Editorial: Can the BRT be fixed?

Mayor Nutter and City Council have been at odds so much, it's good to see them agree on something: The Board of Revision of Taxes must be overhauled, or - even better - abolished and replaced.

Fortunately, there are some good ideas already floating around City Hall. In fact, as a councilman in 2003, Nutter introduced two bills designed to fix the BRT. Both measures failed.

The Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission also provided some excellent recommendations in 2003, but they, too, failed to gain any traction.

Now, City Councilman Bill Green plans to introduce two bills modeled after Nutter's failed measures from six years ago. These should be ideas Nutter can champion, since they were once his.

One bill would split the BRT into departments, separating the assessments and the appeals operations, to create a firewall. The other bill would keep the agency intact, but give the mayor and Council, rather than the city judges, authority to appoint the BRT board members.

Why propose two separate bills, since both measures are needed? Best to get one strong bill passed and do it right.

Any measure should also look at the best practices of other municipalities that have reformed their tax-assessing and appeal systems.

The measure should also include recommendations made earlier by the Tax Reform Commission, such as naming a taxpayers' advocate to argue for property owners during appeals.

Overhauling the BRT will ultimately mean changing the City Charter, which requires voter approval. But it will be next year before any proposal can get on the ballot. That leaves Nutter in a jam for his current budget, which hinges on steep property-tax hikes over the next two years.

A majority of Council and residents were already opposed to the tax increases before the Inquirer series this week detailed corruption and incompetence at the BRT. Trying to ram through tax hikes in a system that even BRT officials admit is broken is an impossible sell at this point.

The public has lost all faith in the BRT. Property assessments are uneven, unfair, and possibly unconstitutional.

The state constitution requires that "all taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax."

That leaves the city ripe for a class-action lawsuit, considering the dubious deals documented in the Inquirer series, including property-tax breaks for a large hotel, a convicted former state senator, and the Democratic Party's multimillion-dollar clubhouse on Walnut Street.

Other municipalities have been sued, and lost, over much less egregious inequities in their tax systems than Philadelphia's.

Which means the BRT, as it is now, must be blown up before Nutter can move ahead with raising property taxes 19 percent this year, and 14.5 percent from the current values in 2010.

Nor can the mayor and Council consider the BRT's plan to change the way properties are valued and assessed until the agency is dismantled and rebuilt.

No one can trust that this BRT is up to the job, since the agency has been shown to be such a hack-filled political dumping ground that plays favorites.

The only course now is to fix the BRT, or replace it. This won't be easy. Others have tried and failed. But the mayor and Council know what needs to be done.

The real test will be whether he and Council have what it takes to dismantle such an entrenched patronage mill.