Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
Print
About this time last year, city Councilman Patrick Dowd wanted to make it easier for senior citizens to keep a property tax break.
That resulted this year in John and Mary Ganter paying $311.37 more in property taxes on the Banksville home they've owned for 44 years.
And this reminds us of an old lesson. When political jujitsu is practiced on Grant Street, the bruises are felt in the neighborhoods.
A year ago, Mr. Dowd, in the midst of a longshot bid to defeat Mayor Luke Ravenstahl in the Democratic primary, proposed simplifying a tax break for seniors.
Instead of making seniors with household incomes under $30,000 reapply each year for Act 77 tax relief, Mr. Dowd suggested that the renewal be automatic.
That made sense. A fixed income is just that -- it isn't likely to soar. But Mr. Dowd wasn't the most popular guy on council, and some colleagues weren't eager to give him a talking point for his mayoral campaign.
div class='story_box_right' style="width:160px; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-family:Arial; font-size:9pt; line-height:1.2em;">
PG STORE
There were also legitimate questions. Councilman Ricky Burgess said Mr. Dowd's proposal would cost the city $1.2 million, based on a Finance Department estimate that 4,000 more seniors would get about $300 off their tax bills if the break became automatic.
Mr. Burgess suggested no tax cuts unless they were offset by spending cuts elsewhere. The reform was delayed until after the May primary (in which Mayor Ravenstahl beat Mr. Dowd, his closest challenger, by 31 percentage points).
Council would not approve the automatic extension for seniors until last September. Along with that, council approved a change to bring uniformity to this tax break. Now everyone was assessed in the same way.
That was the net that snared the Ganters' three-bedroom home in Banksville.
Property tax assessment in Pennsylvania is no fairer than a carnival game. Every home-owner knows that. There is no uniformity, and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato has fought in court to keep it that way, pleasing all those who have happened to land on a decent number.
So it's no real surprise that the city's senior tax break had been screwed up, too. For years, people had been taxed at different rates. Some were getting the Act 77 tax break based on the property value in 1993 and some based on the 2002 value.
Council decided to put everyone under the 2002 value. That effectively cut Mr. Ganter's senior discount in half, because he had been unknowingly enjoying the 1993 rate.
Confused? Who isn't? When Mr. Ganter called the city tax office to ask why his bill went up, he was told in the Orwellian logic of the taxman that his taxes didn't increase; his discount went down.
Either way, it cost him more than 300 bucks.
I called Councilman Burgess to see if he was aware some seniors' taxes were rising. He checked with his staff and got back to me. He said the move was made to 2002 values because the 1993 number was slamming homeowners in declining neighborhoods.
His district stretches from Garfield through Homewood to the East Hills, and it's largely made up of properties that have lost value over the past two decades. The old system, based on 17-year-old values, could leave a homeowner in a poor neighborhood paying more with a senior discount than he would without, Mr. Burgess said.
Such homeowners will be paying less under this new system.
In more stable neighborhoods, such as Banksville, home prices have risen since 1993, so Mr. Ganter is paying more now.
City Treasurer Margaret Lanier couldn't say Friday how many seniors' property taxes went up and how many went down, but she didn't think the net result was a boost in city revenue. She promised a tally later this week.
Mr. Ganter, 78, was philosophical about paying more because of a gesture originally intended to help folks like him. He says he has a small sailboat that he likes to take out on Lake Arthur. Sailors learn to accept what comes, like this little squall that's costing him an extra 85 cents a day.
"I play poker once a month, too," he said, and I could almost see him shrug through the phone. "At the end, it all comes out even."
