Property Reassessment

County Reassessment

August 11, 2008

Sunshine Law being violated?

Status of agency is key, as Pa. law requires public vote on assessment appeals if board is public.

By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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The Luzerne County Board of Assessment Appeals’ status as a public agency calls into question whether the board is required to follow all state law or merely real estate law.

That board and several auxiliary boards of assessment appeals are hearing appeals related to the county’s first reassessment since 1965. After the hearings, those boards deliberate in private. Decisions will be mailed to each property owner on or after Oct. 31, county officials have said.

Appeals board Chairman Andrew Shiner said state assessment law does not require boards to vote publicly. But Melissa Melewsky, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, disagrees.

The state Sunshine Law requires a public vote on an assessment appeal decision if the board is indeed a public agency, despite its quasi-judicial status, Melewsky said.

According to an assessment handbook provided by the county assessor’s office, the board is a public agency.

And a further review of assessment law raises the question of whether 21st Century Appraisals employees or a representative of the county assessor’s office should be allowed to remain in the hearing room during board deliberations.

When a Times Leader reporter in July accompanied Dave and Karen Sebolka, of Dallas Township, to an assessment appeal hearing on their home, the board dismissed the Sebolkas and the reporter from the room after the 25-minute hearing was completed.

Representatives of 21st Century Appraisals – the company Luzerne County is paying $8 million to conduct the reassessment – remained in the room.

According to the assessment law handbook, the board is to dismiss all parties after the completion of the hearing before the board begins deliberating.

Shiner said a representative from 21st Century remains in the room “to operate the computer” in case the board members want to review any of the information on the property, but the representatives “are not involved in the deliberation process.”

Melewsky said there is “an air of unfairness there,” as the property owner would have no way of knowing if 21st Century representatives were “possibly presenting evidence without the knowledge of the appealing party.”

Melewsky also has a problem with Shiner’s contention that state reassessment “law says we are not required to vote in public.”

A reporter’s review of the section of the handbook dealing with assessment appeals revealed no reference whatsoever to the board voting.

Melewsky said that the absence of a public voting requirement in the assessment law does not excuse the board from following the state Sunshine Law.

“They have to take all official action in public. Just because there’s a large number of votes to be taken, a busy schedule doesn’t excuse the law. … It has to be done in a way that keeps the public informed,” Melewsky said.

The section of state assessment law that allows the board of assessment appeals to deliberate in private also seemingly conflicts with the state Sunshine Law, which states that deliberation of a board of a public agency must be conducted at a public meeting.

The law defines a meeting as “any prearranged gathering of an agency attended by a quorum of members held for the purpose of deliberating agency business or taking official action.”

Another conflict between appeals board practice and the state Sunshine Law exists in the Sunshine Law requirement for advertising meetings of public agencies.

Although county officials agree that assessment appeal hearings are open to the public, the board does not advertise the date, time or location of each hearing in a newspaper. Letters indicating the dates, times and locations of hearings are mailed only to property owners.

Practices of Luzerne County’s Board of Assessment appeals also differ from that of other local appeals boards.

For example, members of Wilkes-Barre’s Board of Zoning Appeals “discuss in public, deliberate in public and vote in public,” said board and city solicitor Charles McCormick.

Wilkes-Barre’s Board of Revision of Taxes and Appeals, which is comprised of all City Council members, would also vote on any change in property valuation in public if a property owner appealed a property value and the owner could not come to an agreement on a fair value with city officials, said city assessor John Anstett.

Sebolka said he thinks it unfair that property owners can’t even question how 21st Century arrived at property values because assessment law puts the burden of proof at an appeal on the property owner.

Shiner said the property card that contains the location, dimensions and photos of a property record is entered into record at an appeal hearing and accepted as correct. It’s up to the property owner to present evidence – such as an appraisal – to prove a property has a different value.

The county assessor or 21st Century is allowed to question – or cross-examine the property owner – on any evidence he or she presents, Shiner said.

But the property owner can only cross-examine evidence submitted by the assessor or 21st Century in rebuttal to the taxpayer’s evidence.

Sebolka noted that a 21st Century appraiser questioned his private appraiser about the method his appraiser used to calculate the land value.

“But there was no opportunity to question (21st Century) on how they came up with their land values,” Sebolka said.

Sebolka said it seems like property owners “have no rights when it comes to reassessment.

“Yes, you have the right to a hearing. Regardless, you still have no rights because (the county board is saying) we’re going to do what we’re going to do. It’s disheartening that this can happen in the United States of America,” he said.

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