On Tuesday, October 27, 2009, Philadelphia City Council will meet to consider Bill No. 090706, legislation introduced by Councilman Bill Green that would strip the Board of Revision of Taxes ("BRT") of its duties and responsibilities and assign them to two new city agencies.

City Council is committed to passing a bill that makes certain that the citizens of Philadelphia have a property tax system that they can trust, that adheres to the highest standards of professionalism and under which all citizens are treated equally. It is critical that Council receives public input to ensure that these goals are accomplished. Thus, on behalf of Councilman Green, I am extending an invitation for public testimony at the hearing on this legislation.

Happily the BRT seems to be progressing down the path of long-needed institutional overhaul nicely with one major sticking point - what to do about the 80 patronage employees housed in the School District budget.

It’s a question that Parents United for Public Education, Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and the Education Law Center are considering right now.

At issue is this section of state law, 72 PS 5341.21, which states that responsibility for the expenses of the BRT lies with the county:

§ 5341.21. All salaries provided for in this act and the proper expenses of the board shall be paid out of the treasury of the county.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association said they aren’t aware of any other county in the state which charged a school district for property tax assessments. Why us?

So hot on the tail of some active discussion roundabout these parts over who we should be looking most intensely over lack of progress on botched property assessments, patronage and waste in the Bureau of Revision of Taxes - City Council or the Mayor, City Council weighs in. Actually almost as if to explicitly to say "It's us".

In May, the school board only budgeted enough money to pay the BRT workers until Sept. 30 and said it would prefer that the workers go under the city payroll - a nudge for Mayor Nutter and City Council to act.

But that seems unlikely anytime soon. Even the Council members who are most fed up with the BRT's inaccurate assessments say that patronage isn't the real problem.

"Whether they are committee people or not, I am sensitive to people being unemployed," said Councilman Frank DiCicco, who is pushing for reforms at BRT.

Whatever you think about the importance of the Bureau of Revision of Taxes, there’s no question that what the city, and perhaps most importantly the Mayor, does with this mess of an agency is a test of leadership and vision that’s under the public – re: media – scrutiny.

The draft statements coming from the Mayor’s appointed task force aren’t entirely encouraging:

The 85-page report, by a task force of City Council staffers and officials in the Nutter administration, is not a ringing call to remake the BRT.

In fact, Council made sure that it wasn't. The leadership instructed the task force to offer no direct recommendation on how to fix the agency - only alternatives.

One of those possibilities - "Option A" - would make only modest changes, such as improved training for assessors.

Other options would leave the agency intact but allow the mayor and Council to pick the members; or split the BRT into two agencies, one to set values and the other to handle appeals.

"Option D" would wipe out the BRT and put assessments in the hands of city leaders or a new agency. The last three ideas would require approval by city voters, the task force noted.

Which means that significant action on the BRT won’t happen until the 2010 election cycle, way too far down the road.

Meanwhile, half the BRT workers sit on the School District of Philadelphia payroll. The District’s money for these positions runs out at the end of this month, and the question is what to do next.

It’s all budgets all the time with the news that a veto-proof agreement may have been crafted. The compromise however leaves a lot of areas hanging:

Education: The compromise blows a major hole in the education budget as reported by Dan Hardy, confirming rumors that have been swirling for months (edit: a bit of hyperbole there - rumors have been swirling for a few weeks, not months). The School District is expected to be at least $140 million short – a move that one District insider said months ago would be "the end of the world." Hardest hit are likely to be pre-school and help for students looking to return to school and get their diplomas. The SRC meanwhile has chosen to postpone its September meeting dates without explanation. Explaining to the public how you didn’t really have a Plan B is such a chore. Read more at the Public School Notebook.

PICA punts on Plan C: Speaking of a lack of plans, the city buys time when PICA declines to weigh in on Plan C, saving the Mayor an embarrassing rejection as one Councilman notes. But it does highlight a widespread lack of faith in the alternative the Mayor has submitted.

Look on the Bright Side: Now we can play poker to really class up those slots barns! Although it looks like neighborhood bars may not get their video poker, the state believes its second highest revenue generator – expanded gambling through table games – is still the magic bullet to plug holes. Sort of. Actually only briefly. $200 million this year and a 40% drop in revenues next year (casino industry estimates by the way, and we know how reliable those are). Meanwhile, with the political gambling contributions ban eliminated, it’s a virtual free for all for the casino industry to ensure table games are as individually profitable as they are likely.

In other news, the Inky puts another foot on the BRT’s keister with a series of stories on the new tax assessments. Patrick Kerkstra notes that it’s "business as usual" for one city block where some assessments tripled. Meanwhile the BRT follows incompetence with – what else? More incompetence!

Among the findings:

Hundreds of the new commercial numbers were thrown off by mistakes littering the BRT's property records, including incorrectly sized lots and buildings that don't exist. At Seventh and Arch Streets, for example, the BRT calculated a new value of $5.2 million on what the agency thought was a huge, 200-space parking lot. But there is no such lot, just a narrow walkway next to the Federal Detention Center.

Instead of trying to figure out a property's real worth, the BRT's assessors slapped the same percentage increases on thousands of parcels across the city. More than 500 would get the same 40 percent increase - properties as different as a $6 million shopping center on Castor Avenue and a long-empty hoagie shop in North Philadelphia.

More than 6,000 commercial properties - a quarter of the total - are missing entirely, left undone as the BRT rushed to send the AVI numbers to impatient city officials last spring.

Apparent glitches in the BRT's computer models produced some bizarre results. Parking lots in a drug-ravaged section of Frankford, for example, were valued at a steep $140 per square foot - more pricey than many lots in Center City.

The most telling line:

Mayor Nutter, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.

And finally, Michael Smerconish, who when googling past columns of his, I came across the unfortunate nature of his Philly Mag profile. I do not advise.

Anyway, he takes on the Joe Wilson-immigrant reform-Obama health care controversy, even though not a one links logically to the another.

Now for the record, Smerconish actually published a column about his diversifying of America paranoia:

I know I'm not alone in my belief that today's immigrants - those here both legally and illegally - are not assimilating the way my forefathers did when they arrived.

And before I'm shouted down as a xenophobe, hear me out. My intent isn't to amplify the shrill debate surrounding illegal immigration. What I'm interested in is defending the tradition to which my grandparents adhered: the one that led them to a new name and a better life in this country.

I fear we are leaving it behind.

Leaving aside the philly.com comment stream, and they are particularly colorful whenever immigration is raised – Smerconish nevertheless raises sensible points about why the far right’s call to completely deny undocumented people from receiving health care is bad policy:

1. It would require the undoing of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requiring care for anyone who visits an emergency room.
2. It would require doctors and caregivers to function as immigration agents first, and health care professionals second.
3. It wouldn’t keep with our national rep to deny health care to people who were gunshot victims, or giving birth, or in a car accident, or suffering from a communicable disease, say.
4. And it doesn’t help the fact that what health care professionals are more concerned about are insurance protections than verifying legal status.

Smerconish omits one other important reality, and that’s the fact that so many families in the U.S. are of mixed immigration status. Back in 1999, the Urban Institute reported that as many as one in ten American families had at least one family member who was undocumented. A more recent Pew study shows that 75% of the children of undocumented immigrants are U.S. citizens. So it kinda makes it complicated when you start trying to deny citizen kids health care check-ups for school when their parents don't have the right paperwork.

In the end, though, Obama’s health care reform bill is meant to address health insurance plans and medical coverage in general. It’s not meant to rewrite every single law that deals with health care. And although Smerconish raises some good points, it’s just plain misdirection to raise the 1986 law and try to hang it on the president’s neck.

With the news that the Mayor and City Council are in a fuddle over what to do with the Bureau of Revision of Taxes, here's one place to start:

TAKE THE BRT EMPLOYEES OFF THE SCHOOL PAYROLL

Why is it relevant to the situation before the city?

• According to the District's FY10 budget book (p. 332), the BRT expenses have actually increased this year by 17% and will again next year a nominal amount. Their behavior can't be rewarded.

• The School District houses 80 employees, between a third and 40% of the total number of BRT employees. That's a sizeable figure.

• Because city ethic laws prohibit political hires, many of the most political people on the BRT land on the school payroll - like ward leader Donna Aument, or "clerks" Helyn Cheeks, David Shadding, and Lorenzo McCray all of whom were mentioned by name in Monday's unbelievable "BRT serves as political jobs bank" story. In fact, according to our studies, at least 40% of School District employees, hold political positions as ward or committee leaders.

• Putting them back onto the city payroll clears a $4.5 million burden on the schools - AND helps offset the fact that the city is delivering $10 million less in funds to the schools anyway - AND forces the political hires off the BRT payroll or loses them the plum political assignments that appeared to be the primary qualification for "clerkship."

There's no question something needs to be done about this agency - especially and because of the Mayor's proposed property tax hike and the Actual Value Initiative. But calls from one extreme (abolish the BRT!) to another (let's wait!) shouldn't hide the fact that one move could strike a quick blow to the BRT's system of operation.

(Read a school-focused take on the BRT at The Public School Notebook's website)

OK I stole that line from Jon Stewart, but what do you say about the Inky’s phenomenal series about the Bureau of Revision of Taxes – the people who’ve been assessing your homes?

What do you say when:

• The BRT’s Executive Director who took full advantage of the city’s DROP program only to return to work with a pay raise two days later says he has “nothing to do” with property tax assessments;

• One member of the BRT’s board became president of Citizen’s Alliance, former Sen. Vince Fumo’s non-profit that was at the center of his corruption trial, and is currently being investigated on abuses including unlawfully increasing taxes on a property that the Senator had allegedly wanted to purchase;

• Agency officials told reporters that a tax assessor, who had reduced an assessment for the BRT board member above, had “died.” She hadn’t and basically told reporters she was encouraged to reduce the taxes on that board member’s property;

• Private deals on commercial properties abound including a 44% reduction in the assessed value of the Ritz Carlton from $35 million down to $19.5 million.

• Two members of the BRT’s board say they don’t know anything about the sunshine law or conducting official business in public?

And there are so many amazing quotes here, quotes you can’t quite make-up like:

Catherine Scott, Local 2187 pres., representing some BRT workers: "I don’t think it’s fair to say none of them work. The level of work varies greatly."

Republican leader Michael Meehan on why the BRT is where old Parking Authority employees go: "At a certain age they can’t be out on the street on a cold day and walking. The BRT is a more attractive place."

BRT Executive Director Enrico Foglia on his non-relationship with Dem. Party Chief/U.S. Congressman Robert Brady: "It’s not like we’re old buddies or nothing like that. I wasn’t real tight with Bobby."

Court of Common Pleas Judge William Manfredi on qualifications of BRT board members: "I haven’t the faintest."

Hanging out near the Coral Street Arts House tonight? join the NKCDC on a discussion of taxes, budgets and economic sanity...

As daunting as the School District’s 552 page online budget is, it’s funny how much it can reveal about ingrained systems that cost our society -- things like say, patronage.

For example, consider the BRT:

Buried at the bottom of page 385 under the category “Undistributed Budgetary Adjustment/Interfund Transfers/Other,” it shows 85 BRT employees on the School District’ payroll for a cost of $4.7 million in FY08. That’s 18% more than it was last year. Next year at $4.9 million it will be almost a million dollars more than just a year ago.

Parents United for Public Education requested a list of the BRT employees (who are listed as real estate assessors). A review found that 74 employees are currently on the District’s payroll. Over 40% of them hold political positions, including two ward leaders and committee leaders.

What’s wrong with this picture? A lot.

• First, what specifically do these people do on behalf of the schools and why do we need so many of them?
• Second, the fact that such a large percentage of them appear to hold political positions and are outside the scope of both the city (even though they’re doing city work) and the School District (since they work offsite at the Curtis Center) raises concerns that all the jobs are as necessary and efficient as they ought to be.
• And finally, $4.9 million may not seem a lot to some people, but it would almost double the arts and music programs in the school that were allotted this year. It would buy back 50 teachers, a third of the number cut this year. It would more than buy back the 25% librarian losses we suffered this year.

Conventional wisdom has been that since the schools receive 60% of the real estate taxes, the District should therefore assume a similar portion of the BRT expenses. However, there’s a big difference between billing the schools for real and actual expenses, and putting 85 employees on the District’s payroll who are outside the supervision of the District.

This isn’t a new struggle. A few years back, former School District CEO Paul Vallas tried to remove the 31 employees from the City Controller’s office who also sit on the District’s payroll (page 362) as well as highlight the BRT employees. It was apparently a lonely and unsuccessful battle.

But it is, as they say, a new day, and it remains to be seen whether things could change under a new administration.

Last week Parents United for Public Education sent a letter to the Board of Revision of Taxes asking them to remove BRT employees from the School District payroll and to justify expenses that compete with the education of kids. It’s not that we want to second-guess the work of the BRT, but we do need some accountability from agencies that park their expenses on our kids’ dime.

For more information, the list of employees, and to read Parents United’s letter to Charlesretta Meade, chair of the BRT, check out Parents United’s website.