Both candidates running to represent the 30th Legislative District have been knocking on doors to introduce themselves.

Both agree that voters throughout the northern suburbs want to see property tax reform.

Each, however, has a different plan for reaching that goal.

Democrat Shawn Flaherty said he would push his colleagues in Harrisburg to eliminate residential property taxes completely as a method of financing education.

"The system we have now is broken," he said. "We can't fix it without coming up with a completely different way to fund schools."

Republican Randy Vulakovich proposes a two-pronged, gradual approach.

First, the state sales tax could be broadened to cover more items, he said. Those new dollars could be used to reduce school tax millage rates.

Second, he proposed capping school property taxes for senior citizens and disabled homeowners. "If someone is paying $2,000 in property tax at age 65, that amount would never change, even if assessments or millage rates went up."

Mr. Flaherty was skeptical of plans to reduce, rather than eliminate, school property taxes, warning that millage rates would rise to their original levels over time. "If you just cut property taxes by 25 percent, four years later, the rate will be back up," he said.

His plan to end real estate taxes on residential property would require a change in the state constitution, which requires uniform taxation of all classes of property. Under Mr. Flaherty's plan, school districts could continue to tax commercial property. His plan also would retain county and municipal property taxes.

"Most people see those as reasonable," he said. "They understand that salt trucks and street paving cost money."

The school tax burden could be shifted to higher personal income and expanded or higher sales taxes, he said. He said he favored some combination of the three.

"It will take time to build a consensus," he said. "But the current system is going to implode."

Mr. Flaherty's Republican opponent said the No. 1 issue voters have talked to him about was lack of trust in government.

Mr. Vulakovich said that concern was reflected in voter anger over the now-repealed legislative pay raise and their belief that lobbyists control how legislators vote.

They also suspect that legislative leaders use walking-around-money, called WAM, to punish or reward state representatives and senators, he said.

Voters have told him they would like to see the size of the state Legislature trimmed and an end to unfunded mandates, new state regulations that have to be paid for by local governments or school districts.

Mr. Vulakovich said he did not favor replacing all school district property taxes with higher sales or income levies.

School boards now raise most of their taxes locally and then make the major decisions on how that money will be spent, he said. If the state began raising most of the money for education, more local control would shift to Harrisburg.

State officials would not understand local needs, and they would be tempted to spend education dollars based on politics, he said.

Mr. Vulakovich pointed to allocation of mass-transit aid. Big cities tend to receive the bulk of state transportation money, usually to the disadvantage of suburbs, he said.

Calling himself a fiscal conservative, he pledged to cut government waste.

Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Vulakovich already have faced tough election battles.

Mr. Flaherty defeated a well-financed Republican, Mike Dolan, in a special election in April to represent the 30th District until January. Mr. Flaherty, who had no Democratic opponents in the May primary, is completing the term of Republican Jeff Habay, of Shaler. Mr. Habay resigned the seat after being convicted of election abuses.

Mr. Flaherty spent almost $200,000 on his special-election campaign, including $96,000 provided by the state party.

He plans, once again, to augment his door-to-door campaigning with cable television advertising. He has requested help from state Democrats, but, he said, he realized the party also has to aid many other House candidates in the November election.

Mr. Flaherty, 47, is the son of the late Pete Flaherty, a former Pittsburgh mayor and Allegheny County commissioner.

He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University Law School.

He lives in Fox Chapel with his wife, Debbie, and their three children, Linda, Patrick and Kara.

Mr. Vulakovich estimated that he spent about $20,000 during a three-way primary race for the GOP nomination. That number represents a fraction of what his two opponents spent.

He estimated that he visited about 6,000 houses during the primary and had knocked on another 9,200 doors since.

Mr. Vulakovich, 56, is a retired Shaler police officer. He and his wife, Bobbie, who are the parents of two grown children, live in Shaler.

He is a newly minted Republican, changing his registration from Democrat in 2004. "I was one of those Reagan Democrats," he said.

A graduate of North Catholic High School, he attended Duquesne University. He worked 10 years in the grocery business before joining the Shaler police. He worked 27 years for the township, retiring as a sergeant.

The 30th District covers Fox Chapel, Hampton and parts of O'Hara, Ross and Shaler.