Mayor Gainey's office challenges several Pittsburgh nonprofits over tax-exempt status
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey sent the opening shot in his fight to address the tax-exempt properties in the city.
On Tuesday, his office announced it is challenging the status of more than two dozen parcels. This list of properties includes some owned by major powers in the city like UPMC, Allegheny Health Network, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
The tax revenue with up to five years of back taxes is $3.5 million.
"In order for the region to grow, we all have to come together and do what's necessary in order to ensure that everyone is paying their fair share," Gainey said Tuesday.
With one-third of the city being tax-exempt, the Gainey administration wanted to see if all these properties truly needed that status.
Of the 26 properties being challenged, AHN owns one, UMPC owns six, CMU has two, Pitt is the name on one and nine are under private citizens' ownership. In some cases, they should not be under the category of a public charity.
"I expect that a lot of these 26 properties will look and realize that they don't really have much case, so I am hopeful that some of these people will say it's time for us to start paying our taxes," city solicitor Krysia Kubiak said.
The city solicitor said officials have gone through 10% of the city's tax-exempt properties. They hope to go through them all by early next year.
Some of these properties being challenged include parking lots and garages, like in the case of CMU, Pitt, and AHN. UPMC is being battled over what the city calls condos and offices. The medical giant said in a statement that these parcels have already been deemed tax-exempt and the health care system put millions into the local area. AHN echoes that sentiment by saying it has given hundreds of millions in charity care and community giving.
Pitt said in a statement it's confident its properties meet the tax-exempt status. CMU said it looks forward to working with the mayor's office on this review while it continues to make investments in the area.
"We are here to protect the taxpayer and make sure everyone pays their fair share. We made a promise to the people," Mayor Gainey said.
Another property under scrutiny is the Propel Schools on the North Side. Propel said the land should be exempt because it's leased to a school by a non-profit company at or below market value. The city doesn't feel the same way.
"We don't believe owning the property satisfies the public charity test," Kubiak said.
What's next is to have the Office of Property Assessment look and see if these properties truly are tax-exempt or not. The city said in total about $36 million is being lost to properties that it feels are not playing fair.
It was last year when the administration left the OnePGH program, which pledged more than $100 million from many of the organizations it's challenging now. According to a city spokesperson, none of that pledge money ever came to the city, and it couldn't go into the general fund like this tax money can.
Click here to see the list of parcels under review.