BY MARIEKE ANDRONACHE

Special to The Press

Lehigh County Commissioner Antonio Pineda, one of the co-sponsors of the bill for the establishment of fees for real property tax assessment appeals told fellow commissioners, during their Jan. 25 meeting, he supports this initiative as a way to prevent wasting taxpayer and county resources.

Looking over data received from county Fiscal Officer Tim Reeves, Pineda said regarding no-shows to assessment appeals, or people who file their appeals who aren’t very serious in nature, Reeves’ data shows there are 60 percent to 75 percent no shows a year; 40 percent to 50 percent which aren’t serious applications and, on average, the cost of administrating the process of these appeals is $200 to $350 per appeal.”

“This is wasting taxpayer dollars, on top of the fact that it is wasting hours for employees of the county, as well as resources of the county,” Pineda said.

He said this bill would help prevent waste of taxpayer resources, encouraging individuals to take the entire appeal process seriously.

Reeves supported Pineda’s argument about the waste attributed by individuals who are no-shows at their appeals.

“By adding a small fee, we take away that motive for people to use this as a way to charge clients a fee for really something they never intended on doing because they are the ones we find the majority of the no-shows before they file, multiple reassessments for clients and then never show up to actually defend those,” Reeves said.

Commissioner Ron Beitler did not fully agree with his colleagues.

“I am sympathetic to the points brought-up by the sponsors and also appreciative of their work to massage this a little bit to make it more palpable.

“I would be totally supportive of a rate protocol that would charge for folks of no-show.”

He was the only commissioner present at meeting to vote against the bill, which passed 6-1.

In other matters, Commissioner Bob Elbich, sponsor of the 2023 allocation plan for the Opioid Settlement Steering Committee, explained there have been changes in data he recently received that could affect the 18-year initiative which is fixed.

“The changes brought forth by the bill are procedural in nature, not content, validity or significance,” Elbich explained.

Chairman Geoff Brace said he is very supportive of building and providing Medication-Assisted Treatment services in the county facilities.

“And I think we need to get ourselves there quickly but while we are setting budgets,” Brace said. “We need to make sure that not only are the funds available, that we have all our “t”s crossed, our “I”s dotted so we can move forward.”

Brace explained the reallocation of funds would be targeted to help the Northern Lehigh Opioid Treatment Facility, expand family coaching services for families affect by opioid-related issues, mobile therapy services, as well as support the toxicology work of the coroner’s office and conduct data collection to ensure the work of the county is making a difference.