Joyce, can the City do this without state involvement, or is it going to require the state?
The buffering we don't think requires state involvement, but I'll let the City 174 10/25/05 - WHOLE - RES. 050844 Solicitor talk on what is a legal issue.
My judgment, Councilman, is that this is a practical issue that we need to look at closely, but if you are considering a period of buffering that's relatively brief, let's say three years, and we could justify it within the spirit of the real estate tax laws that are imposed on the City and County of Philadelphia, then we think buffering could be accomplished without explicit state authorization. That's a judgment call, and we'd have to look at the particular circumstances of a buffering program, but given the fact that we've already heard testimony from Mr. Glancey and others that there are some pockets of, shall we say, non-equalization within the current assessments, we believe that a reasonable attempt at buffering for a short period would probably be something that could be done. With regard to caps, there we 175 10/25/05 - WHOLE - RES. 050844 get into a situation where it depends whether we have state legislative authorization. There are some programs which are potentially applicable to the Philadelphia circumstance for which we don't have that authorization. You may recall that in 2002, there was a bill 9 enacted that would have established a cap of 4 percent subject to General Assembly authorization. To the best of my recollection, that has not been given and, therefore, that type of a cap is not yet effective.
The reason why I asked the state-related question is that if we have to do this -- anything we do through the state will probably be a very, very big, especially legislatively, will be a very big challenge. I know there's programs out there that the City of Philadelphia could probably benefit from, the homestead program, for example, and I think we're left out of it, if I'm not -- I mean, that will be something 176 10/25/05 - WHOLE - RES. 050844 that could probably help us, but we will need to get all of the administrative and the legislative teams to go and lobby and see if we can muster up enough support for homestead to be expanded into Philadelphia.
That's right. We're going to end up -- if we move to 100 percent full valuation, we're going to end up having to have conversations at the state level anyway, because we have Act 46 problems. We have certain tax millage that's expressly provided for in the state law. So chances are we're going to end up there anyway, but I think that if we can reach agreement locally, then we go to Harrisburg speaking with a single voice, I think we can continue to control our future as opposed to just having our issues thrown up there and having them make decisions about what's appropriate for Philadelphia.
Thank you so much. 177 10/25/05 - WHOLE - RES. 050844 Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. Are there any other questions from the members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, this Committee will stand in recess until October 27th at 1:30. Thank you all very much. (Committee of the Whole adjourned at 2:05 p.m.) - - - 178 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on October 25, 2005, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)