City peers deep into life at BRT

Mayor Nutter, in an effort to learn what goes on inside the secretive and embattled Board of Revision of Taxes, is asking all employees to describe their jobs in detail.

As part of a review process Nutter outlined to City Council in a memo this week, the Department of Human Resources e-mailed a questionnaire to all 200 BRT employees, asking them to describe their responsibilities, supervisors, subordinates, and decision-making process.

The questionnaire seemed to rattle BRT employees concerned about job security and how the reforms would affect them, but Nutter said that was not his intent.

"We're trying to figure out how the organization functions and operates," he said in an interview last night.

Among proposed reforms are shifting some BRT patronage jobs to civil-service positions and requiring certification for other positions.

Earlier this month, Nutter reached an agreement with the BRT's six sitting board members, who formerly ran the agency as an independent body, to allow a city takeover of the BRT's assessment function under Finance Director Rob Dubow. BRT members did not return calls seeking comment on Nutter's proposals.

An Inquirer series in May documented decades of political cronyism, mismanagement, outright corruption, and wildly inaccurate assessments. The ensuing crisis of faith has left city leaders unwilling to raise property taxes even in a year when they were desperate for new revenue.

The BRT historically has set property values for taxing purposes and also hears appeals on those assessments.

The board would still hear appeals of those assessments, pending permanent changes proposed by City Council. A hearing on Councilman Bill Green's bill is set for Tuesday.

City Human Resources Director Albert L. D'Attilio, in a three-page memo that Nutter circulated to Council this week, suggested two major changes could be in store for BRT employees.

First, the 78 school district jobs at the BRT - an arrangement that allows those employees to remain free from restrictions on political activity - would "likely" become civil-service positions.

That would subject those clerical jobs - long a haven for the politically connected from both parties - to the same Home Rule Charter restrictions on political activity as other city workers. That means the three dozen committee people and ward leaders working at the BRT may have to give up their party positions or their jobs.

Nutter said he was awaiting a formal opinion from City Solicitor Shelley R. Smith on whether those workers were properly employees of the school district or the city.

In addition, D'Attilio wrote that 85 BRT positions currently covered by civil service "may require significant revision" to require professional certification. Current rules allow the board to circumvent normal requirements of a college degree for those positions, which are more directly involved in actual assessments.

The low-paying clerical school district posts, which require no qualifications, have long been divvied up between the Democratic and Republican City Committees. Critics have questioned why the school district should spend $3.8 million a year on those positions, and why political parties should control jobs in an agency whose function is assessing properties for tax purposes.

The school workers at the BRT were confused yesterday about how they might be integrated into the civil-service system. "I have to wait and see," said Helyn Cheeks, 84, a former Democratic ward leader who has worked at the BRT for 15 years.

Some of the workers have serious health problems.

Democratic ward leader Donna Aument, who has worked at the BRT since 1982, has said she needs the health benefits from the job because she is recovering from cancer. "I'm not interested in being a city employee," Aument said. "I'm a very happy school board employee."

And because school district rules allow workers to live outside the city, some may face residency issues.

Resistance to D'Attilio's expected recommendations could come during Council hearings on reforming the BRT. Green's legislation, scheduled for a hearing on Tuesday, would transfer the BRT's job of assessing properties to a new Office of Property Assessment under the mayor and would leave the board only to hear assessment appeals.

Council members have repeatedly said the school district employees are not the problem - that mismanagement at the top is their primary concern, and that the patronage workers were unfairly targeted.

"That part of the BRT has not been troublesome for me," said Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco, the Democratic majority leader. "I'm more concerned that the little old lady living near me gets a fair assessment on her property."

The wild card is U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of the Democratic City Committee, who is responsible for getting jobs for most of those patronage workers. Brady has not spoken publicly on the issue and could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Sources on Council and in the administration, however, said Brady may not object to relinquishing control of the jobs if the workers were taken care of. City unions support the move - the new workers would be represented by AFSCME District Council 33, District Council 47, or both.

Judy Hoover, the District Council 47 union representative for the BRT assessors, said she told her members that they should not fill out the city questionnaire until after a meeting scheduled for Monday by her local to clarify how the changes at the tax agency may affect them.

"People are going crazy. They believe [city officials] can fire them all," she said, referring to about 75 property evaluators on the BRT staff.

Hoover, however, said she would support transferring the school workers to the civil-service payroll because it often has been difficult for her members to work with the patronage employees, who act as assessors' assistants.

"A lot of them are good workers. They want to do a good job. But a lot of them don't feel that way," she said about the school district workers. "Give us real support clerks."

Because the clerks do not technically report to the assessors, "it's a dysfunctional arrangement," District Council 47 President Cathy Scott said. Scott said exemptions on qualifications for civil-service workers were pushed by the administration, not by the union.

But folding the school district workers into civil service will be a tricky process. D'Attilio wrote in his memo that moving the school board employees to civil service requires analysis of the pay scale and workload.

Some of the workers are as old as 84 and would be required to take a competitive civil-service test. The city would have to decide whether to credit those employees for years served with the school district for seniority, salary, and accumulated leave, according to D'Attilio.

Contact staff writer Jeff Shields at 215-854-4565 or jshields@phillynews.com.