Nutter, Verna vow to remake or disband BRT

Mayor Nutter and City Council President Anna C. Verna declared yesterday that they intend to "reform, restructure or dissolve" the city's independent Board of Revision of Taxes, which sets property values in Philadelphia.

Citing Inquirer reports that have raised questions about the quality of the agency's work and undue political influence on property assessments, Nutter said, "There must and there will be significant change.

"The issues that have been raised in recent news accounts represent a culture that is unacceptable in our city government," Nutter said at a City Hall news conference.

"Not only do Philadelphians deserve a tax assessment that is fair and accurate, they must also have faith and trust in the people who operate that system."

The mayor declined to offer a timeline for potential changes and said he was not ready to announce publicly what ought to happen.

Any effort would by necessity require at least many months, even a year or more. Restructuring or dissolving the BRT would require changing the City Charter, a lengthy process that culminates in a public vote. The earliest that could happen, one councilman predicted, was next May.

Verna did not attend the news conference, but issued a joint statement with Nutter committing herself to overhauling or disbanding the agency.

Like Nutter's remarks at the news conference, the statement was brief and short on specifics.

But it was notable nonetheless that the city's top two elected officials pledged publicly to remake the BRT. The agency, a bastion of patronage, has successfully resisted reform attempts dating to the 1960s.

BRT spokesman Kevin Feeley again acknowledged that the agency's current property assessments were deeply flawed. But he contended that the inaccurate valuations were being fixed through a new assessment method called the Actual Value Initiative.

"To the mayor's point, we agree that reform of the system is necessary. That's what Actual Value is," Feeley said. "It is probably the most important reform to the property-tax system in the last decade."

Clearly, though, in critiquing the agency's "culture," Nutter was not limiting his calls for reform to assessments.

Behind the scenes, the Nutter administration is exploring how to eliminate the BRT's independence by bringing the agency's assessors into a department overseen by the mayor, such as the Finance Department or the Managing Director's Office.

Today, Councilman Bill Green is expected to introduce two bills that deal with the BRT, one modeled on legislation that Nutter tried to get passed as a member of Council six years ago.

One of Green's bills would eradicate the BRT, splitting its functions three ways. The other would keep the agency intact but would give the mayor and Council the authority to appoint its board members. Since 1867, BRT board members have been chosen by city judges, a process heavily influenced by political bosses.

For the moment, City Hall must figure out what to do with the BRT's tentative new assessments.

The new values demonstrate vividly how inaccurate current property assessments are. When the new figures are adopted, tax bills will change dramatically across the city. Some property owners will get significant reductions, others will be on the hook for thousands of dollars more a year.

That and the recent questions about the BRT's competence and conduct have badly complicated Nutter's plan to temporarily raise property taxes to help close a $1.38 billion five-year budget deficit.

But yesterday, Nutter said he nonetheless would seek property-tax hikes: 19 percent next year, falling to 14.5 percent over the current rate in 2011, then returning to the current rate in 2012.

"Our goal, of course, has to be getting the system fixed so that it is accurate, fair, and equitable, as quickly as possible," Nutter said. "That should be our mission, that should be our goal."