Oct 31, 2002 By Paul Sunyak 4 min read

When James M. and Susan Smith tore down old buildings and built a new house and garage on their Bullskin Township property in 1977, the $700 assessed value on their 40 acres of land should have stayed the same. But 25 years ago the Fayette County Tax Assessment Office arbitrarily increased the Smith’s land assessment to $4,200, in a clear case of what’s now known as a “spot reassessment.” The improper move, explained in detail during a hearing in Harrisburg last week, is a vestige of how things ran amok in the tax assessment office throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

During that time, three additional property valuation methods were introduced while the one that should have been used fell by the wayside. The result: virtually every property owner who purchased subdivided property or built a new house or other building after 1971 had its value assessed using a method different than the 1958 rate book.

Because of that, many in the post-1971 class of property owners ended up paying more in county, school district and municipal property taxes than they should have. And they paid more taxes than did owners of comparable properties that remained on the books with original 1958 assessments.

But the Smith case stands out as a shining example of something even more insidious: a 1977 decision to jack up the land assessment by six times for no other apparent reason than to increase tax revenue. Although the Smith’s land assessment was reduced to $2,000 in a 1986 tax appeal hearing, the reduction merely papered over the fact that the land’s assessed value shouldn’t have been increased from $700 in the first place.

The property record card for the Smith parcel – subpoenaed as part of the state’s hearing for current chief assessor James A. Hercik – shows a March 4, 1977, notation that explains the rationale behind the repricing of the land for tax purposes. Five acres characterized as the “homestead” were assessed at $1,000 per acre, while the remaining 35 acres were assessed at $200 per acre. However, in the absence of a countywide reassessment, the Smith’s land assessment should have stayed at $17.50 per acre.

Hercik, who wasn’t working in the assessment office at the time, is at a loss to explain the rationale behind the decision to assess five acres of a larger parcel at a “homestead” rate while assessing the remainder at a different rate.

“I’ve never seen anything in the manual like that,” he said Monday. “That wasn’t in the manual anywhere.”

The initials “WLS” and “RAK” accompany the property record card notation explaining the Smiths’ land assessment change. Hercik said those initials correspond to the names of Wayne L. Santini, who formerly worked as an assessor in the office, and Richard A. Kasunic, who was chief assessor at the time and currently serves as a state senator for Fayette and Somerset counties.

“It had to be them,” said Hercik, who added that he knows of no one else who worked in the office and had those initials.

Kasunic could not be reached for comment Tuesday and did not return a call seeking comment. A spokeswoman in his office said he was out of town.

But Santini, who now lives in Clarion County and works for the State Tax Equalization Board, said that while he has no specific recollection of the Smith property, he followed the office’s standing orders during his time as a Fayette County assessor.

“Whatever is on that card was what I was told to do,” said Santini. “I was just following directions. Richard (Kasunic) apparently told me to do that. I have no memory of (what) any criteria was for that. Whatever I did, I was just following orders.”

Santini said he quit working for the county in 1993.

Hercik said the state law officially outlawing “spot assessments” was not passed until about 10 years ago. And even then, he said, it only applied to third-class counties. Based on its population Fayette is a fourth-class county.

“The legislature did not do it for all classes of counties,” said Hercik.

Hercik, who became chief assessor in 1988, is defending his state assessor’s license before the state Board of Real Estate Appraisers. That board can accept or reject an upcoming decision by chief hearing examiner John F. Alcorn, who presided over two days’ worth of testimony in the Hercik case.