The latest study commissioned by Warren County has found that the ongoing countywide property reassessment data meets International Association of Assessing Officers standards in most cases.

The ratio study was completed by assessment expert Alan Dornfest, who serves as the chief assessor for the State of Idaho and regularly performs reassessment consulting work in Pennsylvania. It’s the second ratio study completed on Warren County’s assessment data. The first, also completed by Dornfest, resulted in a report that justified the need for the reassessment. A second study has been a part of the county’s planning since the start of this process.

The report examined sales for a total of 720 properties of all kinds in a total of 38 neighborhoods across from Warren County.

Dornfest acknowledged the challenge of sample size inherent in the review.

Neighborhoods with less than five sales were deemed “insufficient for analysis.” Sample sizes for the remaining neighborhoods range from five sales to 49.

“Although there are difficulties developing accurate analyses in many of the neighborhoods because of small sample sizes,” Dornfest concluded, “my overall conclusion is that the new proposed assessed values for the categories and neighborhoods analyzed are, for the most part, quite good, meeting allapplicable IAAO standards in nearly all cases.”

The analysis also looked at the overall increase in valuation – 779% – between 1989 and today.

The report examined sales for a total of 720 properties of all kinds in a total of 38 neighborhoods across Warren County. Dornfest acknowledged the challenge of sample size inherent in the review.

Dornfest said sale data shows a 621% increase but said the discrepancy “may reflect new

construction or change of use, which may be more common in the population and less likely to be

reflected in sales used in the studies.

“In any case, the main use of the comparison in the context of this analysis is to ensure that the

assessment changes are not more pronounced in the sales – in that case, the results would have been

considered probably non representative. That issue (sales chasing) is clearly not the case with regard to

the current reassessment program.”

During a recent county commissioners meeting, one county resident asked if the commissioners were aware that Vision Government Solutions had been sued for increasing property assessments too much in other areas. County Solicitor Nathaniel Schmidt said the county asked about such issues before hiring Vision and, earlier in the process, met with Vision officials after the county wasn’t satisfied with the work it was getting from the reassessment company.

“I mean at one point the county was dissatisfied and they made it clear to Vision and Vision responded and to Mr. Bar’s point, they went through and they promised and to what I know they did, they reviewed every single parcel a second time to our satisfaction to make sure that the data was being used correctly. So, we did not we did

not overlook um instances when we thought that performance was not the standard we expected,” Schmidt said.

County officials have said the process for a property reassessment is governed by state law while encouraging property owners to contest their reassessed property value if they are unhappy with the new value. But a Pittsburgh-area group is suing the commonwealth to change the underlying situation that has led to many unhappy property owners in Warren County.

The Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, with help from the Community Justice Project, is asking the Commonwealth Court to declare the current state assessment laws unconstitutional while forcing Gov. Josh Shapiro and Attorney General David Sunday to issue an injunction directing Pennsylvania counties to assess properties in accordance with their remaining authority. The aim of the lawsuit is to force more regular reassessments as is done in other states.

Warren County hadn’t undergone a property reassessment since 1989 before this year’s reassessment. While Dornfest’s study states the overall increase in valuation in Warren County is acceptable, the Community Justice Project lawsuit argues that the current system results in non-uniform property assessments across Pennsylvania based on the same IAAO standards Dornfest used to support Warren County’s reassessment. Assessments have been based on the county’s last property reassessment in 1989, which the lawsuit says is a “base year scheme.”

The lawsuit cites State Tax Equalization Board statistics that show 47 of the county’s 67 counties had coefficient of dispersion measurements of more than 20% as recommended by the IAAO standards while Price-Related Differentials that show inequity between high-value and low-value properties throughout the state exceeds the IAAO’s recommended level of 1.03 in 45 counties.

“This regressive pattern – whereby lower-value properties are over-assessed relative to higher-value properties – results under a frozen base year scheme because higher-value properties tend to appreciate faster than lower-value properties. This appreciation goes uncaptured and is, in effect, exempted under the base year scheme, often for many decades. Besides creating a deeply unequal, regressive property assessment system for taxpayers, the General Assembly’s failure to enact standards has hampered many taxing jurisdictions’ ability to raise sufficient tax revenue to support basic governmental services.”