Assessments

And we go 'round again:

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato today announced that he was discarding his second attempt to create new assessed values for next year and is instead asking County Council to reuse values from 2002.

That year, when the county conducted its last reassessment, would serve as a "base year," echoing a practice used by many nearby counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania that haven't conducted full reassessments in decades.

"The uncertainty in the process will be removed," Mr. Onorato said alongside five of council's eight Democrats at an afternoon news conference, just two hours before council was scheduled to vote on a plan that would have led to a countywide average increase of 5.8 percent for residential properties.

Ugh.

The worst thing about this whole debacle is that those of you who are buying/have just bought houses in Allegheny County currently have NO IDEA WHAT YOUR REAL ESTATE TAXES ARE! It's terrific for those of you that are wrapping up those taxes into their mortgage payments... well, unless you are expecting your mortgage company to actually pay the taxes in the correct amount.

So you don't know your assessment...
So you don't don't what your taxes are going to be...
So your tax payments may be off (if you're having your mortgage company pay them)...
So you may find yourself on the wrong side of a Treasurer's Sale or a Sherrif's Sale for non-payment of taxes.

Certainly removes the uncertainty for me, Danny Boy... can we just get on with it?