picture : Joshua Gunter
Cuyahoga County Administration Building, shown in this file photo, is where panels consider taxpayer appeals of property assessments.
By Mark Puente Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio — By rushing to clear cases, boards that hear taxpayer challenges of property assessments in Cuyahoga County devote only a fraction of the time needed to render fair decisions, a board administrator said Friday.
The county boards of revision have deliberated an average of six minutes on residential and commercial cases, according to Marty Murphy, not the 20 minutes needed for appeals of house values and the up to 45 minutes needed for appeals on businesses or factories.
“It’s hard to imagine a scenario where that many taxpayers had a comprehensive assessment,” he said. “The county got shortchanged, too.”
Murphy, one of the administrators appointed to oversee the troubled boards, calculated the average times spent on some 50,000 rulings since March 2007 to demonstrate a need for more panels.
He and his fellow administrators intend to ask the elected officers who appoint the board members — the auditor, treasurer and commissioners — to create two more panels for a total of seven.
Even with the extra boards, a backlog of more than 12,000 cases will take at least six months to clear. And officials expect another 20,000 complaints to be filed next year, creating another backlog.
“We’ll never cross the threshold of breaking even,” said Murphy.
But the extra board will allow members to spend more time considering cases.
The boards of revision serve a vital government function: considering challenges to the assessed values of homes, businesses and other property. Their decisions can reduce tax bills of property owners by thousands of dollars a year.
Reacting to a collapse of the housing market, taxpayers have for several years flooded the county boards with appeals. Some taxpayers now wait a year or longer to have their cases heard.
The boards also have come under great scrutiny since June, when one appointee was accused of surreptitiously trying to shave $31,000 from the value of a townhouse. He resigned. Another board member resigned after The Plain Dealer disclosed that he worked a part-time job while on county time.
Story Compliments Of The Plain Dealer
