Commissioner says reassessment a nonissue in Westmoreland County

Westmoreland County Commissioner Sean Kertes said Tuesday there are no plans for a reassessment.

“The court will have to mandate it for us. I am against reassessment,” said Kertes, who chairs the three-person board of commissioners.

Lawyers for the Pittsburgh Public Schools filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to trigger a court-ordered property reassessment in Allegheny County.

Westmoreland property assessments are among the oldest in Pennsylvania. The last countywide reassessment was completed in 1972.

As a result, assessments used to calculate property taxes for nearly 190,000 parcels in Westmoreland are now outdated by more than 50 years. Assessed values in the county equal about 10% of a parcel’s fair market value, according to the Pennsylvania State Tax Equalization Board.

Kertes conceded the county’s tax assessment system is out of date, but said the cost to update property values is too steep to be voluntarily considered by the current board of commissioners. He said estimates pegged the cost of a county reassessment at about $12 million.

“There’s no way right now we can afford that. It would have to be forced on the county,” Kertes said.

Officials said they are not aware of any pending legal action that could trigger a countywide property tax reassessment in Westmoreland County.

Commissioners late last year imposed the largest property tax increase in recent memory, raising the tax rate by 32.5% for 2024. Officials said the tax hike was needed to balance the county’s $456.7 million budget and provide an estimated $20 million surplus to carry over into 2025.

Property taxes are expected to generate about $101 million in revenue for the county this year.

Kertes said a reassessment would provide no additional revenue for the county, as they are designed to be revenue-neutral.

“There is a perception taxes would go up for some people who live in newer homes and go down for people in older homes, but all you are doing is changing the tax burden, trying to make it more equal. For the county, all you get is changing the millage rate, but the amount brought in would be unchanged,” Kertes said.