Herzog asks commissioners to restore $94 C&G forest rate/By Martha Knight

Clean & Green forest land tax fairness crusader Jim Herzog addresses the McKean County Commissioners about yet another increase in tax rates on forest reserve. Shown from left are Herzog, chief clerk Audrey Irons, commissioners Cliff Lane, Joe DeMott and Al Pingie, and solicitor Dan Hartle.  Martha Knight Photo

SMETHPORT—Tuesday morning Jim Herzog continued his personal appeal to the McKean County Commissioners Joe DeMott, Al Pingie and Cliff Lane, to honor the $94 per acre rate for all forest reserve land enrolled in Clean and Green (C&G).

The inveterate C&G rate crusader’s appearance at the commissioners’ regular fourth Tuesday meeting parallels an action in the Court of Common Pleas seeking a writ of mandamus, essentially compelling the county to apply to all forest reserve the $94 per acre use rate earlier affirmed by the county’s Board of Assessment Appeals.

The mandamus action is aimed at getting the $94 rate, affirmed by the county’s Board of Assessment Appeals (BoAA) last October, when they granted Herzog’s request to repudiate the $255-per-acre change notice issued for Herzog forest reserve land. Now new change notices have gone out, reflecting another use rate increase, this one to $280.

Last year’s C&G rate hike was enacted by the commissioners in the form of a resolution, a practice Judge William F. Morgan declared invalid, earlier this year. Affected C&G forest reserve landowners were taxed at the higher rate in 2013, unless they had appealed from last year’s change notices. Most had not, some having been told it would be costly and fruitless to do so.

This year’s use rate increase was adopted and announced to the commissioners by the county’s chief assessor, Angelia Tennies. Her office mailed out new change of assessment notices, different from those issued on BoAA letterhead last year. The recent notices are on letterhead with McKean County Assessment and Revision of Taxes across the top. Herzog provided the commissioners with a copy of one he had received, and commented that he is not aware of a county agency with that name.

That change of assessment notice shows the assessment on a tract of C&G forest reserve from $12,840 to $38,250, apparently based on the recent use value change to $280 per acre, from the $94 affirmed for Herzog last year. The market value is given as $30,000, making the new C&G value seem to be above market value.

By law, C&G use value must be a preferential, or below regular market value, rate. The county’s assessment is applied by the county, municipalities (townships) and school districts.

A point Herzog had not mentioned in previous presentations to the commissioners is that the county owns 103 acres of forest land. Of course it does not pay property taxes nor enroll in C&G, but, Herzog pointed out, it does not cut trees in its forest regularly, deriving income from the land.

For the state’s or county’s approach to valuing forest reserve land to make sense, for annual tax purposes, there would have to be annual, or at least frequent, partial harvests, Herzog maintains, but “there are decades between cuts” on the county’s forest land, just as there are on C&G forest reserve. It takes 80 to 100 years for hardwood species to reach timber harvest size.

“If the true figure were properly calculated by the state, the values would be about one tenth of the present ones,” Herzog said.

Herzog repeated his past charges that the rate increases applied specifically to C&G properties constitute spot assessment, a practice forbidden by law.

He also scolded the commissioners for countermanding decisions of the BoAA, “which you appointed.” Herzog noted, “Their decision can not be arbitrarily changed without a court order.”

Herzog also declared that the new 2014 use rate of $280 set by the assessment office, which eliminates species-based calculations of use values, violates Act 158. “All forest reserve landowners have a right to claim a use value based on species, as found by a forester,” Herzog said. He noted that whether to use species use value or weighted average is the landowner’s call.

Later Herzog mentioned that it is easy to appeal vacant C&G forest property (as opposed to acreage where there are structures) because only a few lines on the appeal form would need to be filled out. Appeals must be filed within 40 days of receipt of the change of assessment forms mailed earlier this month.

In regular agenda matters, the commissioners:

• learned that there were no bids to open, on a roofing project at an “Old County Home” building;

• approved service provider agreements as requested by the Department of Human Services, subject to review by solicitor Dan Hartle;

•authorized a grant agreement with the state Department of Public Welfare for the Medical Assistance transportation program carried out by the Area Transportation Authority, covering fiscal 2013-14, to cost about $774,940;

• authorized exoneration of $75,395.01 in per capita taxes for years 2003 through 2012 (compared with about $95,000 in delinquent per capita taxes collected by the county Tax Claim Office, according to Pingie);

• approved payment of $6,250 to the Office of Human Services for their fourth quarter allotment for 2012-13; and

•approved a 2013 aid application from Annin Township for $5,994 to be used to patch and repair portions of Birch Run Road and Champlin Hill Road.