Opinion ID: 597099
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Impact Aid Act

Text: 15 This controversy centers on which of two figures--$113,000 or $300,000--represents the assessed value of the 1942 acquisitions within the meaning of section 2(a)(1)(C) of the Act. If it is the former, which is the aggregate of the assessed values of the nineteen individual properties acquired by the United States as recorded on the 1942 Real Estate Assessment Return of Montgomery County, the District does not qualify for impact aid. If it is the latter, which appeared as the assessed value of the 576-acre Federal tract as recorded in the 1943 assessment rolls, the District does qualify. The precise question at issue, then, is whether, under the Act, the assessed value of the property at the time of acquisition is to be determined by consulting the assessment records available on the date of the transfer of title (as the Secretary maintains) or by actually reassessing the property (as the District argues). 16 Section 2(a)(1) requires that the Secretary determine, inter alia, whether 17 the United States owns Federal property in the school district ... and [whether] such property ... had an assessed value (determined as of the time or times when so acquired) aggregating 10 per centum or more of the assessed value of all real property in the school district (similarly determined as of the time or times when such Federal property was so acquired).... 18 20 U.S.C. § 237(a)(1). It is the School District's position that this language must be read in the context of the relevant state law. The District notes that, with certain exceptions, Pennsylvania requires that the assessments of properties be updated only every third year, and that the valuations shown for the nineteen parcels in the 1942 rolls were made in 1939. Pennsylvania law required, however, that these parcels be [299 U.S.App.D.C. 66] reassessed upon their transfer to the United States, which the county assessor proceeded to do. The District maintains that the resulting reassessment of $300,000, which was first recorded in 1943, constitutes the contemporaneous assessed value that the Secretary must use for purposes of determining the District's eligibility under the Act. The Secretary, on the other hand, maintains that because section 2(a)(1)(C) requires that the assessed values of both the acquired property and all the property within a school district be determined as of the time or times when such Federal property was so acquired, the values referred to in the section are of necessity the ones of record on the date or dates of acquisition. 19 We agree with the Secretary. In the first place, this construction has the virtue of giving the statutory language its ordinary meaning. As generally understood, the assessed value of a particular property is that which appears on the current tax assessment rolls. Furthermore, the reassessment value determined after the acquisition could never be the assessed value of the property at the time of the acquisition. 20 Second, the Secretary's reading conforms with the purpose and structure of the Act. In section 1, Congress stated its intention to provide financial assistance 21 for those local educational agencies upon which the United States has placed financial burdens by reason of the fact that ... the revenues available to such agencies from local sources have been reduced as the result of the acquisition of real property by the United States.... 22 20 U.S.C. § 236(a)(1). In the following section, Congress established a threshold test for determining a school district's eligibility for such assistance. See id. § 237(a)(1)(C). Specifically, a showing was required that the assessed value of the property acquired by the United States represented ten percent or more of the total assessed value of the district's real property at the time of acquisition. 23 The structure of the Act dictates that such determination can only be made by consulting the assessment rolls then of record. The values attributable to the acquired properties must be compared with the total value of all property in the school district (similarly determined as of the time or times when such Federal property was so acquired ). Id. (emphasis added). Under the logic of the District's position, Congress intended to require a district-wide reassessment at the time of transfer. The District's formulation would compare the value of the acquired properties at the time of the acquisition to the value of all the District's property at the same time only if the Montgomery County assessor reassessed the remainder of the real property within the District as of March 23, 1942. Otherwise, Congress would be requiring that apples be compared with oranges. Such a construction is inherently implausible. 24 We acknowledge that, taken in isolation, the word determined in the first parenthetical clause in section 2(a)(1)(C) (determined as of the time or times when so acquired) could refer to a revaluation made by an assessor rather than to an examination by the Secretary of the existing assessment rolls. But, as indicated above, the former reading is rendered wholly implausible because of the parallel requirement that a similar determination be made of the assessed value of the balance of the real property in the school district as of the time or times that the federal property was acquired. We note as well that a post-acquisition reassessment could never constitute the assessed value at the time of the acquisition.