Emotions run high on property tax day. That's the day when you reach into the mail box hoping for a letter from a distant family member or friend but discover a municipal tax bill instead. I hate when that happens.

The typical reactions range from anger to elation, depending on the tax take. But confusion is likely to take hold this time round. That's because 2002 is a reassessment year. It's kind of like a leap year. It happens every four years and takes everyone by surprise.

If you're one of the lucky ones, you might actually witness a property tax cut to your home. But that depends on a variety of factors that make Einstein's theory of relativity seem elementary.

But first a disclaimer: Reading about assessments and taxes is enough to make your head spin, never mind trying to explain it.

During normal years, school boards and municipalities calculate property taxes by multiplying a portion of the assessed value of your property by a fraction, called the mill rate. If a school board or municipality need more money for their budget in a given year, they simply hike the mill rates.

Things get tricky when the province reevaluates your home. Based on market values, the provincial assessment department may increase, decrease or leave be your home's value. That happened this year.

With a change in a municipality or a school division' total assessment, councillors and trustees need to establish a new mill rate to generate enough taxes to pay for expenses.

If the assessment on your property went up, you will likely pay more property taxes unless the municipality or school division found ways to cut costs to off set any potential tax hike. Fat chance you say

As a rule, school taxes, or the Special Levy, as it is affectionately named, have a tendency to increase year after year. The costs are mostly driven by rising salary scales for educators and there is little anyone outside the School Board can do about it.

One other school tax you'll see on your total property tax bill is something called the Education Support Levy, or the ESL. The province collects this tax, using the same mill rate / assessment calculation, and then remits the tax back to the school divisions.

This year, the province made an effort to listen to the endless squawking by people like myself and began to phase out the ESL by 10%. The $10 million ESL cut to residential homes will save the average homeowner in Portage la Prairie $37.

But don't rush off just yet to the department store. You're still at the mercy of the school boards and the municipal council. If they hike taxes again, your provincial savings will be stripped away in no time.

The 10% ESL cut is a nice gesture, but falls short of any comprehensive plan to get control over escalating school taxes.

Having made a commitment to reform education taxes, the province should listen to what tax-burdened Manitobans are saying: Take school taxes off property and fund education out of general revenue. Enough is enough.