The Panther Valley School Board recently passed a budget with no tax increase, but some property owners could see their tax bill go up over the next year.

The school board has officially authorized its attorney to challenge the tax assessment of properties that were sold in the last year. He will only go after homes that sold for $20,000 more than their assessed market value.They voted 9-0 to approve the measure Wednesday night.The tax rate isn't changing - it is 60.19 mills in Carbon and 51.12 in Schuylkill County. But a tax bill is calculated based on the millage, and a home's assessed market value.Because the last county-wide reassessment was in 1999, most homes sell for more than their assessed market value. School districts will often use a home's sale price as evidence to appeal a homeowner's tax assessment.Tax assessment appeals have rankled homeowners in Panther Valley and Jim Thorpe recently. Jim Thorpe Area School District residents strongly objected to a round of reassessments in the spring, prompting the school board to delay them until this fall.Panther Valley's solicitor has been challenging assessments for more than 20 years, according to superintendent Dennis Kergick."We do that once a year. Every year we go through this," he said.It's not uncommon for homeowners to challenge their assessment when their property value goes down. School districts also have a right to do the same, which has been affirmed by state appeals courts.This is the first time that the Panther Valley School Board officially voted to endorse it.Kergick said that the board's current solicitor, Robert Yurchak, recommended that the board pass a motion this year to make their intentions clear.Kergick said that Yurchak has been conducting the reassessments at the board's direction in the past. He said that he has not personally directed Yurchak to conduct any reassessments."It was not annually voted on but he has been directed to do so in the past," Kergick said.