Buying real estate has been an American dream for many people, but the use of spot assessments has made that dream a nightmare.

Ron Boltz, a Pine Grove resident and now a school board member, said he can’t even enjoy his home after a spot assessment upped his taxes by $3,000 a year.“My taxes went up $300 overnight,” Boltz said of the monthly increase that could eat up any funds saved for “a car payment.”Boltz is one of many Pennsylvania residents caught in a school taxes web that seeks an increase in revenue without raising taxes.Often, the practice occurs in counties where real estate values haven’t been reassessed in decades. The practice is known as spot assessment, which means if a school district thinks that a house is undervalued, they are permitted by law to petition for a reassessment.“Property tax is basically someone’s opinion of what your house is worth,” Boltz said.Normally, reassessments occur when a house is sold or there are significant improvements. That’s not the case with spot assessments.A reverse appeal, the legal term for spot assessment, can be done on a property, both residential and commercial, simply because the school district thinks it’s undervalued, whenever the school district decides that it should be done, said Ryan Achenbach, a real estate appraiser for Greg Achenbach Appraisals Inc. in Pine Grove.“The thing that scares me the most is they can file an appeal any time,” Achenbach said. A school district can request a limited appraisal in order to give them more information about a property.“They can look for houses that might assess higher, basically cherry-picking houses,” he said.Because properties had not been assessed for 30 years in some counties, some property values doubled or tripled. People within the same neighborhood have vastly different school tax bills.“Some people have seen their (school) taxes go up as much as $6,000 to $12,000,” Boltz said.Once a house is assessed at the higher rate, it carries through to the next buyer of the house.“How do we sell our homes now? Why would someone buy a house with triple the tax bill over someone down the road?”“It puts people at a disadvantage because now they have a high tax bill, but they can’t resell. They’re in tax purgatory,” Achenbach said. “They feel an injustice due to the lack of uniformity. You have neighbors who hate their neighbors, because of the tax difference.”The practice used to be more prevalent, but due in part to the burst of the housing bubble in 2008 and school districts being pressured to stop this on residential properties, it has stopped in some areas, but not all.Tamaqua and Minersville are still issuing spot assessments, Achenbach said. He has seen people walk away from purchasing a house in a school district that still does spot assessments and crossing the line into another school district that doesn’t do them anymore.His concern is that the practice will begin again.“With the budget problems (in the state), it could start up again,” he said. “Beware, it could be coming to a school district near you.”Currently, the governor and Legislature are working on coming to a compromise regarding a state budget, leaving school districts without their share of state funding. This coupled with the fact that school districts are required to contribute more each year to the Public School Employees’ Retirement System creates a concern.According to a PSERS report for fiscal year 2015-16, school districts will be expected to contribute 25.84 percent toward employees’ pensions. The rate has steadily risen from 1.94 percent in fiscal year 2000-01 to a projected top level of 31.83 percent in fiscal year 2024-2025.At the time that Boltz saw his property reassessed in 2008 and his school taxes increased, the rate of funding for school employees was 4.76 percent.Boltz said a report by the Independent Fiscal Office showed that between 1993 and 2013 school property taxes rose 146 percent.During that same time, inflation rose by 59 percent and the average weekly income by 80 percent.“Property tax outpaced income and inflation 2 to 1,” Boltz said. “I don’t think it’s sustainable.”Both Boltz and Achenbach are proponents of Senate Bill 877 currently sitting the Senate Appropriations Committee.The bill is an act amending Title 53 (Municipalities Generally) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, and would restrict the ability of taxing districts to appeal a property assessment it considers to be significantly undervalued.The bill was introduced by state Sen. David Argall (R-Schuylkill/Berks).In a memorandum written by Argall, he said the bill would eliminate spot appeals of property assessments. The problem with spot appeals, Argall contends that it can drastically increase the taxes on residential properties. He referenced two residential property owners whose taxes were raised by $8,000 and $6,000.Jon Hopcraft, an executive director for Argall, said their office has heard from numerous residential property owners in Schuylkill County asking for a stop to spot assessments. This issue is one of the reasons why Argall is strong supporter of eliminating property taxes.“It really goes to the unfairness of the school property tax,” he said. Pennsylvania Senate Bill 76, the Property Tax Independence Act, is currently in the Senate Finance Committee.Senate Bill 877 is one of several pieces of legislation dealing with specific issues of property taxes, Hopcraft said, and passed unanimously in the Urban Affairs and Housing Committee.A companion bill is in the works in the state House and will be co-sponsored by state Rep. Scott Petri, a member of the House Urban Affairs Committee, Hopcraft said.“My legislation will remove a taxing jurisdiction’s ability to appeal the assessment of a property based solely on the sale of the property,” Argall wrote. “Taxing authorities may only appeal an assessment when the property has gone through a countywide reassessment, been divided into smaller parcels, or a change in the productive use of the property has occurred.”Argall’s bill would also include a retroactive remedy, allowing property owners whose property tax assessments have been increased because of an appeal to pursue having the assessments reduced to previous levels. He noted that Article VIII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution states that taxes shall be uniform.“Under current law, two homes built in the same year with the same layout in the same condition could have drastically different local tax bills because of when one property was purchased,” Argall wrote. “My legislation would seek to restore uniformity.”