I intend to reintroduce legislation that will amend the Taxpayer Relief Act in order to better clarify the amount and source of school property tax relief on school district tax notices received by taxpayers.

As has become evident through conversations with people in my legislative district, school property tax notices poorly explain the extent to which school property taxes have been reduced through proceeds of slot machine gaming. These notices are written in unclear statutory language instead of words the average Pennsylvanian can easily comprehend. Therefore, my bill rewrites the notice of property tax relief required in Section 343 in a conversational tone and requires that it be conspicuous on the notice. Specifically, the notice would read:
 
Your enclosed tax bill included a tax reduction of (amount of exclusion) for your property. This tax relief is mandated by law though an Act of the Pennsylvania General Assembly which uses gaming revenue to reduce your property taxes. This reduction is separate from any action taken by your school district.

While I expect the debate regarding the overall effects of gaming to continue, we can agree that our constituents must be well-informed regarding the amount by which their school property taxes are reduced – and how the funds for that reduction are generated.

I hope you will join me in this effort to bring more transparency to our school property tax collection process and increase accountability for the tax reductions generated by our casinos.