Current BRT has little value

IT'S HARD NOT to assume that the foot-dragging that the Board of Revision of Taxes has exhibited over fixing its broken assessement system - after announcing the start of its full-valuation project in 2004, the BRT finally delivered something last week, five years later - is not somehow tied to a wish to avoid just the kind of bare light-bulb scrutiny that the agency has gotten over the last few days.

In its just-completed three-day "Tax Travesty" report, the Inquirer has illuminated many corners of this dark political patronage pit.

The BRT has produced some of the most "inequitable and bewildering" property assessments in the country. And that's on a good day.

On bad days, as the series illustrated, the system is not only unfair, but corrupt. It was used by at least one politician as a hammer to try to sway a real-estate deal his way.

There is only one logical solution to this nauseating mess: kill the BRT.

Councilman Bill Green yesterday announced he is introducing legislation that could dissolve the BRT and replace its functions with a city department. Green wants to create an independent appeals board, separate from the function that assesses properties. One of his bills would abolish the BRT, placing the appraisal process within a city department. Another would leave the BRT in place, with board members appointed by the mayor and City Council.

There's no question that the BRT should be abolished. As we have seen in the case of the Fairmount Park Commission, little good comes when judges can hide behind closed doors and appoint members of important city boards with no accountability or public input.

The price that the park system paid for this political sacred cow was years of neglect.

But in the case of the BRT, the problems are far more severe. From board appointments to patronage hiring, the BRT has had a negative impact on the actual value of real estate in Philadelphia, and the amount of revenues the city can take in.

Worst, it has imposed a criminal unfairness not just to the property owners who pay more than they should, but to every homeowner - indeed, every citizen - in the city. *