Mayor offers a plan to replace the BRT

Mayor Nutter yesterday called for the Board of Revision of Taxes to be replaced by a new, independent entity that would handle appeals but no longer set property values, and he implied that he would abolish the agency's traditional patronage practices.

For the first time, the mayor outlined these and other fixes he says are necessary to repair Philadelphia's broken property-tax system.

Nutter's remarks followed a series of Inquirer articles over the last five months that have documented an agency in chaos, guilty of widespread mistakes in property assessments - both commercial and residential - and rife with conflicts of interest and political favoritism.

During a meeting in his Cabinet Room with a small group of reporters, Nutter said he favored shifting the responsibility for setting property values to the city Finance Department.

He also wants to end an arrangement under which 80 BRT employees - half the tax board's staff - are on the school district's payroll, enabling them to circumvent policies governing city government workers, such as the requirement that they live in Philadelphia and a ban on political activity.

"Every employee should be held to the same standards," Nutter said.

He said he would also push to change the process under which city judges appoint the BRT's seven-member board. That practice has left the agency in the hands of political insiders influenced by party leaders such as U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of Philadelphia's Democratic Party, and former Democratic State Sen. Vincent Fumo, a convicted felon.

Instead, Nutter, citing property assessments as a vital city function, said the mayor's office should appoint tax board members.

While these proposals have not been incorporated into any specific bill, Nutter highlighted them as components necessary in any legislation he would support.

He said he hoped to work with City Council to approve legislation by the end of the calendar year that would call for a referendum enabling the changes to appear on next May's election ballot.

"There must be an urgency to this work," Nutter said. "Property owners must know any assessment they receive is being done by professionals" and by the "highest standards."

BRT Chairwoman Charlesretta Meade and acting chief assessor Barry Mescolotto did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. Common Pleas Court President Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe, who oversees the Common Pleas Court judges who appoint BRT board members, was on vacation.

Nutter's articulation of his ideas for changing the agency came two days before City Council is expected to introduce its own legislation to overhaul the BRT. Councilman Bill Green, expected to be the bill's prime sponsor, said yesterday: "I think it would have been nice for the mayor to share his foundational principles with Council before he released them publicly."

Green said Council would share its legislation with Nutter before introducing it tomorrow.

He would not comment on its substance, but according to a draft obtained by The Inquirer, Council and the mayor are not far apart, with the possible exception of the school district BRT workers. Green's legislation does not address those employees.

It does, however, call for the appeals and assessment functions to be split and for the creation of an Office of Property Assessment and a Board of Property Assessment Appeals.

Until now, Nutter had refrained from detailing changes he thought vital to restoring public trust in tax assessment. In part, that is because he and Council leaders said they had been working together toward a resolution.

"I was elected mayor, not monarch," Nutter said yesterday.

But there was little evidence of much being accomplished, and last week, several Council members expressed impatience at the pace of change.

Yesterday, Councilman Darrell L. Clarke, who, as majority whip, is part of Council's five-member leadership team, said the 17-member body was completing its own process to reach consensus on legislation. He said his only timetable was to complete work by year's end.

The proposals Nutter discussed yesterday were designed to address issues of accountability, transparency, and consistency raised in a report completed last month by a city task force. His ideas mirrored many of the findings in the report, which had presented options but provided no recommendations.

This is not Nutter's first attempt to reconfigure the agency. As a councilman in 2002, he introduced a bill to abolish the BRT and replace it with three entities that would set property values, hear appeals, and create a system for assessing properties.

The measure did not succeed.