PhillyTablet Inquirer Daily News
Mobile
Home Delivery
philly.com
email
font size
comments
17
options
 
Thursday, October 8, 2009

BRT To Go Boom?

The troubled Board of Revision of Taxes is the hot issue up in City Council today.

Councilman Bill Green has introduced legislation to reform the BRT, which came under fire after an Inquirer series detailed mismanagement, patronage and inaccurate assessments at the agency.

The legislation would abolish the BRT by 2011 and to create two new agencies: the Office of Property Assessment and the Board of Property Assessment Appeals. It has 14 co-sponsors, in addition to Green. (Council members Rizzo and Blackwell are the only members not on board.)*

“The ultimate goal is to restore public faith in our assessment and collection of properties,” Green said.

The legislation does not change an arrangement under which 80 BRT employees are on the School District payroll -- something Mayor Nutter has outlined as a priority.

Nutter yesterday said he had not read the Green legislation.

There has been some tension between the mayor and Council over how to manage BRT reform, despite promises of collaboration on both sides.

Yesterday, Nutter announced an interim agreement with the BRT that would move assessment functions under the authority of the city finance director.

Councilman Jim Kenney expressed frustration that he did not learn of the mayor’s plan until today.

“I think part of the problem here is the lack of communication,” Kenney said. “I don’t know what is going on. I’m at a loss to know what the strategy is.”

Kenney also questioned whether there should have been a public vote by the BRT board on the agreement.

“I know the hallmark of the administration has been transparency,” Kenney said. “But I don’t know how transparent that was.”

*We originally reported that the bill had 13 co-sponsors. But Councilman Brian O'Neill added himself at the last minute, bringing the total to 14 co-sponsors, plus Green.
 
Posted by Catherine Lucey @ 10:51 AM  Permalink | 17 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:00 PM, 10/08/2009
    I hope the journalists explore the nature of the opposition to the legislation. I suspect the reasons that Rizzo and O'Neill oppose it are very different from the reasons Blackwell opposes it. But Green is suggesting an alternative that greatly mimics the current problems with the BRT now, yet is casting himself as a reformer. This needs above-the-fold coverage everyday, in depth. There hasn't been as important a reform in Philly since the days of "corrupt and contented." BRT employees on the PSD payroll is not reform. If Council wants transparency, they have to support real reform. If they keep trying to sink real reform to protect their turf, then yeah, Nutter is not going to tell them anything, and shouldn't in order to make this end run past them to get real reform.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:02 PM, 10/08/2009
    Keeping the patronage hires top to bottom is not reform. Keeping high salaried part time employees is not reform. It's costly in money and in faith. The FBI can still investigate this, and Council will be on the line. Just ask Fumo how it works. You steal public services, and you go to the fed pen. You sabotage public services, and you commit theft of those public services. If you think the FBI won't prosecute and win, give old Vinny a call.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:09 PM, 10/08/2009
    Who they hire and what professional assessment firm is brought in is critical to the restoration of integrity in this process, and Council seems very behind the ball. Nutter should be open and transparent, but Council is trying to use that very transparency to sink the new reform, just look at Green. His proposals don't go far enough by half. Council wants fake reform, and I expect will make a dramatic scene of calling for shallow reforms. In counties with updated, fair, objective assessments, the County Executive does do the hiring, and the openly bidded contract for professional services is a process that a single CEO in government will head up. What you don't need is all this excess mid-level part time patronage hires, and sub-professionals crammed into one agency.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:20 PM, 10/08/2009
    For people who are not getting the whole theft of public services concept as a federal crime, let me explain: if you are getting money to do the service, like a salary, and you don't do the service, or you sabotage the performance of that service to the standard required by law, then you are committing theft of public services. It is state law that property taxes are assessed based on objective data. The longer anyone in the city allows this, the longer the window the FBI has to get a subpoena. All of you needed to have closed this down yesterday, and Nutter may not be going far enough.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:32 PM, 10/08/2009
    Let's never forget that a big part of what sank Vince Fumo was that his house was assessed way too low, and the BRT wouldn't fix it, even though they knew it was assessed way too low, and the FBI opened an investigation that included other complaints they had received. How many other examples of this are there that involve Philly pols? Find a pol that isn't guilty of this, that doesn't have staff or party members they work with who fully expect this illegal bennie in Philly. Who is next in Philly for the FBI? The bookies are taking bets.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:35 PM, 10/08/2009
    Now this makes a lot of sense, close one department and create two more? Why have one department to dump political patronage when you can have two? Bring in a un-bias, non-political enity to run it as ONE department. STOP THE POLITICAL PATRONAGE WASTE OF TAX PAYERS MONEY!!!!!
    — Dadair1
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:35 PM, 10/08/2009
    Contract out real estate assessment to one of the real estate internet companies such as Zillow. They already have a full value database on most homes in the country. It would be a very easy thing to do and far less costly and far more transparent than the current BRT with it's $5.6 Million in patronage jobs.
    — feudi
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:41 PM, 10/08/2009
    While I don't necessarily agree that the system should be farmed out to a contractor, the AVT should be developed by a responsible party. And keeping the same employees but changing the names of the divisions, as Green's legislation appears to do, is NOT reform. Just smoke and mirrors to get the public's nose out of the corrupt corner of the patronage employees - heaven forbid that the public realize that the main problem in City mismanagement is NOT the oft-slighted union workers, but in fact the underqualified and untrained political hacks handed patronage jobs with the City. The article series has exposed how underqualified (to the point of completely non-qualified) some of these patronage employees are; reform starts with including these positions in the City civil service. Then they'd need to pass a civil service exam and show SOME relevant qualification for their jobs, AND they would be barred from political involvement like the rest of the City workers should be.
    — citylumberjack
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:56 PM, 10/08/2009
    feudi: Can't do that, because Zillow is pathetically wrong, always has been, and admits that it's just guessing. I just checked, and they have valued my house, but listed it as a condo (it's a row house) and have no record of how many bedrooms or baths! How in the world can you trust that valuation? They can't find the house next door to me on one side, and the collapsing shell of a house on the other side is priced only $40,000 less than my house! A house 2 doors away is listed as being the same size as mine even though it is one floor shorter and one room shallower on each floor. Zillow's a joke. The BRT's done a better job than Zillow. Accurate assessments require local monitoring and inspections (even just drive-bys).
    — Tatts
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:39 PM, 10/08/2009
    D-cop go BOOM too BOOM
    — d-cop?STOP!
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:45 PM, 10/08/2009
    One reason that the BRT has come under fire is that it makes the property assessments and it controls the hearing process. So, if you don't like your assessment, you end up appealing to the very agency that set your value. The mayor and Council rightly propose to split those functions into two independent, unrelated entities. And when assessments are in the executive branch, no employee will be able to engage in politics the way they now do at the BRT. This won't be a waste of money or more money. and because the school district gets 60 percent of the property taxes, it should have to pay a proportional amount of the cost to assess and hear appeals. it should not have to pay for party functionaries working in largely clerical jobs. The Council bill needs to be clarified so that any employee working for the appeals board is prohibited from political activity.
    — Pangloss
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:13 PM, 10/08/2009
    Try appraisaltrend.com -- that is a local company that does multi-state property tax assessments, using sales data and best practices in banking and info technology. People use them for appeals as well. There are any number of municipal service contractors who have good reputations, are nationwide, or wide in their scope, and who are independent. Professionalizing property tax assessment means that employees are hired by merit only, and that the assessments are based on real data. You can't argue with that. The new system has to be able to justify the new appraisals to the owners, so the numbers have to come up the same using a variety of providers. That's professional appraisal. That's system integrity. Pangloss is right -- most places have assessments and appeals as separate departments. There is no reason any of these employees belongs in the School District.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:14 PM, 10/08/2009
    Is the BRT going to continue to do its work? I requested that they update the valuations on my block, and have gotten no response in months.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:33 PM, 10/08/2009
    How come all you people are not complaining about the patronage in city hall?Like the mayors office, councils office, state reps, the governors office, senators offices, congress offices and of course the president's office. ARE THEY EXEMPT?
    — tellsitlikeitis
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:35 PM, 10/08/2009
    How come all you people are not complaining about the patronage in city hall?Like the mayors office, councils office, state reps, the governors office, senators offices, congress offices and of course the president's office. ARE THEY EXEMPT?
    — tellsitlikeitis


17 comments | View All Comments | View All By Latest
View comments: 1  |  2
About The Philly Clout Team
PhillyClout
Chris Brennan, a native Philadelphian and graduate of Temple University, joined the Daily News in 1999. He has written about SEPTA, the Philadelphia School District, the legalization of casino gambling, state government, the mayor, the governor, City Council and political campaigns.
 Follow Chris on Twitter

David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics ­– which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
 Follow Dave on Twitter.

Catherine Lucey joined the Daily News in 2002 and has written about murderous drug gangs, political protesters and Harry Potter. After covering the 2007 mayoral election, she moved over to the City Hall bureau where she has been reporting on the Nutter administration.
 Follow Catherine on Twitter

Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans.
 Follow Jan on Twitter



Share your tips

Catherine Lucey
luceyc@phillynews.com

Chris Brennan
brennac@phillynews.com

Jan Ransom
Ransomj@phillynews.com
Advertise Here