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The State Tax Equalization Board was established by the General Assembly in Act 447 PL 1046, 1947, to compensate for the lack of assessment uniformity statewide in distributing school subsidies. The Board is appointed by the Governor and approved by the Legislature for a term of four years, and consists of a Chairman, two Members, and a staff of eighteen.
The primary function of the Board is to annually determine the aggregate market value of taxable real property in each political subdivision and school district throughout the Commonwealth. Legislative restrictions, as stipulated in Section 7 (3) and Section 14 of Act 447, determine the computation procedure to be used in an odd or even year. The market values are certified annually to the Department of Education and the respective school districts on or before July 1 of each year. These market values are used by the Department of Education as one factor in a legislative formula for the distribution of the state subsidies to each school district. The Board also establishes a common level ratio of assessed value to market value for each county for the prior calendar year.
Act 267 of 1982 requires the
State Tax Equalization Board to use statistically-acceptable techniques, to make
the methodology for computing ratios public, and to certify the ratio of the chief
assessor of each county each year.
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