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October 8, 2005 - Ombudsman ponders assessment probe-The Ottawa Citizen
Ombudsman ponders assessment probe: Ontario's Marin could shed light on mysterious workings of property assessment corporation.
The victims of Ontario 's property assessment process might finally get a break. Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin and five members of his Special Ombudsman Response Team will be working through the weekend to determine whether the system is so unfair and unjust that an investigation is justified.
Anyone who has followed the story of the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation knows there is only one conclusion Marin can reach. A Marin dissection of the smug and arrogant corporation could finally force Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to pay attention to the property tax mess.
The province's property assessment company has always seemed beyond the control of mere mortals. The provincial government sets up the rules it operates under, but then washes its hands of the actual outcome. Municipal politicians sit on its board, but what can they do? The province sets all the rules, they tell us.
That has left bureaucrats at the assessment office free to run their show with a kind of godlike assurance, confident their computer gets it right every time. If a homeowner doesn't like the outcome, he can appeal, but the process is skewed against him.
Marin has received dozens of complaints from the public, and one from an Ottawa city councillor. He gives particular weight to a letter written to McGuinty by Mayor Bob Chiarelli .
"My read of the situation right now in Ottawa is that the community is in an uproar over MPAC. When the mayor of the second-largest city in Ontario publicly complains to the premier, I would be remiss in my duty as ombudsman if I didn't take a closer look at the issue."
Isn't it great to know that someone in Toronto cares what people in Ottawa think, even if it isn't Dalton McGuinty?
Marin has identified at least three areas potentially worth investigation.
He wants to look at the mysterious methodology of MPAC's computer system, the transparency of the property assessment and the failure to consider past re-evaluations of assessment before new assessments are made. All three are worth inquiry. MPAC has released some bits and pieces of what makes up its secret, proprietary computer formula, but not enough for homeowners to know if the factors taken into account in setting value are really applicable. For example, does your house have a panoramic view? If so, your assessment will be higher. But what constitutes a panoramic view?
Lacking facts about how their assessment is reached, homeowners are kept unnecessarily in the dark.
One of the complaints I've heard most frequently is from frustrated homeowners who get their assessment reduced on appeal, only to discover that the next assessment is based on the original number, as if the appeal had never happened.
Marin should also look at the appeal process.
There is an assessment review board, but MPAC knows the ropes and appears there all the time. The ordinary citizen just doesn't know how to play the game.
If you think your assessment might be wrong, MPAC provides you with half a dozen other properties as comparisons, but these are done after the fact, to justify MPAC's number.
MPAC has always maintained that it doesn't care about the actual number, it just wants to get the right value for every property. The corporation is also concerned about its accuracy rating, because that's an indicator of the quality of its work. Too many successful appeals damage that rating, so it's not surprising that the corporation digs in to defend its numbers.
"I don't have the resources for individual investigations, but I'm interested in cases where people feel that they were treated unfairly," Marin says. "We're all about making sure the little guy gets a fair shake from government."
He expects to have made up his mind whether to launch a full investigation within a week, but you can bet that he wouldn't be telling the media of his plans if he wasn't leaning strongly in that direction.
Marin was only appointed in April, but he has already lit a fire under the government for its lax newborn screening and failure to pay for some lifesaving drugs. Both investigations have forced the government to act.
McGuinty seems content to brush off the concerns of people in his own riding, people in his hometown and people like Chiarelli, who are supposed to be close political allies. He'll have a tougher time ignoring a strongly worded report from Marin.
Not to prejudge Marin's conclusions, but this guy tells it like it is, and it isn't very pretty at MPAC.
Marin's focus will be on how MPAC carries out the work of assessing properties and how it deals with the public. Even if MPAC can be compelled to do a better job, that will still leave the problem of tying property taxes to volatile land values. A lot of the complaints about MPAC really have more to do with the system than the corporation's execution of it, but anything is a start.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2005
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