DN Editorial: Vampire's curse

WE ONCE called the Board of Revision of Taxes flesh-eating zombies. That was back in 2010, when the BRT filed a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court challenging the city's ability to abolish it, prompted by decades of patronage, mismanagement and arbitrary property assessments. The city, with the support of voters, split the BRT into two, separating its property-assessment function from its appeals function. When the city tried to gain control of the appeals function, the BRT balked, and the court backed them.

In other words, the BRT was unkillable.

Now, we're having second thoughts. Now, we think they are actually vampires, sucking the blood out of the budgets of the schools and the city - and rarely coming out into the daylight.

According to recent reports in the Daily News and the Inquirer, the BRT has a backlog of 20,000 appeals, and is so slow at processing those appeals that it will take years to get through them all. And every delayed appeal means a delay in the full revenue that is due to the schools and the city. (City Council passed a boneheaded law that allows property owners appealing their new taxes to pay their tax at the old rate.)

When the BRT was split, it was a critical step in a massive and overdue overhaul of the city's property-tax system, which ultimately created a new system of taxation based on actual values.

In December, the first bills under the new system were mailed out - 579,000 in all. Those bills generated 24,000 appeals. But the board is moving so slowly through those appeals, because Mayor Nutter reduced the salaries of new board members from $70,000 a year to a $150 per diem rate.

As the Inquirer pointed out this week, some board members want more money and indicated that they aren't exactly going to break a sweat moving through appeals until they get it.

Can they get away with this? To whom is the BRT answerable?

The depressing answer is: Yes, they can get away with it, because they answer to no one. The members of the board are appointed by the board of judges, who have no power to fire them except under extraordinary circumstances. They are not elected, and they operate independently. That's the recipe for the disaster we now face.

A bill in Council would restore the $70,000 salaries for the entire board. In other words, BRT is holding the efficient execution of their responsibilities hostage for more money - and they may win.

We have a better idea. The city should pay BRT board members for each executed appeal. This would offer compensation without high salaries, and provide an incentive for moving through them as quickly as possible. Especially if, in the first three months, the rate per appeal is at the highest, and gradually gets adjusted downward as more time passes.

Meanwhile, the state Legislature has the power to fix this more permanently, by establishing a new board of appeals that the voters of Philadelphia demanded four years ago. Those voters should call their lawmakers and demand action, before the BRT vampires drain us dry.