YESTERDAY, representatives of the Board of Revision of Taxes testified before City Council for the agency's annual budget hearing. Given the controversy that has surrounded the agency in recent months, taxpayers might assume that Council would use the opportunity to ask some tough questions.
For example: How is the BRT preparing for the possibility that voters might abolish the agency, less than a month from now? Why did the BRT agree to turn over power to the Nutter administration and then withdraw from the agreement two weeks ago? And, how can the city expect to collect delinquent property taxes if so many people don't trust the agency responsible for assessments?
All of these would have been good questions, but none were asked. Only a handful of Council members - seven at the height of attendance, three at the lowest point - bothered to show up at the hearing. Even fewer had any meaningful questions.
That's shocking and not just because basic budget oversight is one of Council's critical responsibilities. The BRT is one of the most troubled - and troubling - agencies in city government. After a shocking Inquirer series documenting inaccurate and politically motivated property assessments and other forms of mismanagement, Mayor Nutter resolved to dissolve the agency and bring the tax-assessment function into City Hall. To that end, he reached an agreement with the BRT and appointed real-estate attorney Richard Negrin to run the agency. However, the BRT board announced that it would not be renewing the accord, and instead filed a lawsuit to block reform efforts.
Despite these obvious issues, most Council members failed to ask anything at all. That's nothing short of a dereliction of duty, since taxpayers are slated to spend $7.3 million to fund the agency next year.
The lack of tough questions is even more stunning when you consider that Council is debating the idea of raising property taxes to help deal with the budget deficit. How can Council consider this idea and not ask the BRT about our broken property-tax-assessment system?
Council also failed to challenge the BRT on the most basic of issues. For example, the Inquirer series detailed how many of the employees at the BRT are connected to various political power brokers. Charlesretta Meade, chair of the BRT board, defended the large number of Democratic Party activists who work for her agency. She said having politically active employees was good for the BRT, because they care about the city more than the rest of us.
Really? The same politically active employees were the ones who undervalued disgraced Sen. Vince Fumo's mansion by millions of dollars. They are also the ones who have presided over a broken assessment system that forces thousands of people to pay unfair property taxes.
To their credit, Councilmen Bill Green and Wilson Goode did push the agency on the status of the actual-value initiative, which is supposed to fix property-tax assessments. However, the two of them seemed like lonely voices in the wilderness.
The Council budget hearings are among the few times Council confronts city departments. This year, with so much at stake - for the budget as well as taxpayers - we wish it was more engaged.
In fact, given this lack of scrutiny, it's no wonder that we have city departments and agencies that act like independent fiefdoms, accountable to no one and above having to explain themselves. *