Responding to public outrage over soaring St. Tammany property assessments, the state Tax Commission this week sent five times its normal manpower to investigate the surges, some as high as 160 percent.

Twelve state assessors took pictures, gathered sales data and measured square footage of 300 homes in 30 subdivisions throughout the parish to double check Assessor Patricia Schwartz Core’s assessments, said State Tax Commission Administrator Charles Abels. Typically, two state assessors spend two months performing the routine checks and balances, he said.

But “this is new,” Abels said of the whirlwind effort his team pushed to finish in a week. “I’ve never sent this amount of people in an area to assess.” The mounting pressure from area residents and governmental officials prompted the visit that will encompass a grading report for Core’s assessment. That report is scheduled for release late next week and, if assessments are wrong, the commission wouldn’t certify St. Tammany tax rolls, meaning local taxing bodies couldn’t collect taxes, he said.

“We came here because Parish President Kevin Davis and other governmental officials claimed (Core) wasn’t doing her job right,” he said. “We want to calm the public’s fear and make sure the assessor was in compliance. We don’t want to see 40,000 protestors out there.”

Originally Core had estimated her office received about 30,000 appeals, but after computing the data she said roughly 15,000 actually filed. The St. Tammany Parish Council, which also accepted appeals but has not yet calculated how many, will hold its own appeal hearings at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the council chambers on Koop Drive in Mandeville.

The council has the legislative power to overturn Core’s assessments.

“If we have to meet for 10 nights on appeals, we will,” council President Jerry Binder said. “We need to make sure people are assessed fairly, equally and correctly.”

With the nation’s economy already in shambles, the new assessments, in some cases, doubled home values virtually overnight, meaning higher property taxes on the horizon for those already tightening their financial belt.

In Old Mandeville on Villere Street, for example, Pamela Cryer said her property taxes skyrocketed more than 700 percent, from $453 to roughly $3,500 based on current millages, or property tax rates. She has since appealed and won her assessment, she said.

Meanwhile, others are hit just as hard. The parish alone collects 170 mills, among the highest taxed parishes in the state. And if a homeowner lives within city limits, an additional city tax is collected, 30 more mills for example in Slidell.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me how they are doing this,” Slidell City Councilman Warren Crockett said. “Some of these guys aren’t going to be able to afford their note on their house.”

And while high property assessments are a huge contention of local homeowners, many point to massive inconsistencies where house by house, street by street, the value of homes, at times, seem to spike at random.

In Crockett’s Slidell area neighborhood a plot of four undeveloped and overgrown lots at 812 Maine Ave., just cattycorner and within a stone’s throw from Crockett’s home, is valued at $220,387.

Meanwhile, the freshman councilman’s homestead at 707 Maine Ave., sitting on one lot less, is valued at $120,680, according to online records from at www.stassessor.org.

“Apparently there is a problem there,” Abels said.

And around the corner at 512 Teddy Ave., a 2,400-square-foot home was assessed at more than $214,000 — then eventually lowered to $150,177 after numerous objections of by the homeowners — while a house of similar size and statue directly across the street at 509 Teddy Ave. was appraised at $110,850.

“When you do mass appraisals, these things happen,” Abels said. Some slip through the cracks. But if there are lot of crack, that’s when you have a problem.”

Under Louisiana law, property assessments must be valued at 90 to 110 percent of fair market value, defined as a price a buyer and seller can agree on in a reasonable amount of time, Abels said. But if the state Tax Commission finds the homesteads were not assessed between 90 to 110 percent of fair market value, then the tax rolls will freeze.

“It will be interesting to see how she does,” Abels said. “Last time (in 2004) she came close. She just made the 90 percent cutoff.”

Core, however, has said she aimed for the lower end of the spectrum at 90 percent to keep values as low as possible.