowners’ insurance premiums could increase if their insurance company uses the ISO ratings in their evaluations of peoples’ plans.

“It’s not that everyone is going to automatically get higher insurance rates,” Hines said. “But the possibility is there for them to pay a higher premium.”

The cause is Pennsylvania’s out-of-date uniform construction code, which was last revised in 2009. Hines said that once a construction code is six years old, ISO doesn’t recognize it as a functional set of guidelines anymore.

In 2015, the International Construction Codes, on which the state’s UCC is based, contained more than 3,000 changes that weren’t included in the state’s construction regulations. The ICC updates its code book every three years.

But Pennsylvania’s Review and Advisory Council, which reviews the ICC codes and decides which ones to include in Pennsylvania’s UCC, hasn’t kept pace. In 2012 the 19-member group, which is appointed by the governor, voted to reject all of the ICC code updates. Critics, including Butler Township Fire Marshal Larry Christy, have called the council dysfunctional and its review process prone to the influence of special interest groups.

Now Butler Township commissioners say they want to put the pressure on state officials to get the construction codes up-to-date.