BRT: We're gonna need more money

T HE BOARD of Revision of Taxes may be down, but it's definitely not out.

The board - which handles only property-tax appeals after being stripped of much of its power - told City Council on Monday that it may need more than the $708,540 allocated to it next fiscal year.

Chairman Alan Silberstein said the BRT would need $84,000 to hire up to four temporary staffers if the city proceeds with the Actual Value Initiative, an effort to use market-value property assessments. He estimated that AVI could lead to between 35,000 and 45,000 appeals.

"If AVI happens we would need more paper, we'd need another copy machine, we'd need more everything," Silberstein said after the hearing.

Finance Director Rob Dubow said the city would work with the BRT on resources when the level of appeals is clear.

The BRT said the city also may have to boost members' salaries. Two years ago, at Mayor Nutter's urging, Council approved legislation to cut board members' salaries from between $70,000 and $75,000 to between $40,000 and $50,000.

But the board sued to block the effort and won in Common Pleas Court. The city has appealed the ruling. Should the board emerge victorious, it said, it would need $202,000 more just for salaries.

The failures of the BRT were documented in a 2009 Inquirer series that blasted the agency for a legacy of political patronage and inaccurate assessments.

Voters in 2010 voted to abolish the BRT and replace it with the Office of Property Assessment and an independent Board of Property Assessment Appeals. But after a lawsuit from the BRT, the state Supreme Court ruled that the city did not have the power to abolish the board. So although the city has taken over assessments, the BRT continues to hear appeals.

The city is trying to get state lawmakers to abolish the BRT. Legislation has passed in the state Senate, but has not advanced in the state House.