Aug 7, 2016 7 min read

Washington County hasn’t reassessed property for 35 years, so before 120,000-some letters went out in the spring with new assessments, Bradley Boni, the county’s chief assessor, said he wanted owners to ask themselves, “Is this what I would sell my property for?”

When Jim Conkle opened this letter from the county, he saw the “tentative” assessment for a rental duplex with detached garage he owns on Duncan Avenue in Washington had been set at $107,700.

Conkle was satisfied with the preliminary figure, and he saw no reason to ask Tyler Technologies Inc., with which Washington County entered into a $6.96 million assessment contract in 2013, to reconsider during discussions of properties that Tyler called “informal reviews,” a series of 14,374 sit-downs which took place in Washington between March and June.

The preliminary figure was then followed by a July 1 mailing that gave a final assessment. Conkle said he was shocked, when reading the second letter, that the new value of his rental property, for assessment purposes, had risen to $120,500 as of July 1, 2015, the date associated with property values countywide.

“I’m hoping it was a typo,” Conkle, who is a city resident, said last week. “If it’s not a typo, then I got problems. It’s nice, but I don’t know if it’s worth $120,000.

Why did they reassess me? My tax dollars went to pay for that. I’m part of the county, I’m part of the city. The appraisal they did should be a good appraisal.”

Conkle is aware that a data collector from Tyler Technologies visited Duncan Avenue a few years ago, but he doesn’t think anyone returned to his rental property to between the mailing of the first and second letters to re-evaluate the structure, and he questioned why the assessed value rose $12,800.

“If they changed it, what are the grounds that they changed it without even coming out to this house? Are they doing a desktop appraisal?” he asked during an interview inside the living room of the duplex where his son resides.

The dwelling with an expansive front porch was built in 1920, and Conkle’s grandfather, from whom he purchased the property for $1 in 1998, had lived there since the 1950s.

Conkle, 63, a former cable TV installer and Air Force aircraft mechanic crew chief, said of his rental, “I’m not making any money on it. I understand we need taxes to run things. But when you’re retired and you have to live off of a fixed income, that doesn’t cover your taxes the way they raise taxes sometimes.”

The landlord has filed a document with the county to be heard at a formal appeal of the $120,500 assessment. The deadline to file appeals with the boards that will hear them is Wednesday.

“You only have one page you have to fill out,” he said. He thought, “‘OK, I can do that.’ I’m looking at it, you must’ve made a mistake,” Conkle said of Tyler. “When somebody is stressed out and they’ve done all this work, it’s easy to make a mistake. We spent all this money for Tyler to make a mistake? If it’s not a mistake, why would you jack it up so much?”

Conkle’s appeal hearing is scheduled for this week.

Chief Assessor Brad Boni wrote Friday in response to an email inquiry, “It is certainly possible that a property owner’s preliminary value changed in the months between the informal reviews and the July 1 notices. However, I can’t quantify how many parcels increased during that time frame.”

In public meetings held at various sites around the county late last year and early this year, officials said it was possible that some assessments could increase after a preliminary figure was mailed out in the spring.

Boni put the number of appeals filed so far as “approximately 2,500 appeals scheduled, and to date, I’d estimate that there are approximately an additional 1,000 to process and schedule. I’d expect to see some additional appeals come in with the Aug. 10 filing deadline fast approaching.” Anyone who is dissatisfied with the result of an appeal hearing can take the case to court.

According to a statement released by the county last month, “The purpose of reassessment is not to increase revenue for the taxing bodies but rather base tax rates on actual market value and thus make the system fair to all taxpayers … By law, the county commissioners must reduce the 2017 county millage by the same percentage that the assessment values increased. In other words, the current county tax millage of 24.9 mills must be reduced to 2.36 mills so that the tax revenues will be the same. The same process must be followed by each municipality and school district. If a municipality or school district wants to increase its tax revenue, it must do so by a separate vote so that there can be no hidden tax increases.

“Further, the county and local municipalities are limited to an increase of no more than 10 percent in the year following reassessment. School districts are treated differently in that they are subject to the provisions of Act One.” School districts cannot raise taxes more than the Federal Employment Wage Cost Index for elementary and secondary schools. which this year runs from 1.9 to 2.9 percent, unless voters approve a referendum or the state grants a waiver.

“The Washington County commissioners have stated that there will not be a county tax increase for 2017. In other words, the county tax millage will be set to be revenue-neutral,” the statement said.

The initial round of assessment appeals are to wrap up by Oct. 31, and property values are to be certified by the commissioners by Nov. 15 in advance of county and municipal preparation of budgets, due, by law, before midnight Dec. 31 for the 2017 tax year. School districts use the state’s fiscal calendar and their budgets must be adopted by June 30, 2017.

A Mon Valley resident who said he also paid $1 – but not to a relative – to acquire a perhaps century-old storefront needing to be rehabbed on McKean Avenue in Charleroi also questioned the logic behind Tyler’s $84,900 assessment of its worth.

Thomas Noone described his riverside community as “hard-hit in the last few years. Some of these assessments coming through are ludicrous. These people couldn’t even have driven through the town. They couldn’t have left Washington to do this. I did the informal review with Tyler with zero avail.”

One Google search shows the $1 transaction for the property but the county reassessment information website lists the sales price as $9,285.

Boni declined comment on Noone’s situation. County officials have, in the past, chosen not to respond to individual complaints about the reassessment.

The commissioners have reiterated that they did not choose to reassess, but did so only when they ran out of legal options to contest the court case brought by the Washington and McGuffey school districts.

A published notice announced Tyler Technologies’ data collectors were beginning work in Charleroi in September 2014.

Noone makes chairs, and he uses the building, which over the years has been a shoe store and gymnasium, as a studio. He estimates it will take $30,000 to $40,000 to upgrade the mechanical systems in the commercial space and the two upstairs apartments. He gave figures of $9,600, $10,000 and perhaps $13,000 as sales prices of similar buildings, known as “comparables” in appraisal lingo.

The findthedata.com website shows sales history of the commercial building owned by Noone since 2014 as previously selling for $17,500 in 2005 and for $1,796 in 1991. The website calls the address a “high flood risk, which is above average for the 15022 zip code, but typical for Charleroi. The Charleroi resident, who acknowledges he owes delinquent taxes on 417 McKean Ave., said he can see that development has increased the value of properties north of Washington, but that since the collapse of the steel industry, “We’re disconnected from Washington.” ?

Noone intends to pursue a formal appeal, but he takes a dim view: “This reassessment is something that came up and slapped me in the face. It’s going to be the death knell for this town. I’m trying to save this building. It’s my windmill. I’m going to joust with this as long as I can.”