A letter dated Aug. 21 from Butler City Council to the Butler County Assessment Office suggested that the office stop handling reassessment requests within the city and instead conduct a countywide reassessment, if it must do any reassessing at all.

“If the county feels that property reassessment is necessary, we recommend that you pursue a countywide reassessment rather than doing spot assessments within our city,” the council wrote. It added that the city would support “reasonable tax reassessment” for owner-occupied housing only.

The county's board of commissioners, by way of its solicitor, Michael English, responded with a letter of its own Thursday. English wrote “regardless of the reasons for your request, the county is not legally permitted to pursue this course of action.”

Dirty term

Countywide reassessment is a dirty term for many Pennsylvania counties, as the state simultaneously allows counties to go decades without performing one while its judicial branch sometimes rules that its counties must. It seems to be a process that nearly always needs doing, but no one wants to be the one who orders it.

The last year Butler County reassessed all its property values was 1969, meaning its taxation system is using the third oldest property assessment figures in the state, according to the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.

Degree of inaccuracy

The old numbers indicate a degree of inaccuracy in the assessments being used, experts say. Beyond their effect on tax bills, they also may open the county up for a legal battle down the road, as several counties using comparably-aged or even younger assessments have been court-ordered to reassess values.

So what does using old values mean in practice? It means property owners are being taxed today based off what their land was worth or would have been worth in 1969.

That doesn't mean tax bills remain at 1969 levels. While assessed values are frozen in time, millage rates for the county, municipalities and school districts have risen. Butler County tax bills are generated by multiplying a property's assessed value by whatever entity's millage rates apply to it.

Take, for instance, the home on the 500 block of Virginia Avenue in Butler that belongs to the city's mayor, Benjamin Smith. The property was last sold in 2015, county records show, for $51,000. However, it's assessed at only $5,970.

Smith said the letter from council was the collective opinion of the council. They believe, he said, the county ought to prioritize owner-occupied homes so that people who want to stay in Butler and invest in its future might be first in line to get a tax break.

He said it's not the city's intention to sue or press for a countywide reassessment. Doing one may be “a double-edged sword” for the city, he said.

“I think it's been so long that our tax values may fall tremendously,” Smith said. “But it might bring new residents to Butler who are interested in the lower taxes.”

On Friday, Smith said he had not yet seen the letter from the county and therefore didn't want to comment on it. On the city's proposition to prioritize owner-occupied assessment appeals, he said “I'm sure there's lots of legalities and reasons that's hard to put into practice.”

Who would be affected?

Homeowners like Celeste Livengood, whose house on the 500 block of McKean Street in Butler is assessed at just $21,120 despite last selling for $135,000 in 2009, records show, may be among the losers in a countywide reassessment.

The Livengoods say they've tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to increase their property value with improvements, but those improvements are too costly to overcome devaluation elsewhere in Butler. They were recently quoted $15,000 to replace six windows, she said.

“Any money we put into this house we're just going to lose,” Livengood said. “It makes you not want to do any more improvements.”

What improvements they have accomplished, however, are exactly what assessors look at when assessing a home's value. The family faces a money pit in trying to beat their home's 2009 market value, but they may have dwarfed their 1969 assessment if reassessed today.

Cost of reassessing

Counties that reassess generally hire outside firms to come and physically visit every property in the county in a systematic way.

Ed Rupert, a former Butler County assessment director, said the cost of such a process is always the big hold up.

“In my opinion, it was always too costly for what you get out of it,” Rupert said.

In 2008, Butler County switched from using 75 percent of 1969 property assessments to using the full 100 percent, according to a 2008 budget presentation. At the time, the county was looking at a $6 million to $8 million bill if it chose to perform a full reassessment instead.

A reassessment in neighboring Beaver County today would cost about $8 million to $10 million, Beaver County assessor Kevin McIlwain recently reported to the county's commissioners. He noted that it's a rough estimate and not an actual quote.

Court action

McIlwain knows that figure because Beaver County is in the midst of a court fight over whether the county must reassess. The county was sued by Chuck Betters, a prominent developer, who wanted to see an update to the county's 1982 assessment values. A hearing on the topic is scheduled Oct. 18.

Such a lawsuit, Rupert said, could easily force similar action in Butler County one day.

“Definitely yes it could,” Rupert said. “They're so outdated. It seems to be the trend. Whenever a school district starts to fight it, it seems they can always find inequities somewhere.”

Advocates for countywide reassessments, such as Allegheny Institute analyst Eric Montarti, said in the years since Allegheny County's court-ordered countywide reassessment in 2012, 10 counties have reassessed either by court order or a pressured county decision. Montarti argues that Pennsylvania should learn from other states that mandate regular reassessments from their counties.

“A lot of other states do it,” Montarti said. “I think they know they shouldn't go five or six years or more without updating values.”

Only two counties beat Butler County's near-50-year-old values: Franklin uses 1961 values, and Lackawanna uses 1967 values, Montarti said. Butler is tied for third oldest with Crawford County. Both still use 1969 values.

Political repercussions

Besides the cost, Montarti said the politics of such a move push officials away from reassessing.

“There's political fallout,” he said. “They think, 'I don't want to be the person in office when this goes into effect. People are going to be upset.'”

But Rupert doesn't think it's that, he said. Such reassessments generally shake out to about one-third of people's tax bills increasing, one-third decreasing and one-third remaining the same. Aggravating just one-third of the population isn't total political suicide, he said.

At any rate, local officials don't seem to want to reassess values.

Commissioners not considering option

English, the county's solicitor, said he spoke to all three commissioners about the issue and heard total unanimity: None are even considering it.

“There is no plan at all to do a countywide reassessment,” English said.

Leslie Osche, chairwoman of the county commissioners, said the county simply can't consider a countywide reassessment at the moment.

“If you look at what is already on our plate, we can't even think about that right now,” Osche said.

Still, she agreed, there's always the threat of being forced into one.

“I think it should be a concern for every county,” Osche said. “Having that concern is what makes sure you're not caught off guard.”

Time-saving move

While the county isn't squirreling away money for such a situation, Osche said, at the end of 2018 the assessment office plans to switch from a paper-based system to a computer-driven record software.

Christopher Savage, the county's assessment director, said that, bottom line, the new system will “save time.”

The department keeps thousands of paper cards, each pertaining to a county property, in filing cabinets. Typewriters are required to alter those records, and Savage confirmed that everyone in his office still clacks away on the machines every single day.

Final thoughts

Osche said she believes the city council was misguided in its letter by a misunderstanding of how assessments work. Osche said the city's budget would probably be hurt if assessors reappraised all of the county's properties, as the letter suggested.

English serves a large role in the individual reassessments that do occur in Butler County, which are the result of either land being subdivided, new construction/demolition or its assessed value is appealed. The county, municipalities and school districts are all represented in appeal hearings.

Tom King, the solicitor for several local school districts, including the Butler School District, is involved when the values of properties in question start reaching larger figures that would affect the district's bottom line. This year's hearings are ongoing, with King looking at properties such as Clearview Mall, Pullman Square and the Lowes Home Improvement in Moraine Pointe Plaza. Clearview Mall, for instance, is assessed at $3.4 million.

New developments tend to spur appeals, as the properties must be assessed back in time to what they'd be worth in 1969, primarily by using square footage.

King said he isn't aware of any school district wanting to sue for a countywide reassessment. School districts, property developers and groups of homeowners are the common litigators behind reassessments in counties like Beaver, Washington and Allegheny.

“Somebody would have to do an analysis and see that it would be worth it for the school district,” King said.

But even without such a lawsuit, Rupert, the old assessor, thinks it'll eventually be a necessity.

“It'll eventually have to be overcome,” Rupert said. “Eventually the millage is going to get so high. Growth isn't going to fund the county budget forever.”