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People Behind Assessment Lawsuit Speak Out

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Apr 30, 2009 8:56 pm US/Eastern

People Behind Assessment Lawsuit Speak Out

HILL DISTRICT (KDKA) ― The day after an historic Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on property reassessments, those who brought the lawsuit claimed the case was all about fairness.

Stephanie Beechaum, one of the seven plaintiffs, was pleased.

"This here gives us something to work towards and to keep a momentum going so that everyone is treated equally and not unfairly," she said.

That was the goal all along, said attorney Janet Burkardt.

"To create a fair assessment system throughout the county that people can rely upon and people can understand so that when they're buying and selling real estate they're not surprised by big changes in their taxes, and they can understand the system, they can appeal to the system, and get fairness."

Fairness meant making sure that property in less affluent areas was not over-assessed.

"There was a significant disparity in tax burden. Lower value property owners, particularly our clients, people who came to us, were paying proportionately much greater in taxes based on their property's value than other property owners, mainly high value property owners," Don Driscoll, reassessment attorney, said.

Driscoll said reassessment will not be a windfall for local school districts and municipalities.

"There will be a redistribution of the tax burden in Allegheny County. There should not be a tax increase," he said. "The level of taxation should remain the same, both county wide, school district wise, municipal wise."

And for Beechaum, it all comes back to fairness.

"Everybody's not financially able to pay the monies that they want on properties, and other people are paying little or nothing," she says. "It creates problems for everybody."

Beechaum says a lot of homes like hers are over-assessed and she hopes a county-wide reassessment will bring down the taxes of a lot of people.

Of course, for every person whose taxes go down, someone else's will have to go up to keep the total taxes coming in the same as before.

Deciding who pays more and who pays less is why reassessment is so controversial.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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