The top lawyer for the Pittsburgh Public Schools suggested Friday that the district’s push for a countywide property tax reassessment has not ended with a judge’s dismissal this week of a 10-month-old PPS lawsuit.
Solicitor Ira Weiss said PPS is evaluating options which may include appealing a judge’s decision in favor of Allegheny County. He added that a separate lawsuit filed last month, in which a Churchill homeowner is challenging the fairness of the county’s property tax system, may expand. That case is not affected by the decision against PPS. Other parties have expressed interest in the homeowner’s lawsuit and may join the case “a little bit down the road,” said Weiss, who is representing the homeowner.
PPS sued the county last April, claiming that it is being fiscally harmed by uneven property tax assessments.
The district projected an operating deficit of $28 million during its budget presentation last year. With declining enrollment and rising overhead costs, the district is also considering closing and consolidating schools in the upcoming years.
In an opinion this week, Common Pleas Judge Kenneth Valasek wrote that the district had not met its burden to prove that the county’s assessments violate the state constitution’s clause requiring that taxes be applied uniformly, or that equal protection had been violated. Similarly, the judge found that even if varied assessments compel the district to make payments to property owners who win assessment appeals, that performance of its statutory duties would not constitute “harm.”
The judge added in the decision’s final paragraph that the ruling “should not be interpreted to mean that Allegheny County’s current assessments are constitutionally permissible.”
County spokesperson Abigail Gardner declined to comment on the judge’s decision, citing ongoing litigation, in an email response to PublicSource’s questions.
The county taxes properties based on a mix of values determined in 2012 and others reached through assessment appeals, often filed by districts following property sales. PublicSource reported in 2022 that this has resulted in many situations in which similar, nearby properties are subject to dramatically different tax bills.
County Executive Sara Innamorato during her 2023 campaign said she favored reassessing property with protections for vulnerable homeowners. The second-year executive has not yet taken public steps to reassess. The county budget this year relies on an across-the-board hike in the tax rate, applied to the existing, widely varied assessments.
Weiss said that’s not fair.
“While I respect the opinion of the court, this notion of raising taxes this way to solve this problem is ill-conceived,” he said. “Raising taxes on an inequitable, unconstitutional assessment system only worsens the problem. It doesn’t cure it.”
Weiss said the district would start making decisions for further steps next week.
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
Charlie Wolfson and Rich Lord contributed.
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