News

September 24, 2008

Assessment court appeals onerous

Luzerne County prothonotary wants to make sure her office has resources to handle expected onslaught of cases.

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter
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Luzerne County must prepare now for a potential onslaught of property assessment court appeals filed in November, county Prothonotary Jill Moran said Tuesday.

“Commissioners need to make a decision soon. Our office can do this competently, but we have to make sure we have the resources to do this,” Moran said.

County Assessment Director Tony Alu estimates 2,000 county appeal board rulings will be challenged at the county court level, though others are predicting as many as 5,000.

All estimates are guesses at this point, Alu said, because the county appeal board rulings won’t be released until around Oct. 31. Property owners will then have 30 days to file appeals to county court.

Moran said the processing of court appeals will fall on her office because county judges changed the rules, requiring assessment-related challenges to be heard first by an arbitration panel instead of judges.

County officials have said that $200,000 was set aside to cover the court challenges, but Moran said the expense will far exceed that if there are 2,000 or even fewer cases.

For starters, three attorney arbitrators sit on each panel, and they are each paid $125 per case. However, arbitrators may petition the court for additional payment if the case is unusually long or complex, she said.

Sticking with the $125 figure, the payment to arbitrators would cost $750,000 if 2,000 challenges are filed.

The county would only receive about $300,000 in revenue from filing fees to offset that expense.

The reason: Property owners must pay a $111.75 filing fee and then another $51 fee to schedule the arbitrators. The county gets to keep the $51 but must give $15.50 of the filing fee to the state, Moran said.

Tack on another $5,000 for files because the court record folders and special labels will amount to $2.50 for each case, based on bidding figures, Moran said.

Postage would cost around $6,700 if 2,000 challenges are filed, Moran said. That’s because the office must mail notices of hearing dates and also arbitration panel decisions to the three arbitrators and property owner. Mailings must also go to the county, but Moran said she wants to issue them internally to avoid postage costs.

The prothonotary’s office has a 20-day window to schedule arbitration panels, though she’s not sure how that deadline will be feasible if the county is inundated with challenges. Moran said her office must scramble at times to find attorneys to serve on non-reassessment arbitration panels because of scheduling conflicts. Many attorneys are not interested in the work either, she said.

Moran said she will ask commissioners for permission to pay overtime or hire part-time staff to process the court appeals and schedule the panels. Workers who will deal with the public must be trained in October on the new assessment arbitration process so the public has ready access to the facts, she said.

She is willing to schedule arbitration panels in the evening and at multiple locations throughout the county but can’t start working on those plans until commissioners indicate if they will provide the additional funding, she said. Security will be needed for evening and off-site hearings, Moran said.

Moran has requested a meeting with commissioners to present her concerns, and a session has tentatively been scheduled for Monday.

Moran said most of the costs for arbitration panels will materialize in 2009, but she won’t have exact numbers until the 30-day appeal period expires. Property owners have criticized the court’s decision to add more steps to the court challenge process, in a large part because of the added fees. Instead of appearing before a judge, property owners must go before the arbitration panel and then, if still dissatisfied, a court-appointed “special master.”

Court representatives say the arbitration/master system was initiated so property owners don’t have to wait years for judges to squeeze in their cases.

Jennifer Learn-Andes, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7333.

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