One easy step toward fixing property assessment mess | Editorial

For the past few years, we’ve told ourselves a new story about our city — that Philadelphia is no longer content with the status quo, that we have embraced change and progress, and become a serious modern city encouraging growth in development and population.

It’s a nice story, but it’s not exactly true. Case in point: the city’s broken system for assessing the value of properties for taxation. For decades, the city was content to let an ill-managed Board of Revision of Taxes establish wildly inaccurate, arbitrary, and unfair values. Reform of this broken system took hold in earnest in 2010 when then-Mayor Michael Nutter proposed a system of Actual Value Initiative that would not just tax properties based on their full market value, but break the BRT into two parts — one to assess properties and one to collect taxes. It took years, but AVI was finally implemented in 2014.

Four years later, the city is still struggling to get it right. Homeowners are still getting inaccurate and unfair property tax bills, and assessments are still not uniform. In January, City Council released the results of an audit that identified some of the underlying problems that still plague the Office of Property Assessments.

Mayor James Kenney’s office said the audit was based on faulty data. A few days later, the administration released a rebuttal report by an expert that disagrees with some of the points made by Council’s auditor but agreed that assessments are based on insufficient information. Both experts agree that OPA lacks routine reports that would make the assessment process more transparent, and fails to explain its method to the public.

Why is this so hard to fix? Given that lower-valued properties are being over-assessed and higher value properties under-assessed, the commitment to simple fairness should be informing this process with an urgency that, to our eyes, is absent.

City leaders could take one simple step that would dramatically ease the anxiety and uncertainty around the latest chapter of property tax mess: do a better job communicating.

Both sides claim there is a review process through which homeowners can challenge their assessments; the OPA says taxpayers can call and ask questions. But why should the burden of correcting a broken system fall on its victims? (Besides, who in their right mind would protest paying too little?)

Instead, the administration and Council should be standing as a united front committed to solving the problem instead of placing blame. Together, they should host town halls.

Last spring, after many residents saw their property tax bill increase, the Center City Resident Association held a public meeting with OPA leadership. We need more of these meetings — with political leadership involved.

It’s time that Mayor Kenney, Council President Darrell L. Clarke, and representatives from OPA to leave City Hall and explain the situation to their constituents. They can debrief the public about the audits' findings, answer basic questions about AVI, the assessment process, and the steps forward. By listening to taxpayers, they can get a sense of the urgency of the matter.

Or, they can wait until after the May municipal primary, when they may no longer have jobs.