COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, April 29, 2024 1:00 p.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILMEMBER NINA AHMAD COUNCILMEMBER CINDY BASS COUNCILMEMBER KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMEMBER MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILMEMBER JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMEMBER KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMEMBER JIM HARRITY COUNCILMEMBER CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILMEMBER RUE LANDAU COUNCILMEMBER QUETCY LOZADA COUNCILMEMBER NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMEMBER ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMEMBER MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMEMBER ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMEMBER JEFFERY YOUNG, JR. BILLS 240179, 240180, 240181, and 240182 RESOLUTION 240193 - - 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Good afternoon, everyone. This is the public meeting of the Committee on the Whole regarding Resolution No. 240261. Thank you for being here today. Mr. Christmas, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Councilman O'Neill. (No response.) 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this meeting is now called to order. Mr. Christmas, will you please read the title of the resolution. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Resolution confirming the re-appointment of Joyce Wilkerson to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia.
Before I make a motion on the resolution, on April 1st our Mayor Cherelle Parker announced her choices for the Philadelphia Board of Education by appointing five new people to the nine-member body. Under law, Mayor Parker's selections had to be submitted to the City Council for possible confirmation. Councilmembers take our role in approving the School Board members very seriously. My members have heard from traditional public school supporters, parents, charter school supporters, educators and community leaders since April 1st on all the School Board nominees before confirming any member of the School Board. Philadelphia City Council last week approved the appointments of Crystal Cubbage, Sarah-Ashley Andrews, Joan Stern, Reginald Streater, Wanda Novales, Whitney Jones, ChauWing Lam and Cheryl Harper to the Board of Education of the School District of 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Philadelphia. The new members of the Board are Ms. Cubbage, Harper, Novales, Stern and Mr. Jones. The three people re-appointed to the Board and confirmed by Council are current Board Chairman Streater, Ms. Andrews and Lam. Councilmembers are looking forward to the confirmed Board members taking office on May 1st to start four-year terms. The Board of Education is the governing body responsible for overseeing all policies and budgetary decisions of the School District of Philadelphia. It also serves as the authorizer for all charter schools in Philadelphia. The Board comprises nine Board members who are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by City Council. The members of Philadelphia City Council, the majority have had serious concerns over the nomination of Joyce Wilkerson to the Board of Education since it was announced several weeks ago. Those concerns have come from a variety of people and not just people who support charter schools. The narrative being portrayed in the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. media that charter supporters were the only ones against Ms. Wilkerson's nomination is false. In the past couple of weeks, Councilmembers have informed Parker officials numerous times over the past few weeks about those concerns. I will not make those concerns public out of respect of Ms. Wilkerson. Our talks have been in private with the Administration about Ms. Wilkerson's nomination with the hope of reaching a solution and finding a way to approve this nomination. After discussions with Council's leadership team and individual members, it's very clear that Ms. Wilkerson does not have the necessary nine votes for Councilmembers for confirmation to the School Board. The Council's leadership team has also come to the consensus that despite the flurry of phone calls, emails and other communications with Councilmembers about Ms. Wilkerson's nomination, I do not see the nomination getting the votes of nine members either today or in the immediate future. Out of respect for Ms. Wilkerson and her service to our City, I'm withdrawing Resolution No. 240261 from consideration. As a prime sponsor of the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. resolution, I have the right under the Council rules to withdraw nomination. I want to thank Ms. Wilkinson for her extensive career and public service serving as the former SRC Chairwoman as well as a member of the current School Board. I want to also thank Minority Whip and Education Chair Isaiah Thomas for his steadfast work and advocacy for the students here in the City of Philadelphia. As members of the Council, we are an independent body. And we have taken our due diligence and our opportunity to review all pieces of legislation that come to this body for confirmation as well as the current nominations that were in front of us for review. We are looking forward to receiving a name of a new nominee for the School Board of Philadelphia from the Parker Administration as soon as possible.
We will continue working with the Mayor's Administration to make sure that all young people and all students in the City of Philadelphia receive a quality education. At this time, the Chair recognizes Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson for a motion on Resolution No. 240261. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Resolution 240261 be withdrawn. (Duly seconded.)
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Majority Leader. Thank you, Chair of Education. My position on public charters is clear. I've fought for good schools throughout my District and stood beside my colleagues in cases where we have disagreed with the Board, but I am here to say this morning that I trust my Mayor and I trust her leadership. And I think that if you're asking her to cook the meal, she should be allowed to buy the groceries. And if you remember, I asked some of the hardest questions in here as it relates to the existing Board. I asked them in the past, have you been slightly askew against charter schools. And that was a nebulous answer. But clearly, the record suggests that it is. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I stand where I stand. However, the process that we have today I'm concerned that we are barely past 100 days of this new Administration and we're not allowing the Mayor to have the benefit of the doubt to be able to say, you know what, if you don't trust that Board, trust me. And I just feel that we should -- if it were some other Mayor, I've been here long enough to know that we tend to do that. We tend to on the first year err on the side of the judgment of the newly-elected Mayor. And I do not understand why we can't proceed that way today. (Applause.)
And this is -- I want to say that I respect the work of my members. I know for a fact you pay particular laser attention to this issue. Stood with you in public about some of the failures in my mind of fairness. However, however, if we are going to make a vote on this, I move that we have a roll 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. call vote. (Applause.)
There's a question on the floor. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson for a motion on Bill No. 240261 to be withdrawn -- is there a second for a roll call vote?
All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
Nays have it. I call for the question. Chair recognizes Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Resolution No. 22 240261 be withdrawn.
All those in favor will signify by saying aye. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. (Aye.)
Two nays. Councilman Curtis Jones, Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young. The Chair notes that Councilmember Thomas seconds the motion. It has been moved and properly seconded that Resolution No. 240261 be withdrawn. This concludes the meeting of the Committee of the Whole to consider Resolution No. 13 240261. (Next hearing immediately followed.)
We are now on a public hearing. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the resolutions and bills before us? Before we move forward, Ms. Loughead, will you confirm that quorum is present?
Present. Thank you all. Quorum of the committee is present, and this meeting is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the title of the resolutions and bills before us today?
Bill number 240179: An ordinance to adopt the operating budget for fiscal year 2025. Bill number 240180: An ordinance 17 amending Chapter 19-1800 of the Philadelphia Code entitled School Tax Authorization to provide for an increase in the tax that the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate. And amending Chapter 19-1300 entitled Real Estate Taxes to establish an equivalent reduction in the tax rate for the city real estate tax and making technical changes, all 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. under certain terms and conditions. Bill number 240181: An ordinance to adopt the fiscal year 2025 capital budget. Bill 5 number 240182: An ordinance to adopt a capital program for the six fiscal years 2025 through 2030, inclusive. Resolution number 240193 providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a revised five-year financial plan for the City of Philadelphia covering fiscal years 2025 through 2029 and incorporating revisions with respect to fiscal year 2024, which is to be submitted by the mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an intergovernmental cooperation agreement by and between the city and the authority.
Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witness for public testimony?
The first person to testify from the administration is James Aros Jr., chief assessment officer.
Good 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. morning. How are you doing today?
Just state your name and title for the record and please begin your testimony.
Thank you. Good afternoon, President Johnson and members of city council. , and I am the chief assessment officer for the Office of Property Assessment. Joining me today here at the table to my left is Monica Williams, OPA's deputy chief assessment officer. And also with us are Maria Holmes, OPA's administrative services director, Drew Aldinger, chief deputy city solicitor, and other members of OPA's senior staff. I am pleased to provide testimony on the Office of Property Assessment's fiscal year 2025 operating budget. The proposed fiscal year 2025 general fund budget totals 18,310,182, which is level with fiscal year 2024 estimated 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. obligation levels. For tax year 2025 OPA is completing a revaluation of the entire city. This is the first comprehensive revaluation since tax year 2023. As the values are finalized in the coming weeks, OPA will be providing council with reports detailing the impact of the reevaluation on the assessments of the various classes of property in the city. OPA will be available to meet individually with council members to review and discuss in detail the results of the revaluation. As part of the tax year 2025 revaluation process, OPA will retain an outside firm to evaluate how the tax year '25 revaluation of properties in Philadelphia measures against industry standards for key mass appraisal statistics. Specifically, OPA will be evaluated using the coefficient of dispersion or COD, which measures the uniformity of assessments; the price related differential or PRD which measures equity in high versus low value properties; and median ratio, which measures how closely assessments compare to actual sale prices. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. For tax year '23, OPA had retained the International Association of Assessing Officers or IAAO to perform this analysis as well as make recommendations for future improvements. The report issued by the IAAO found that OPA met industry standards for COD, PRD, and median ratio. For fiscal year 2025, OPA will continue to work on implementing the recommendations of the tax year '23 IAAO audit and will work towards achieving the IAAO's Certificate of Excellence in Assessment Administration or CEAA. The CEAA is awarded to jurisdictions that successfully integrate the best assessment practices. The IAAO audit provides OPA with a road map towards achieving this designation, and includes recommendations for internal business processes and data quality initiatives. OPA has implemented several of the audit's recommendations, including the development of a regular cycle for property inspections in accordance with industry standards and the development of a central repository for training and policy documents that is accessible 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to the entire staff. In fiscal year '25, OPA will continue to work to maintain a staffing complement in accordance with industry recommendations, fill vacancies for evaluators and clerical staff with qualified applicants at both the entry and experience levels as needed, and work to fill current and pending vacancies in senior staff positions caused by attrition in the department. As part of this effort, OPA will continue to work with OHR to increase the size and ensure diversity in OPA's candidate pool for evaluation positions and will continue to work with OHR on recruitment for specialized positions. In fiscal year '23 and '24, OPA and OHR succeeded in nearly doubling the pool of qualified applicants for promotional exams by allowing candidates to substitute experience on the job for a college degree. OPA will continue to increase the number of training and professional development opportunities for employees to ensure the department can develop future leaders in the industry. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
In 2021, OPA began meeting with Community Legal services, the Reinvestment Fund, and the Center for Economic Policy Analysis to discuss issues around the fairness of assessments in Philadelphia. The efforts of this working group culminated last week when Mayor Parker announced a partnership with these groups, creating the Philadelphia Residential Property Assessment Task Force, accompanying the release of the report entitled Examining the Accuracy, Uniformity, and Equity of Philadelphia's 2023 real estate tax assessments. This report confirmed that while performance measures related to residential assessments have steadily and significantly improved in recent years, there's still room for improvement. OPA's involvement in this task force affirms the commitment of this department and this administration in ensuring the uniformity, equity, and accuracy of assessments and the assessment process. The rest of my testimony has been submitted in writing. I thank you for the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. opportunity to testify here today, and I'm here to answer any questions that the council may have.
Thank you very much. Just a couple questions I guess I want to kind of frame. Your position first and foremost, your position is a nominated position, correct?
Yes. Well, appointed by the mayor, nominated to Council for confirmation. Yes.
Nominated to Council for this body to vote and confirm you to be in your position, correct?
I, I stepped in as interim chief assessment officer in January of 2020. I was confirmed by Council in February of 2021 for a permanent appointment to that position.
2021. Have you been confirmed currently under this new body 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
So currently you're working on an expired position. Is that correct?
I'm, I'm, I'm working at the at the leisure of the mayor at this point.
Okay. But technically, in terms of this body being deliberate and confirming you to be official in the position, you currently aren't confirmed?
-- of the mayor. Have they given you any reason why you wouldn't be introduced for a confirmation from this independent legislative body?
There was a resolution 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. introduced earlier in this session, and it was tentatively scheduled, and I, I believe there were discussions with Council staff and the mayor's office, that they didn't want to rush the process. And we reached out to, or I should say the mayor's office on behalf of the department, reached out to Council offices to schedule meetings. I met with a number of councilmembers one-on-one. A number of council members indicated that they were good, didn't need a meeting. But the, the hearing for that nomination has not been scheduled as of yet.
Based upon 16 your meetings with various councilmembers you 17 know, again, we are a confirming deliberate, 18 independent legislative body. Was anything 19 expressed in any of the meetings as it relates to 20 why members would be willing to support you or 21 concerns regarding supporting you? Because I 22 think this will be just like be a routine 23 confirmation. 24
In none of the nothing in 25 the in the conversations that I had one-on-one 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. with folks was there any hesitancy or reluctance indicated to me as to wanting to move forward with confirmation. They were all good conversations, and, and if there wasn't a, a verbal, you know, notice of support at the end of that, it was certainly a positive outcome. But I have not been there's no indication that's been given to me by any specific councilmember as to why they would be opposed to the nomination.
Okay. And just the last thing, and I just want to go on the record just so individuals can understand the context on how we're conducting this hearing. And just the last part, any idea of how soon an official resolution will come so we can confirm you?
I would defer to somebody on the mayor's legislative team. That's not that's not something I'm
Above your 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. pay grade? Okay.
I'm not I, I, I don't I don't have that ability to say what date to put it on, so.
Just wanted to get an idea. That's all. Just for the record because
we are a confirming body, and I just want to want to, you know, make sure that we are clear. The administration sends over legislation and confirmations for us to review, we independently review, we support or not support. And so I just wanted to be clear that although you're doing great work, well, you're doing good work, there still hasn't been a confirmation of your position. I have a question. I know the mayor recently created the Property Assessment Task Force. And bias in property assessment is a critical issue. One of the main things we've always tried to address as a body is making sure there's uniformity in the assessments that are 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. taking place. Actually, it's my colleague, Councilman Jamie Gauthier, who kind of actually led that effort during the previous administration to, kind, of show that the assessments that came out in key parts of her district and other parts of districts across the city, the valuations were higher, the assessments were higher than other parts and particularly in black and brown neighborhoods. So we know the task force has been created right now. What are we doing to ensure this year's evaluations are accurate and fair while we wait for the recommendations from the task force? And what are we going to be doing to provide relief from homeowners who are most heavily impacted? And last, when is the timeline of the task force?
So let me start from the back. The, the task force that it's OPA is part of it, but it's not OPA led. It's going to be chaired by Ira Goldstein, who is with the Reinvestment Fund. But the mayor has agreed to it, and, and it's coming under the city's 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. auspices. But I can't speak to a specific timeline of that. We're part of it, but we're not the, the driving force behind that as far as, you know, making those determinations as to when it starts. The, the relief measures, I would defer to the director of finance if there is anything on that. But to go back to your original question, what are we doing? So we have a process each time we do a reevaluation that's that looks at what values are coming out. And there is we do mass appraisal because we're doing 580,000 properties. So statistical modeling projects values for most of the properties in the city. And then there's a review process where the evaluation staff can go, if need be, one-on- one through the properties and sort of see where values make sense, where maybe values might not make sense, is there a data issue that needs to get cleaned up? So that's all standard procedure, and that's all going on right now. We do know, you 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. know, certain parts of the city that traditionally have not been some statistical measures are not as good as others. So we do have a focus on that. There is, I would say, a limitation to some extent on our side to how much a certain part of the city could improve in one particular year because there's a lot of what drives the market is out of OPA's control. So I, I know, for instance, as an example, folks I'm sure everybody here has seen the reports and, and know Mayor Parker, when she was on Council, led the Appraisal Bias Task Force for you know, outside. But you have some neighborhoods where somebody might be able to sell their property and get a loan at a certain value, and then their neighbor a couple doors down gets an appraiser who maybe doesn't know the area for whatever reason, won't, won't put a value on it, so they can't get a note or get a mortgage, but so their property might sell for a lot less. And then you have two homes that are essentially the same, but sold for different 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. price. And depending on how high or low the value of that real estate is, you know, if you're talking homes that are 100,000 or less, if it's $20,000, for some people that's a drop in the bucket. But at a percentage wise, that's a huge percentage when you're talking about an $80,000 versus $100,000 value, for instance. So we're trying to identify and look at that stuff where we can see it. That's not stuff we can fix, but certainly as we look at the equity and assessments, we want to make sure that our data is as accurate as possible and that we're trying to reflect the market as best we can. And, you know, the in some areas it's easier than others. And also the diversity in the housing stock in certain areas makes it more difficult. If you have blocks and blocks of homes in the same condition, same age, same style, that sell for relatively same amount of prices, it makes it a lot easier to put an assessment on that property than when the market maybe doesn't reflect quite or the market, I should say, is a little more sporadic. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. And certain parts of the city, you know, we want to have anywhere, but you want a certain number of observations or sales to be able to feel confident in the value. And areas where there are more sales, the model will have a higher level of confidence because there is repeated observations that help drive the confidence. In other areas we have to we still have to evaluate, but if there aren't as many sales, there is potentially a lower level of confidence that we would have in the value because there is not as many transactions.
And last question. Walk me through the timeline for the tax year FY '25. Give me an idea about the evaluation process, reevaluation process, when the notices are going to be going out. And probably Councilman Squilla's probably number issue, how we're addressing first level reviews, when they're going to go out. How many have we completed thus far to kind of give people some reprieve in terms of how we're going into the new year? 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
All right. Let me break that up. And keep, keep me honest if I forget something. So for
Timeline for '25 is we're in we're in the final stages of, of our quality control review now. So timeline wise, we expect to have finalized values in the next few weeks before the end of May, certainly, which as I mentioned in my testimony, you know, they'll be with the administration, they'll be with Council. And, and you know, we'll give Council, you know, some basic information, then more detailed information as needed and also be available. It's not something we've done in a post pandemic world, but for those folks that have been on Council for a while, we used to have an opportunity where we would take a couple hour block and just kind of come over here and let folks walk in and out as they could or set up individual meetings to talk about what they're it may look like in their district. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. And we're just we're going to be available for that, you know, certainly this time around. Notice mailing is likely to be early June.
Yes. With in mind that we certainly want to be able to give both the mayor's office and Council some time ahead of the mailing to
put that out there. I know last time around it was within a very short period of time. Like notices hit the web the, the day of; of some stuff, and we want to have some time, you know, in between then so that way we can have any conversations or, or discussions prior to the notices hitting the street. I believe that covers the '25 timeline for the most part. But for the FLRs, that FLR goes out with the assessment notice. So folks will when they get their assessment notice, 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the form to file an FLR will be with it.
And that, that date, I, I don't have a date for you now because we don't know the mailing date, but we will probably look say, in early June, mailing we'll likely have I know last time around there was a gap between posting and mailing. That's not going to be the issue this time.
We made sure we procured the supplies well in advance, but we likely still will have an extended FLR application period than typical. Realizing that last time wasn't typical and we extended at Council's request, but we would probably be looking at a, a three-month window, give or take, for folks to file FLRs when normally it's five to six weeks. So we're kind of doubling the normal time so folks would have a September deadline to file for an FLR.
Last quick question. I know I said last question again, but 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. just for member Dubow, chief financial officer for the city of Philadelphia. Just real quick, Rob, what type of relief is any relief baked into this budgetary request? I know last year we, we advocated for Homestead Exemption. Actually, it was my bill, Homestead Exemption that went from we negotiated from 100 to 80 percent. Is that part of this process in the mayor's proposed FY '25 budget, Rob, some level of relief for families?
Yes. So Rob Dubow, the, the city's finance director. As I think everyone in the body knows, we have an extensive package of relief programs like the Homestead, we have LOOP, we have Senior Freeze. But we are committed to talking about additional relief as part of this process.
Okay. And, and who knows, based upon what's been used in the past, right, and not used, we'll kind of still get to evaluate from that aspect, just making sure there's some level of relief, so.
Yes. Thank 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you, Rob. The chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. JAMIE GAUTHIER: First of all, Council President, I have a bill for that. I'm hopeful we, we can consider it favorably.
Thank you so much for referencing the Reinvestment Fund report. The report quantifiably verifies something that I've seen since 2022. And I'm sure I'm not the only one in this body that has seen this, which is that OPA's practices and assessments led to a racial and economic bias in the 2023 reassessment, which led to a higher tax burden on lower and moderate income homeowners. And while data quality is improving overall across the city, my district is one that includes many predominantly black areas with higher assessment higher assessment ratios, more variability, and considerable regressivity. And, you know, even before we saw the results of the report, what was proven was being borne out 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. in terms of calls to our office. We received hundreds of calls from families in our community who were struggling with paying their tax bill after the 2023 reassessment. And I'm appreciative that the task, task force has been put together. I look forward to see what changes we're going to make because when we're talking about a racial and economic bias in our property tax assessment process, what we're really talking about is displacing our residents. We're talking about the city displacing our own residents, which is an outcome that I don't think we that I don't think we want and I don't think we desire. And so I am very challenged by how we would go forward with 2025 assessments this spring and summer when we've not this task force hasn't even convened. We don't know what we're going to do differently. Why in the world would we and we're very far behind on appeals from the last reassessment process. How in the world are we equipped to reassess again for 2025, given all that we know about the inequity and the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. unfairness present within our model?
So a couple things there. I would say that, as I as I said in my testimony, the report indicated there is still parts of the city where there is progress that needs to be made. But it also recognized that there has been steady progress with each reassessment as we've gone on. So I think the idea of doing a reassessment since we've seen progress with each reassessment, that that would you know, those numbers will improve with the one that we're currently working on. What they what they look like in the end, I won't speculate as to now, but as we were with, with '23 and with '25, OPA was willing to open the books and provide all the information. So, you know, we know we're not the ones that are going to look through, through that lens, but we'll help you do it and you can write a report and come to whatever conclusions that, that you can come up with. I would also say that the report itself has a number of recommendations. One of them was 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. not pausing reassessments. So I think, and I don't want to speak for them because I don't know that this is explicitly said in the report. I think they recognize progress in that one of the ways to, to keep the ball rolling is to keep doing reevaluations as we're able to. And one reason why you would not want to pause a reevaluation is that as the market changes and moves, some of those inequities could potentially be exacerbated and made larger. And if there's a revaluation could make it more equitable, now you're having somebody that maybe is in the portion where they say, "Hey, it's not exactly what it should be." They have to keep waiting longer for the chance of an equitable reassessment. And that's not to say that, you know, the next revaluation will, you know, fix every problem or, or solve every issue that, that may be associated with it, but you have to keep moving forward. And I think that's kind of where we are now. It's we there are processes that were reflected for the first time in the 2023 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. revaluation that we instituted several years prior to that, such as our, our dedicated sales validation unit and some data some data collection processes that we improved. That it's not like that would just be a one-time benefit to the process. So when we do sales validation, it's year after year after year. And when we do a reassessment for a city the size of Philadelphia, we need usually at least five to six years of observation citywide to have to feel we have a level of comfortability with the model that it's going to be reliable enough. So when we started the sales validation unit as a as a result of the recommendations that came from the Council 2019 audit and, and another audit that we had commissioned at the time, that was implemented and was we saw some of those results as the numbers improved for 2023. But some of the older sales done in a different way were still in there. As we've gotten forward, those older years age out and we have more data and more sales done under what is, kind of, universally 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. recognized as a better process than it was before. So that right there, it's doing things the same way, but because there's more of the new data, if you want to call it that, it should improve the it should improve the valuation process and improve the values. Is that going to fix everything? Maybe not. But I think moving forward we're going to have continuous improvement, and there's not necessarily a time where we could stop and say, "Okay. Everything is fixed." We, we can do them now. I think it has to be a continuous cycle, keeping mindful that there may be issues that we want to try to catch in certain parts of the city.
I appreciate that the Reinvestment Fund didn't make the recommendation to pause. They're great partners. I respect their expertise and all the hard work they put into research and data analysis, but they don't run the city. And so we've known for a very long time that these racial biases are present in the property assessment process. It's a longstanding 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. issue that, as, as, you know, recently as two years ago with the last assessment, popped up all over the city. In my district, people's assessment went up on average by 50 percent. In neighborhoods across the city, we're seeing numbers like 200 percent or 300 percent. And the report quantified that we have a big problem and if we keep piling on it on top of it and piling on top of it, we're putting people's generational wealth at risk and we're putting family stability at risk in the midst of a housing crisis. And so while I appreciate that the report was, was undertaken after much advocacy from Council, while I appreciate that the task force will be moving forward soon, going ahead with another reassessment process before we even have understand how we're changing our process, makes me question the seriousness of tackling this issue. And also I find it incongruent with the goal of economic opportunity for all. Thank you.
4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Gauthier. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Jones.
Thank you, Madam and Chair. So there -- how first question. What is the amount of taxable properties within the City of Philadelphia? What is their estimated worth?
Fully? So taxable value or properties that are 100 percent taxable? Because we have some hybrid that are partially exempt, partially taxable. I have -- I have a total value of taxable valuation for the city
Unless if you would like me to read that into the record. But it's not that's not just properties that are 100 percent taxable. That includes properties that have a portion of an exemption.
Sure. I have those numbers. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Second question I have is that, did I understand member Gauthier's question that there is a study to show what the impacts are on low income or black and brown communities in this valuation that we do and how it's impacting these neighborhoods?
Yes. So for your first question, certified numbers for tax year 2024 citywide assessment is approximately $208.8 billion. Taxable portions of that are 38.4 billion taxable land assessment, 116.7 billion taxable building.
And so we have two ways of rectifying or justifying revenues or increases in revenues. I remember this from you. So it's millage, correct? We can adjust the millage rate or we can look at the assessment rate. Is that correct?
Mostly. So those two are correct. And you can also provide relief measures and that will also have an impact on what the revenues are.
So, no, I'm talking about how we if you want to turn up 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the thermostat on revenue, you have millage increases or what we've been doing under the guise of being fair, is to assess the average value of properties. Correct?
So to see an increase, we would deal with the millage. What happens is as we do the reevaluation. The property values have gone up from when you were sitting in that chair, I think it was 1.25 billion to now 200 billion. Is that correct?
The worth the worth of the properties, the assessments.
So I think what's changed since, if you're talking about, like, 2008, 2009 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
So the values went up a lot because before we were only using fractional, but we were only taking a fraction of the value into our assessment. So if a property was valued at $100,000, we were assessing it at 32,000, I think was the was the ratio. And
And then the millage rate came down. So looking at the assessed value back then compared to now, it doesn't really give you a sense of what it meant for revenue because we lowered the millage rate to compensate for the first 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
So to the second part. Has there been an assessment that shows how these valuations, how these millage adjustments impact districts like the third district?
So not millage adjustments. There was there was a study on assessments that was released on Friday that
we can we can if you need it, if you haven't had a chance to read it, we can certainly, you know, get over to you. It, it, it said, you know as I've said previously, the report said that as we've been doing reassessments, all measures have gotten better and better over the years. But they their conclusion was there were certain inequities in certain parts of the city. As an independent study, we provided that and we worked with them, but, you know, they were kind of free to draw their own conclusion.
So, so there are certain neighborhoods that have been impacted 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. negatively, not by, by design, but by virtue of the assessments, negatively? Is that right?
I don't have that in front of me, but we can certainly get that data to you.
I don't know about it, but I know the third district is in there.
Okay. So there is a thing called disparate impact. That means not by your design that this has a negative impact on black and brown people, but by the fact that it does, that we need to take a look at it. And so if you did a study that says in the third district, which is predominantly in those areas, black and brown, or the fourth district or the fifth, that we should pause and take a look at why. What are we doing wrong, right or what needs to change so that there is not a unfair 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. proportionate impact on these communities? And is there a plan to take a look at that?
So let me back up. So again, it was not OPA that did the study. We assisted with it, as far as data, working with them. So the conclusions that were drawn, we're not debating it, but they're, they're not OPA's conclusions either. So it was a completely independent study, just so that's on the record. But there were obviously a number of things in the report that we would, you know, agree with, or there were some things from a perspective of things that we could do differently citywide that we I think there's about six recommendations specifically. One of
One of them was create this task force. And the mayor said, "Absolutely, let's do it," and boom. So that was right off the start. There are some more recommendations about when we complete the assessments, about publishing certain data sets or results of the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. model in a different way than we have before. So we're taking that into consideration, and that's something we're looking at possibly doing for 2025. And there was also there was one there was one or two specifically that we would disagree with or we felt would not be legal for OPA to do. But I think for the most part, most of the recommendations are stuff that we would be on board with and we think it you know, we think it makes sense.
So my final point on this, Madam Chair, is if there are neighborhoods that are also undervalued because you said that we aren't having enough sales in our community, like maybe Winfield, then that sends a signal to speculators that are far away as New York to come in and say, this neighborhood right here is prime to buy and then gentrify. And that's what we have to avoid. That that assessment puts all of us on equal playing field so that if I want to keep my property and go to the bank, I have value. If I want to hold on to my property and these folk that come in 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. neighborhoods passing out literatures, "Sell your home quickly," that doesn't happen. We depend on you for that.
I would just add that one of the things the report said is that each valuation has gotten better and more accurate so that when we do them, we're actually getting closer to what you're asking about, not, not further away.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Jones. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Ahmad.
Thank you for this is complicated matters, and so I'm going to take it as slowly as possible so that I know what I'm saying. I wanted to know more about the CAMA consultant. What have the C-A-M-A consultant you have 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
I think, for $200,000. What have they accomplished so far and what infrastructure in terms of both staff, capacity, and technology? Do we need to be able to do this work in-house or do we always need to be contracting out for this?
So at, at this point, we, we do see it as outside contracting. Right now it's that, that work is being done under the original agreement with the vendor from our implementation phase into now. The intention is to break that away from the vendor and just have an independent consultant that will deal directly with us because there's a lot of stuff that it takes a lot of technical skill, and we would certainly hope to be able to bring that on board into the you know, into a city position at some point. We don't know that that's feasible just yet, but for that position, we get a certain amount of service from the vendor now that we're further out from implementation. But there is a lot of, you know, 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. testing, bug reporting, QC, or adjustments that we have to do on our own side, and it really requires someone with a high level of expertise that can really just be focused directly on that. And so that's where that kind of consultant position comes into play.
So they'll be assisting you going forward in this next round that you are planning to do?
Well, the we, we have we have that work being done now through our original contract with the CAMA vendor that we selected. But as we move forward and into the future, as long as we think we need it, they will be our intent is to make that a separate RFP and then separate that out so that way we can just have that without having it under the auspices of the of the CAMA vendor.
And the reason I ask is, as you know, there are significant inconsistencies in our assessments. We've all been talking about it. One of the things about the property valuation swings have been a 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. significant complaint from all property owners, both commercial and residential. So we did a lot of investment in AVI and all of that. Do we now have automated systems that can flag any value swing greater than, say, percent in some community? And is 8 there an internal flag that pops up for you, and 9 maybe CAMA is helping you with that? 10 And the idea is to highlight and self- correct for these outliers, and then we can then we can actually assess and have those values done properly. And I think this actually alludes to the racial bias we are seeing because we have these suddenly one property that comes, gets swooped up, and that gets that appreciates much more, and then the rest are just where they were. So those outliers is what I'm really interested in, and I think it, it really points to this disparity we are seeing.
So there isn't there isn't a flag or something in the system itself that would indicate that. But we when we go through and we look at what the values, you know, 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. are before what are they projected to be or where they finalize, we do run all those metrics. So we do get a sense of how much a property may be getting adjusted one way or another, up or down, from one assessment cycle to another. But that's not in the system itself, because, I mean, you know, if a property is at 15,000 and it goes to, you know, 17, that's more than 10 percent if I'm doing the math correctly. So, like, it's a very small amount. So the, the system is not built that way, but we do that kind of checking on the back end before we finalize the assessments.
The reason I'm saying this, we all talked about these disparities we're seeing, and if we don't pay attention to these, you know, evaluation swings, that's a correction factor, right?
So I think it really behooves us to pay specific attention to these matters when the, the reinvestment report by the way, colleague Jones, I have the report 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. here if you want to see it with all the data in it. This report is specifically, that is their biggest finding, is the disparity which seems to be racially biased, right? And, and, and economically biased. So I think whatever you do, we really need to focus in on how are we watching for these valuation swings, and we have to disaggregate that data in order to address it community to community. Councilmember Jones's question was, you know, sort of where are these? And this data here shows RDA's data I mean, Reinvestment Act's data shows it's similar to yours, but actually District 4 got a lot darker, meaning that was where a lot of blips were happening. So we have whether you agree with their map or not, I'm hoping that you're able to hone in on where these valuation disparities are showing up so we don't have our, our constituents get worried and come back to you because we already have the data that should you know, we have so many tools now to be able to see these and get flagged before you send out those, you 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. know, builds basically. I would highly recommend you look into what tools need to be in place in order to not give heart attacks to our constituents when they see such a huge rise because of something one anomaly in their community.
Yeah. So when you say anomaly, you're saying there's like one high sale that would drive the rest of so, I mean, our, our process with the when I talk about the modeling and the number of observations, so one sale does not make a market one way or another.
Well, it's, it's, you know, the speaking to these unscrupulous people who are coming and buying up things and then slapping together something and but the value does go up. And it's not just one thing. It can be a whole (coughs) excuse me. It can be a whole, whole street. It can be we've seen this happen.
They're coming, sweeping up, and, and that is and they're doing us a huge disservice, especially when we 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. talk about retaining wealth and building wealth.
And we are taking this ability away from our constituents.
Yeah. I, I mean and, and, and for us, when we, we look at we start looking at results or preliminary results, you know, when we see areas or potentially larger swings, like we do try to dig into that from a macro level as a senior staff and say, "Okay, does some of this make sense? Are these are we finding sales that match up with this?" And then at the micro level, the evaluation staff themselves can see any one individual property, the you know, the value before and after, and flag that themselves or look at it that way and say, "Okay. Well, I know my area. I don't know that this number quite makes sense. Let me dig a little deeper and look into that." So there's two kind of ways we do look at that ahead of time before the assessments are, are released.
So I'm just saying let's formalize that. I don't know what 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the recommendations you, you are enacting out of this report or, you know, I guess you have a new body that's going to look at that. But let's not be anecdotal about this. Let's, let's be data driven around this
and say, "This is how many things happened. This is what the blips we saw. This is what we did and that's the transparency. We saw this. We did this. This is the impact." And, and our constituents can see it for themselves. They don't need to do anything. They can see this is this has parity, this does not, right?
So we need to have that level of transparency if we are, you know, asking people to up their what taxes they pay based on their values. So that's that would be my specific recommendation. I'd like to see how you actually roll that out.
Thank you, Madam 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Chair. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Ahmad. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Landau.
Thank you very much, majority leader. Good afternoon.
When will the data on which the 2025 assessments are based be released to the public? And in particular, when will the data for individuals' properties be released to the public so that the people can see their new valuations even before they get an official notice of valuation?
So the, the data when the data is finalized, it's usually a very short turnaround from when the notices are actually ready to be mailed out. So we try not to have too much of a lag because folks may, as we saw last time which was a longer lag, folks may go online and see their number and then forget about it. And then the notice comes and they either don't recognize that or, or, or forget that there was a reevaluation 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. going on. So as I said to the Council President earlier, we're aiming for a mailing in early June. The data, as far as the individual assessments, would likely be ready and published online. It's usually just before that mailing goes out, but we want to make sure it's not too far in advance in the sense of when it's ready to go on there, we're ready to mail out too. So we don't want to intentionally delay the mailing as opposed to posting it online to not you know, we certainly don't want to confuse taxpayers or have them miss it. We'd like to have those be a fast follow. So we're looking at early June.
Okay. So it'll be available to the public before the notice evaluation goes out?
Yeah. Our expectation is we'll have we'll have the values posted online first for the public to look at before the notices go out. But we, we will mail the notices 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. fairly quickly behind that.
Thank you. And the Philadelphia Code requires the OPA to make all underlying supporting data, documentation, methodology, and any other information used to certify each property assessment publicly available by May 1st. Will the OPA do so for the 2025 assessments by May 1st, 2024; couple days? Can individual homeowners and others see the actual data that was used to value their specific property? Is that data available online and is it accurate?
So it won't be May 1st because the finalization of the values will be slightly after that. But around the same time as the, the, the notices get mailed out, either right before or right after. As per the code, we'll publish our results. We did that with 2019, 2020, 2023. So we'll have that information out there. And then as far as data available, it was one of the recommendations out of that reinvestment report. It's publishing more of a 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. robust dataset that's, kind of, like a snapshot of "this is what it was at the time of the evaluation," and also some additional metrics from the models that we're looking to do. So I anticipate at this point that there will be more data available around this reevaluation than any one prior to it.
Yeah. We will be publishing that around the time that we would be mailing and notifying taxpayers of the value. So that'll go up roughly around the same time.
Okay. It's going to be a good summer for all of us, isn't it? How many outstanding appeals still need to be reviewed?
When you say appeals, do you mean formal BRT appeals or informal FLR reviews?
That that's 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. yes. Thank you.
Okay. Well, I flipped to the BRT first, so I'll give you those.
So as of April 17th I'm not going to call the BRT up because I can answer this for them. I won't drag them up.
As of April 17th, for tax year 2023, there was 2,825 appeals still pending. And for tax year '24, 2,521. For first level reviews, we are sorry. We are over 90 percent complete. And of the remaining of the remaining FLRs, we those are majority are either cross filed BRT appeals or investors that filed a large amount because they own, in some cases, hundreds of properties. So we're almost 100 percent complete on owner-occupied properties as far as responding to FLRs from 2023. And that's part of the reason why we're at the point now where we're just finishing up the revaluations because we wanted to make sure we had gotten far enough along in the in handling the 2023 FLRs and the appeals 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. as BRT schedules them, before jumping into this because we do get data corrections from those both those processes. And so if we had your home as, as being larger than it was or conditioned differently, we want to get that data updated in the system for the next go around. So that's why we wanted to get as much of that done as possible. And almost, you know, almost done, but not 100 percent.
One more, majority leader. Just one more. Thanks. Yes? Thank you. What?
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. So I want to go back to the informal appeal process, the first level review. If a homeowner is facing an inaccurate assessed value, how quickly can OPA get through the FLR requests? Can you commit to making decisions on FLRs before the tax bills get sent out? If not, homeowners will bear the burden 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of paying a tax bill on a value that is not accurate, potentially biased, without the benefit of at least having the OPA to take a second look at the assessment for the FLR process.
So as far as before the bills go out. So as, as I mentioned, we've be looking at a an extended application period for folks, which would put us into potentially a September deadline. If folks are filing that late, the ability to turn those around before bills are out would, would be pretty much contingent on how many applications are, are filed. I mean, if there's five, we could get that done pretty quickly. If there's 500,000, we'll be a couple years at it. So we, we don't want them to hang out there for considerations just as that. But I, I couldn't commit to a specific timeline without having a better idea of, of what we're looking at in terms of volume.
Can you talk more we, we talked about this once before, and I want to get to the bottom of it. There's this problem with someone's house. You get the tax 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. assessment, you file your appeal for your first level review. Let's say that taxes are set at $1,000. You believe it to be much lower, about $800. And it at this point because the process takes so long, your tax bill comes. Most often times if you have a mortgage, your mortgage company is already paying for it. You've now overpaid. It seems like a year or so later you win and you're trying to get the $200 back, basically from the city telling the mortgage company to give you back your $200. Can't we make it more efficient than that? Talk, talk me through this again.
So, I mean, you know, when somebody wants to contest their value either way, we certainly we don't want like I said, we don't want those hanging out there. But we also don't want to rush through the process because we want to make sure that, you know, that we give them the proper evaluation. The you know, and I think this is, if I'm thinking back to the conversation that you and I had previously around, around some issues with some of the mortgage companies. You know, 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the reality is, is that it's kind of each one, kind of, does their own thing as far as that goes. I mean, there's been provisions that this council has passed or, or previous councils to where somebody files a formal appeal, they are they, they are to be billed on the previous year's value. But mortgage companies will often we've seen plenty of cases where they don't pay attention to that or, or they don't care. They're saying, "Well, we're doing this based on" so the city is trying to be, you know, accommodating for that and, and for legislation that, that is passed by council.
But there is no enforcement piece on the city side to say, "Well, you should only bill them for this, and their escrow should be that." And there, there is a definite disconnect and some companies are more accommodating than others when you reach out and say, "Hey, this person has an appeal on file, their tax bill is only this, this. You know, you 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. should reevaluate this." And others just -- they don't want to they don't want to hear it. So it can be I can and I understand on the taxpayer side how that, that can be frustrating. I mean, it's frustrating for us in that we would like to help resolve in any way we can, and the mortgage company says, "No, it doesn't matter." We had to deal with a disabled veteran that we had processed and we were trying to help them out and the mortgage company just didn't like everything was done on the city side and the mortgage company was still being difficult about adjusting their escrow and, you know so it, it really it depends on the company you're dealing with and
But even if you're supposed to be billed for the previous year's assessment, the mortgage company is, is taking out the escrow of the tax of the of the next year's assessment?
There are dire cases where they do that. I mean, there are mortgage companies that proactively will escrow before 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. bills are even issued. So they're making an estimate based on something that's what the bill 4 may be. But they don't have anything officially from the city saying your tax bill is going to be this based on a rate or relief measures. And, I mean, certainly from our office, I don't know if the city in general. But there's nothing I know of that prevents them from doing that. And it can certainly be a burden on the homeowners when they do that.
Thank you, Councilmember Landau. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Bass.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to be brief. And I just really wanted to make a couple of statements, less questions. But the first that over my years in Council, I've had, you know, many, many times and occasions to reach out to OPA to get assistance for constituents. And I have to say, in the last few years, it has been nearly impossible to get 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. service for my constituents out of your office. And I don't say that I, I, I don't want to say that. I don't say that lightly. I take it very seriously because at the end of the day, the constituents aren't looking at you-all and saying, you know, "You didn't get back to the councilwoman." They're looking at me that I didn't do my job and I didn't do what was necessary to help people who are really trying to hold on, hang on to their properties. You know, this is something I take very, very seriously. And when I hear so many questions about the process that leads up to the what whatever the homeowner feels or the property owner feels needs to be corrected, I then think about that point when they reach out for that correction to take place and the experience that they have. And so the experience that I've had as a member of Philadelphia City Council has been less than ideal. I just listen, I I'm, I'm going to keep it 100 percent. I really thank God for Carla Pagan and BRT staff because that's who 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we have to call to get responses because we just can't seem to get the service that we need out of OPA. And so I don't say that to, you know, be in some sort of attack mode. I'm really just hopeful that you will hear what I'm saying and that, really, the improvement comes for OPA. So much of what's been said here today has really been around trying to make sure that we protect those who are particularly marginalized, who aren't as savvy maybe, let's say, who don't feel like they have a an ability to really fight an unfair assessment, who don't know besides their councilperson who to call, what to do. Filling out that form may be challenging, it may be intimidating. And I really don't hear from you-all, you know, how you can make it better for them, how you can do things better, how you can reach them. I'm just really not hearing that. And the last thing I want to say specifically was there was a case that I reached out to you on, on several occasions about a 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. constituent who was told that she would get the Homestead Exemption, purchased her home, and then it was yanked from under her saying, "Well, you don't qualify for the Homestead," even though she had in writing something from us that said, you know, "You qualify for a Homestead Exemption, Exemption." She budgeted her monthly budget based on that and now without that exemption, she was several hundred dollars more per month in a payment that she was, you know, happy to make her home purchase. But at the same time now worry, "Will I be able to keep my home? Because if there are other increases, what's going to happen to me then? And I can't get OPA on the phone to help me to understand that, you know, they sent me paperwork saying I have a, a Homestead Exemption." So, you know, listen, this is this is not something that I think you take lightly. It's certainly not something that council takes lightly, but it's something that we need to do better on just across the board. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. If there are resources that are needed from Council, please let us know. Please let us know how we can be helpful to you, but it has to be better because we have to be able to serve our constituents, so. Thank you.
Yes. So just, just to follow up on that. I mean, I, I think one of the things that, that we felt worked well in the last valuation cycle was partnering where we could with Council or with other elected officials in your districts to do these, like, you know, small workshop sessions where folks come in. You know, I did a number of them in your district and got a lot of good feedback. I did most of my work out of out of Senator Haywood's office, so. And I and I and, you know, I'd heard that, from other people in other districts, it seemed like that process went really well. And we would certainly love to put together a plan to mimic that as best we can this time around. Not to say that's the only thing we'll we're looking to do, but that was a lot of, like, personal one-on-one time where we use OPA 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and Revenue. So if your question was more revenue based, somebody there could speak to that. Or if it was, "Walk me through how I fill out this application," which we did with a number of constituents, we're happy to help with that. And I would say, as you're talking about larger issues of not getting response from a OPA, you're more than welcome. Anybody from your office, if they're running these issues, to run those up the chain, you know, to me.
The particular the particular incident that you had referenced before, yeah, that was I understand, you know, the taxpayer, there was a glitch where it said they did have a homestead. They recently purchased the property, and the amount on the notice said zero, but it said, yes, you have one. And I think, as I responded to you in writing, there was an error with some of the notices, and that Revenue was handling that. It was passed on to them as they handle the Homestead program, not us. But that we also identified how that happened last time and this 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. time around the process, especially with Revenue's new system which they've implemented since, that will be different to where that's not going to happen this time around.
Well, I, I hear you. So a couple of things. The first is that I'm not Senator Haywood, as you know.
No, I, I, I was just giving you an example of, of, of, of, of work --
Yeah. I know. I love listen, I love Senator Heywood. We do a lot of
Yes. We do a lot of work together. But, you know, the, the point I want to make is that the, the broader the outreach, the more people that you'll reach. We, we do tons of events in my district. I would love to have you-all come out and to table at some of our events, you know, talk to people. I, I, I had a constituent last summer at our event in Vernon Park, Oldies in the Park, and we had the Homestead Exemption paperwork out. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. And she came over to me and she said, "Is this some kind of scam? You know, I don't I don't believe it. I don't know anything about it. I've never heard of it." And I just I, I, assured her, you know, it was not, you know, any scam of any sort, and that this was something that was going to greatly help her. But it would have been great to have you guys out there. And so I'll make sure that my office does the outreach to get you at some of our
Absolutely. We have a dedicated community outreach coordinator at our office. If you don't have her information, we can certainly connect anybody from your office with her. But there's a lot of us that go out and do these events. We were out at the budget meeting, Mayor Parker's meeting on Saturday. We'll be at the rest of them throughout the city represented there. And as events pop up in the districts, if 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. there's the chance to have OPA there, will make every effort to get there. And, you know, I from just your one story, I mean, I've run into cases where that where people could basically have their tax bill 7 eliminated by filing for a homestead. And the response that I get is, "What? The city doesn't need to know my business." And it's like, "That's not how it's working, but." So if they hear it from multiple entities, maybe they'll kind of feel more comfortable going ahead and doing that because that's a lot of benefit to, to not take advantage of. And so, yeah, we would certainly be happy to, to help reinforce that and participate in any events that you want to have us at.
Well, that would be great. And as one last thing. You're saying that you just mentioned that you went out Saturday to Mayor Parker's activity, and there's also another activity this evening in which City Council will be holding a budget town hall at West Philadelphia High School that 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Councilwoman Gauthier is hosting. And so these are the kind of questions that we will get. You know, people will come to the front, and it would be great to say, "OPA is here. You can go see someone from OPA. They're right there, you know, and you can connect with them." So just I, I think that that interaction, connection is very important. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Bass. The chair now recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke.
Like many folks in this room or those who have already spoken and across the city, I'm concerned about the systemic racial inequities in property assessments throughout Philadelphia. But I wanted to focus my questions today on what we're doing as a city to dismantle the inequities and to keep Philadelphians in their homes. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Can you speak to other comparable cities? What have our peer cities done to prevent or to rectify racial inequities in property assessments? And, and, and what are you doing to, to learn from their efforts?
So I, I would say that the concept of that is still pretty new in a lot of jurisdictions, and a lot of jurisdictions sort of run to the issue that we do where there you know, there could there's an issue like that out there. But we, because of certain provisions around our licensing and everything, we can't look through it at that lens or do that analysis, but we have to, kind of, work with somebody and then, you know, accept their results and see where we can go from there. There it, it really varies by state to state or jurisdiction to jurisdiction because state law can greatly dictate what an assessment office can or can't do. There are some states that will cap any increase of an assessment at a certain percentage. Pennsylvania, we can't do that because 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of the uniformity clause in the Constitution. We can assess it as it is, and then programs like LOOP can make part of that assessment exempt, for example, but we can't cap a assessment at three percent, let's just say, like some states can. You know, Manhattan or New York City has, I believe, assessment caps and also tax caps. So they handle things a little bit differently there. I would say, as far as bigger cities, and then I'm sorry. But then, you know, you go out to California, where their, their valuation, you know, once you buy your property, for the most part, your assessment is frozen until you, you go and sell it. So you could be in 40 years your assessment is not changing. Tax rate will change, maybe your liability changes, but your assessment's not changing. So the difference from state to state or in jurisdiction to jurisdiction can vary how the assessment office tackles any issue, let alone that one. I would say our closest peer city that has tried to be proactive has been Cook County, Illinois, so Chicago. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Their elected official out there has sort of been one of the folks leading the charge around this, and he's also leading the charge there's a group there's a working group within the IAAO of, of larger jurisdictions. So, you know, the biggest. So Los Angeles, Maricopa County, Phoenix, New York City, Chicago, where we are petitioning the federal government for access to some of their housing data and particularly some of the FHA backed appraisal information, where we could get stuff that we can compare to our records and say, "Well, is this square footage the same? Is condition the same?" And we think, you know, as better data makes everything better. And so access to that information would, would go a long way in either confirming the accuracy of our data or allowing us to improve it. So that would be one big resource because obviously, we can't get into every property every year, even if folks wanted to let us into every property, which they don't. But having access to that data would allow us to make improvements and hopefully would 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. help us get to some areas that maybe are negatively impacted in ways where if we had a little bit better information, we could we could have the assessments look a little different.
When OPA updates property assessments, what kinds of resources and supports do you all share with homeowners who receive significant increases in their property tax bills? For example, do you do you send information about the LOOP program or low-income senior tax freeze to folks?
I'm sorry. Could you say that first I missed the part of your the first portion of your question.
what kinds of resources and supports do you actually share with the homeowners who receive significant increases?
in their 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. property tax bill.
So, so the change of assessment notice contains certain information about the property. It's not everything we have, but it contains a lot of the data that goes we, we keep a lot of data, but not all that pertains to the actual assessment. So that is displayed on there for folks to kind of look at and say, "Well, you know, it says I'm a commercial entity, but I'm, I'm just a single-family row home that has a day you know, I, I have a three-kid daycare. It's not really a commercial entity." Or, "It says my property is in, you know, good condition, but I haven't updated in full 40 years. I don't know that that's necessarily correct." That a lot of that data is on the actual notice. We have a much more robust data set either on, on the property data website and in the city's open data set. Understandably, there's a challenge there. Not everybody can access or navigate the web to get all their information. And then when we when we mail the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. notices out, we do include certain pieces of information around explaining how to read it, what this means. I don't believe we directly mail out anything around Homestead, LOOP, and senior tax freeze since those are revenue-based programs going out with the packet that we give out. But we certainly have that information available and direct people that way where it's applicable.
Can't you see how that might be valuable or helpful to folks just to include that in the mail out as well?
I there definitely can be some there definitely would be value to that potentially, I think. From our perspective, we do try to separate. And I can I hear Mr. Dubow over here, so I should probably stop talking. But the, the separation of the assessment and the tax liability, we try to make a very clear delineation there while also recognizing that the, the need for the folks could be on the tax relief portion and not, not the accuracy of the assessment. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. The assessment might be fine, but if you can't afford the bill, that eventually comes. Then that's where the relief measures play a critical role. But I, I will defer to Mr. Debow, if you'd like to add anything.
So the, the outreach on the relief measures comes from Revenue, and Revenue does extensive outreach to homeowners to explain to them what, what their options are. And among the primary ones we've talked about are Homestead, we do outreach, senior freeze, and LOOP. And so we try to make sure that people are aware of those. We look at how many people are signed up and where they are and what kind of outreach we need to do to get more people signed up.
That's the kind of example, in fact, that we were thinking about. Just making sure that folks have LOOP information, senior Freeze, those sorts of things.
My members 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. literally just asked me about this after our 20th church anniversary on Sunday. So it's good that, you know, if we can get that sort of information.
Now, in the council workshops that I referenced with Councilmember Bass, I mean, it was a, like, a joint effort between, at the very least, OPA and Revenue. So you had people right there that could help a person out right there, depending on what their issue is. So that's those worked well, and, and, you know, we hope to be able to continue that.
Thank you so much, Councilmember O'Rourke. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson. I'm next in the queue. I'm next in the queue. But at any rate, thank you very much for your testimony. And one of my original questions was relative to when you anticipated the assessment would be complete, you did answer that question more than once, I believe, during this round of 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. questions. But you stated that early June, the data would be released to the public, and the data would be ready in May? Is that correct?
In order for an early June mailing, we'd have to wrap the data up, and, and we'd have to have some data pretty much, at least on a larger aggregate level, ready by the end of May. But there's a lag between sending the data file to the vendor and the mailing. It's not you know, 500,000 plus pieces, it takes a little bit of time, so that's why there's a little bit of a gap in that.
I understand. I just wanted to make sure my notes were correct.
Okay. And so my question then is, by what date does state law require the certification of the assessment to be complete?
4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Okay. So the certification date for the state is March 31st of 2024?
Okay. And so since we've not met this deadline, are we out of compliance with the state law, and then how do we deal with that?
I will defer from answering that from a legal perspective, but the OPA does not there's nothing that we know that's going to cause an issue. The state doesn't actually request the certified numbers until almost the end of the year.
So there's no deliverable April 1st or whenever. It's later in the year they ask for it.
So as long as we as long as we complete the assessment at one time, we're okay to move forward.
4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. And then I asked this question, I think, in the first week of budget hearings. But if the assessment is not yet complete, how do we then determine the projected eight percent increase in real estate tax revenue in FY '25?
It was really more an estimate from us in finance and, and budget, kind of, from what we heard about what was happening in the market. But obviously something we knew would have to be updated when we get that actual assessment.
Okay. So the, the estimate then comes from finance, not OPA?
As a part of the overall budget process
for the numbers assumptions around what we believe our overall revenue intake will be so that we could then come up with whatever the, the plan, correct? 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Correct. We try to keep them away from the tax revenue questions. We deal with those with Revenue. Same with the relief measures.
No, I understand. But I think my question the first week was relative to, you know, how do we get to this number? Like, what are the assumptions you're making as a finance department then around where our property tax assessments will be at that time and over time?
Yeah. And it's been based on what we've heard about what's going on in the market and what we think that will mean for, for assessments?
Okay. And then lastly, if you could just provide to Council President Johnson for dissemination to all the members of the Committee of the Whole, a breakdown of the coefficient of dispersion, also the price related differential, and the median ratio by council district and then by zip code. And I ask because I know that from a constituent services perspective, we have been 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. over the last, I'll say four years total, but in particular, the last two years, we've been inundated by constituent service calls relative to the increase in property taxes. And I'll tell you we had one case that was really, really sad in Winfield in particular. The person's property taxes went from $1,500 to $5,600 on a twin in Winfield. And then we've received several calls in particular I mean, all over the city, but I'm just highlighting certain areas. Allegheny West, right off of, like, Ridge and Allegheny
the Swampoodle area sort of sandwiched in between East Falls and, I would say, Brewerytown now; really, North Philly. But we have been inundated by calls from even former city employees who are living on a city pension, who just cannot afford to maintain their properties strictly because of the property tax assessment. We've been inundated with those calls. And I know that there was not a 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. reassessment done this year. And I did submit a plethora of questions prior to this hearing for your response. And most of them, obviously, were answers that we have received in 2022 because there has not been a reassessment. But there is a deep concern relative to the issue of how certain communities are being overtaxed. And I think we have to think about this in, in the way that my colleague is saying. These are the same communities if you overlay them on a map and you have the GIS folks do the data, these are the same communities that were redlined, right? And that was government policies enacted that redlined these communities. And now it's the same communities that are being inundated by very high increases in their property taxes. And I think we have to take a special look at ensuring that we are not, again, repeating history and sort of redlining these communities through these property assessments. And so that is my overarching concern. We know that many families are losing their generational wealth in Philadelphia strictly 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. because of the property taxes. It's the same issue relative to when you have a mortgage and the mortgage company is looking at escrow and seeking to determine what the escrow amount should be for the next year. They're going to recoup. And let's say if your property taxes go up. They're going to recoup for the year that they had to cover, and then they're going to ensure that they have enough to cover for the upcoming year. And so whereas it may look like your property taxes are only going up by, let's say, $1,000, really in your mortgage it's more than that because you have to pay for what the mortgage company covered the year before and the estimate they're giving for the next year. And that was that one particular case we had from the constituent in Winfield who had to quit the job she was on to get another job in order to meet the property tax amount because her mortgage had gone up so significantly. And so that is my overarching concern. I think we don't need to be in the business of 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. pushing people out of this city because the way the private real estate market is going at this point, it's very difficult for people to find affordable housing and to purchase an affordable home for their families because you know that homeownership, you know, helps to, to generate generational wealth. But I'm very concerned about where we're going with the property assessment system because we're not able to do it on a regular basis. Folks are having sticker shots, and then they call us, and all we can say is, "Well, this is the assessment. We didn't change the tax rate," right? We didn't do anything else, but now we're stuck dealing with these, these questions and concerns. And so I'm really concerned about that. I think we need to do as much as we can for people in this moment of significant, sort of, real estate change in our city and figure out how we can help them as much as possible. Very quickly, my last question is relative to the interface. You talked about revenue. I want to talk about specifically the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. gov, you can see the actual owner. I find that many times it is updated on Revenue where you can see the owner, the current owner, reflected, but it's not always reflected on the, the OPA part of that site. Where are you all in process with that?
So as I'm just I know you remember a ago several years back, there was a, a lag between Records and deeds being recorded in the index, and, and the data getting to us to then be reflected on the property data site. That's been that backlog was eliminated. So we run that with regularity. And so we're, we're, we're pretty current as to where Records has indexed as of where there is sometimes discrepancy between what Revenue is saying for ownership and OPA, so the data is pulled from the same place, but it's pulled in different ways by the two departments. So the last, I'd say within the last two months, we've been having conversations 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. around how each department is pulling and updating that data. And the goal is, kind of, to be, if not identical at the same time, almost identical so that way, you know, we're both doing things in the same way, and maybe it works a little better from one place than the other. But we do, kind of, want to be in sync there. So that's actually a process we're, we're working on right now that was raised through another district office a couple months ago, so.
Sure, sure. And really quickly because I do want to honor the clock. That is something that I know we had talked about several years ago. And I know that there were a few cases that I notated specifically. One of them was updated. Okay? And I did check to ensure it was updated. The other was not. And so -- and that's okay. But I just need to know how far along in that process we have gotten and how many are left over.
Yeah. I don't know how many out there out there that we have an update 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. pending. I can look into that and see if I can get you a number. I there I know there have been there are some cases where our records are updated and it's not reflected on the site.
Those have gotten smaller and smaller. And discrepancies with Records and Revenue have gotten smaller and smaller. And like I said, the goal is to have basically match up Revenue at the same time with the website. Occasionally there's an issue so that the property data site contains a lot of OPA information, but it's not an OPA managed website. It's not, like, our website.
So sometimes if there's a discrepancy, we just have to reach out to OIT and we get it rectified. But it's not something we can directly tap into or fix, so. But that's very rare, so it's not 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. it's not a widespread issue. But occasionally there might be an issue updating and then we and then we have to reach out and take, like, additional steps. But a lot of times we don't get made aware of that until someone reaches out and says, "Hey, you said you updated this."
"We did. Oh, it's not on the site. We'll reach out and have somebody make that update." That's a very, very small number of cases, but it's important to obviously anybody it does happen to.
Okay. Thank you very, very much. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you so much. So I'm on the same line. I got my first questions are so very similar to all my other colleagues. But, you know, last year OPA told us that they were doing more outreach to residents about tax relief program. And I was wondering if you had the information on how your outreach has changed and have you seen an 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. increase in eligible people seeking exemptions?
Yeah. That, that is revenue. I can tell you how many people from FY '23 were signed up for each program, if that's helpful. We had 236,000 homeowners who had Homestead, another 19,444 had senior freeze, 14,147 were in the LOOP, and then about 8,300 were in OOPA's in, in payment plans. So that's the, kind of, the universe of, of those relief programs.
So have you seen an increase of people requesting for exemption?
Yes, they have gone it has gone up every year. I can get you that and how it's changed year to year.
Okay. So I know people have been expressing confusion about whether well, what exactly what relief is available. So how are we targeting folks who might be intimidated by the review request process to make sure that they know about the process and don't fail and just don't drop out? 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Yeah. So for the first level review process, like I said, when we do the notices, everybody gets an application. And I think the as I mentioned, and I'll mention again because I think they're very important, is the workshops in the districts where people can come out in a more informal setting and hopefully don't feel intimidated to come in and ask a question or look for an explanation as to what this means. And do I need to file this? You know, OPA will never say, "Yes, you should know you shouldn't file this," but we can explain to them the implications and the, the information that's on the thing and how we you know, how the value is determined. And then, you know, in a lot of cases people say, "Oh, yeah. I'd like to go forward with that," and we can help them fill out the forms and go forward with that. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. You know, we're also looking at the opportunity to partner with any other city agency that could be helpful. So particularly the, the, the just the CEO office to see if they have some outreach potential there that'll help us get to some areas where folks either just, I would say, don't you know, if you it's, it's if you look where, where, where appeals and FLRs are traditionally filed, they tend to be the same places. And it's not necessarily a reflection of the accuracy of the assessment. It's just whether somebody wants to take the time to contest it, you know. So we want to make sure that folks in areas maybe where they might want to, but just aren't filing the FLR, that they have the information. They can make that decision for themselves. But we don't want it to be due to a lack of information from the city's perspective.
And just for clarity, you said there's one in every district or there are like various district meetings that are available for folks to go through this 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. process?
Yeah. So with the 2023 reevaluation, it was basically it was through actually, some of it was, was through the then Councilmember Johnson's office, but we coordinated with, with one of his staff members and also folks from the individual districts themselves that reached out and said, "Hey, you know, we we're, we're having these committee meetings. Are we going to set these up?" And we had locations, whether it was a gym or whether it was, you know, state senator's office or rec center. And basically, you know, they would be putting the word out that we're going to have these meetings and you can come ask questions, and you can come get, you know, information. And, you know, most cases, it was OPA and revenue that was there to talk about either the assessment or the tax relief side of things. And we basically got out to I mean, we did close to 100 meetings that year, as, as 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. requested, and, and where they were where they were getting set up. And then, obviously, folks could contact us directly. But, you know, being out in the community and going to these meetings, it, it it's certainly a more personal response than even just calling up somebody on the phone or, or shooting an email. And some folks understand, and they say, "You know what? I think I'm good and, and I don't need to file this." But in other times, it's like, "Okay. Yeah." You you know, we're not convincing them one way or another, but based on what we've explained and they say, "Okay. Yeah. You know what? I need to move forward with, with filing a first level review or a, a BRT appeal in this case."
Okay. And another one. Have we done a data analysis of who's submitting the first level review requests? I mean, based on racial, economic, or geographic demographics?
No, we don't use demographic we don't do any analysis by demographic 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. information. We have we have general information as to where, you know, we can we do we can see where they're filed in the city. We look at it from a, you know, a location, but not anything else as to who might live there or anything else about that. And so that's why I said, you know, we see that certain parts of the city might file 10 more often than others whether but we don't necessarily we it's informational to us, but we don't necessarily consider that a sign of accuracy or inaccuracy of an assessment just because somebody did or didn't file.
Thank you very much. The chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I want to talk more about constituent services and community engagement. We constantly hear from constituents that they're having a hard time getting in touch with anyone 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. at OPA when they want to understand their assessments. Our constituent services team reports the same. Looking at your budget detail, I see 6 budgeted positions under administration, 216 in 7 the evaluation department, but it's not clear how 8 many individuals in either department handle 9 constituent calls. 10 So how many individuals do you have available to answer constituent questions about reassessments and how many are budgeted for FY '25? How many calls or constituent cases does each individual handle currently, and how long is the wait for a callback? And what kind of investment is OPA making in increased capacity for constituent facing staff ahead of the tax year '25 reassessment?
So for, for particular numbers I'm going to defer and say we'll get back to you in writing because a lot of the numbers, when you talk about those larger numbers, they may not have a title of constituent service rep or something like that, but they have a role that they you know, somebody can call them or, or 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. reach out to them. We have a dedicated we have a dedicated customer service center on site. There's a third-party call center off-site. And then majority of folks in that evaluation sector that are doing the evaluations are accessible via phone or email. So I will we can detail that in writing for you. I wouldn't have that exact number, but we'll put it in writing and answer, answer that series of questions for you.
Sorry. As the leader of the department, what's your sense of how things are going? What's your sense of capacity as it relates to your ability to handle constituent services calls and if that's adequate based on, in particular, the reassessment that we just went through two years ago?
So, I mean, we can you know, you when you look at the numbers, as I'm sure you have, you can see we have we have vacancies. I'm happy to say that we're onboarding, in the next month or so, another 13 individuals, which will help get us to our, our 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. targeted goal of 85 percent. But we, we want to get as close to 100 percent as possible. The I mean, to me, we there really shouldn't be there should not be a, a large effect on capacity to respond to taxpayers. And if there is an issue or repeated issue, whether it's a specific individual or in general, please, please I mean, I know and, and Maria from your office has sent some stuff my way. But I say this to any, any council office. If, if you're hearing these issues, please run them over up the chain to me because if it's whether it's an individual or it's a more systemic thing, we wouldn't be able to address it because, you know, whether folks get the answer that they're hoping for, we want to make sure they get an answer at least they understand why the answer is what it is. And to us, customer service is one of the most important things to us. And, you know, in the past we've been told, "Well, I'm glad, you know, I got in touch with you because I call the departments and nobody ever picks up." So I, I 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. don't want to lose that reputation. And I would like just to be able you know, because we I've been told, "At least your department that somebody I can talk to somebody." And if that's not happening, then that's something we have to nip in the bud as quickly as possible. And I think to the as we fill these vacancies, that'll make it a little easier to do that. And, and we're hoping to we've looked at a couple other pathways to help get to that number. It it'll involve a little more training of bringing people in. So they're not, like, right away going to be able to do it, but it'll allow us to staff up and, and get to a, a capacity closer to where we would like to be and therefore minimize any such complaints such you know, like that you're talking about with the delay in response.
Thank you. We're happy to send you information that we've been hearing from our constituents along with concerns our constituent services team has had. I do think it's important to nail down these 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. details. How many constituent direct constituent facing staff do you have? What is the, sort of, standard in terms of them getting back to people and how long that takes and what does that investment look like for FY '25? And then my last couple of questions are about engagement. Can I ask another question? Okay. While we get a lot of constituent calls directly to our office, we also have wanted to see OPA available to hear people out on a community-by-community basis to address issues and concerns directly. I was at a recent community block meeting where home values went from the 200,000s to the 500,000 to 700,000s. And while I understand that sometimes there's a good reason for those types of differences, everyone on the block was experiencing that same issue, and they called me to a meeting. And while I'm always glad to meet with constituents, our office is not equipped to provide an expert answer on the analysis and the, the methodology for the reassessments. And we've asked for, you know, these kind of community-by4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. community meetings in the past, and that, that was not really agreed to. So does the OPA plan to assist with community meetings that expand your community facing capacity? And by this, I don't mean meetings just to talk about various programs. I mean meetings to talk about what happened in various parts of our community. And how many staff do you have or plan to add to address the need to do this during the next round of reassessment?
So as I mentioned earlier, we, we have a dedicated community outreach coordinator that, that and, and she can do a certain level of meetings for the meetings where maybe a different level of expertise is needed. Majority of our senior staff, including myself, are available for those kind of meetings. So really it would it would how many of us are out there at any given time is determined by what the request is or what the need is to address these specific issues. And, and you and I talked about this separately, offline. Yeah. I mean, we're 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. definitely open to the possibility of having more. You know, we gave a almost two-hour presentation to your staff. I don't think most community members want that. But if there's a higher level than just, "We just" you know, "Hey, we assess properties," we can we can certainly do any presentation that is needed or wanted from the community or to listen to the concerns or hopefully answer questions, whether that's either questions you want to give us ahead of a meeting that you know we're coming up or if it's one of us being out there in person to help answer the questions.
Thank you very much. The chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you Mr. President. Given that our most recent evidence shows systemic issues with our assessment 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. process, I think it's incredibly important that our appeals process be simple, fast, easy to navigate. If we know our process is prone to making errors, including over assessing low income black and brown neighborhoods, we need to make sure those most impacted have the tools to fix the errors quickly. Can you walk us through, step by step, just for the record, what a person would need to do to file an appeal for their property assessment?
So I'll, I'll talk about both review processes, if that's okay.
So there's the first level review process, which is an informal review. That's just a petition to the OPA directly. The owner or their designated representative would fill out the form that says, "I believe you know, there's a couple different options. "I believe the market value is not correct. I believe I should have an exemption that's missing." We ask them to try and estimate, if 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. they know, what they, they think the value should be. And, and we don't it's not a, a requirement where if they don't put a number there, we just toss it out. But it is helpful because we some folks admittedly, you know, will say, "Well, I don't know what it's worth. I just don't think it's worth that." So, okay. You know, that for us especially. But if somebody just got an appraisal, let's just say, they, they did a ReFi or whatever, "I have an appraisal that says this." "Okay. Great. Would you provide us a copy of that?" And then additionally, we there's a section where you can put comments in. And, and my recommendation, whenever I talk to somebody one-on-one is, you know, "Here are the resources that are that kind of tell you what we have on record. But even if you don't have access to this or you don't want to look at it, just tell me everything you can about your property, pictures, whatever." The more detail, the better because that could lead us to see where we might have something wrong. So if, like I, I think I 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. might have referenced it earlier. If we say your if we thought your property was recently renovated, but you say, "Well, it hasn't been updated since 1980," for instance. "Okay. Do you pictures? Can we come out and do an on-site inspection?" You know, we'll do that. We don't want to intimidate or we can't force people to do it, but the, the best way to verify that data is correct or incorrect is to actually get inside the property. We can walk by the outside, we can see stuff through imagery, but if there's something inside that looks different, we don't know that until, you know, we're allowed in or we get notification of that. So all those things are most helpful. You know, we get we get FLRs that doesn't have a value and just says, "I don't want to pay any more in taxes." I mean, we'll take a look at it to make sure we didn't assess a property as a million dollars when it should be 100,000. But there's not a lot of detail for us to say our record could be wrong. So we'll look at it, but if everything seems to be, you know, correct on the face, 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. there's not really anything, in that kind of case, that we would do. So that's why I say give as much detail as possible because there might be one thing that you don't think is important that we might think is important and it could change could affect the change in value. The other process is the, the formal process with the with the BRT. So that's and just to back up. I'm sorry. For the FLR, whatever OPA decision makes, that's just that's the decision in and of itself it's not doesn't need be agreed upon by the taxpayer. We could disagree, but the OPA will make a judgment on the petition for the first level review. For the BRT, it's a formal process where they would present their case before the seven-member panel. But that's an independent body that can agree with OPA, can agree with the taxpayer, can fall somewhere in the middle or otherwise. And then in cases like that, you know, we will see cases where the appellant and the OPA will exchange information and come to a mutually 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. settled, mutually agreed upon value, and they'll withdraw the case at a certain number that both sides agree upon. But whichever process they go through, what I tell everybody is just give us as much detail or information about the property that you can possibly give us because that, that helps us make sure our data is correct.
There's a process there, I'd say. Can I get one more question off? Thank you, Council President. A bit of a shift. I know that the city's Service Design Studio has been a great partner for other agencies in creating more user-friendly processes and procedures like designing accessible mail-in voter guides in 2020. Has OPA tried to engage with the service design studio to attempt to build out a more accessible and user-friendly appeals process there?
We have not, no. But I would say we're open to anybody that wants to partner. And if there's a way to make it a little more user friendly, yeah, we're definitely 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. open to having those conversations.
Thank you, Council President. First question has been resolved to a degree. I just want to underscore what the what my colleagues are saying. You've got to do more community engagement. People don't understand the process, and I think what you hear from them on the ground could inform how we would create a better system that would root out bias because I think that's the important thing here. I wanted to just touch on again, how does OPA use technology and data analytics to support its assessments, process, and decision, decision making?
So there's a couple different ways. So technology, to what I was kind of speaking to with, with Councilmember O'Rourke, technology is at a point now where we have a lot of desktop applications that eliminate 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the need to be walking up and down blocks and blocks for as much of the time of the year that we normally would. So especially when you get I mean, today is not a hot day. It's not the hottest day of the year. But when it's 100 degrees in the summer or degrees in the in the winter, we 9 have aerial imagery and we have street level 10 imagery that allows us that's run on a yearly 11 basis that allows us to, kind of, walk the block 12 virtually and see different things and what 13 changes, you know, might be occurring. 14 And then from the mass appraisal 15 standpoint, we run analytics. So when we do our, 16 our mass appraisal models, there are the, the 17 models spits out numbers and, you know, 18 reliability numbers, and we run other analytics. 19 So the couple different performance measures that 20 I mentioned earlier. We look at stuff through a, a number of different ways. I mean, we've even looked into, you know, AI stuff, some black box analysis. We can't we can't use it because we have to be able to explain it and present data. But we have 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a really great mass appraisal team that's actually presented internationally several times on some of the innovative ways that we're trying to come up with to help us analyze data better. So we'd love to keep building on it, but I think I think we're pretty advanced in that. But there's, there's I will always say there are ways to improve.
Yes. As much as we're using data, we got to talk to people on the ground and talk to the homeowners and talk to the neighbors and then see the streets. Thank you.
Thank you, Council President. So Majority Leader alluded to this when, when she was asking about the projections. And so we know that the city considers the cost of appeals when they project a property tax revenue, right? For the five-year plan. Looking back, do we know historically how accurate these projections have been?
I probably have to get back to you on that. I think they've been fairly 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. accurate, but I can't give you a precise answer. So we'll get back to you on that.
So in other words, if we are looking backwards to make better decisions going forward, that's the reason for looking at that, right? So how closely do you use previous data to sharpen what you're doing going forward is really the question. And also to see how, how are how accurate our projections are because that falls into your projections for your five-year plan and also the outlook in terms of what our fund balance is going to look like. How gloom and doom or is it real? These are all going to sort of shape how Philadelphia looks, right?
Because these are things that are important for us as other people make decisions to invest in Philadelphia.
Yeah. And there are things other than appeal results that, that we look at in terms of accuracy. There's, you know, the coefficient of dispersion. We also get it's called the State Equalization Board also, kind 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of, does an analysis of how accurate our, our assessments are. Both of those shows our that our assessments are, are pretty accurate. So we take all that into account when we think about, you know, what our assessments are looking like.
So how do the appeals work into that accuracy? Meaning if you're accurate, then we shouldn't have appeals, right?
Not necessarily. You can be very accurate, and someone can still not be happy because they're not happy with what their assessment is for a variety of reasons. It doesn't have anything to do with the accuracy. And they can still get some, some kind of reduction on appeal.
And the reason I ask is going back to the, the report that was issued, right? How much of that is playing into the inaccuracy of your results or, or your projections, given this whole racial dynamic that has been documented? And we've all known this anecdotally. We are looking to see how that 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. shapes your projections as well.
Right. So like I said, we do build in appeals every year. I think our overall property projections, including appeals, have been pretty accurate over time. So I think that's something that we have built in in it.
You can give it to Council President. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Rob.
You're welcome. The chair recognizes Councilmember J. Young.
Thank you, Council President. The first question I have is revolving around just the Center City assessments. When as we see, there are a lot of some commercial builders in Center City that are considering bankruptcy, right? And they're 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. in a distressed state because for one reason or another, they may not be at a, a level of tenancy that can sustain the property. Now, when that happens, how does the how does OPA, like, reassess those properties and how does that affect the value of those properties?
How does your how, how does OPA reassess those properties when they're in these distressed states? And, and how does it I guess, how, how does the, I guess, the lack of tenancy affect the property value, the market value?
Sure. So at the beginning of the assessment process, take Center City office buildings as the example, we use you know, it's still a mass appraisal process, although just a little differently. So instead of using sales as the drivers as we do in residential properties, we consult with our industry experts and we use standard rental rates, vacancy rates, and back 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. into an income stream cap rate, and then estimate the value of, of the property for every class of building and for different locations. When you have a case like we've had recently, where vacancies in certain buildings have much exceeded the estimated, you know, rates of vacancy back in spring of '22 when we finalized the '23 values, those folks those owners are filing an appeal. And if, if the property is valued at a million dollars or more, which in the case of a Center City office tower is going to be in excess of that, the Board of Revision of Taxes requires them to file an appraisal with the board prior to a hearing if they filed the appeal. And so then we'll get the actual rent rolls, income streams on the property, and then we'll basically go through and calculate if it's necessary to revise value based on the actual numbers that the property has for, for the given tax year. So if we had the assumption for that class of property that there was going to be a 10 percent vacancy rate and the actual for the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. property turns out to be 35, we have to look at the actual number and then respond to an appeal or come to a settlement, perhaps, based on whatever revised information that is given to us at that point.
Are you able to provide us with the number of, of properties, I guess, in, in office towers that have filed for appeals, or is that something the BRT has to do?
We can look at identifying for them. I mean, we share that you know, we have both have access to that data. So, you know, we can take a look at that
Thank you. My next question is on the same similar lines of my colleagues regarding the biases in the assessments. You know, just from looking at the data, it seems that parts of North Philadelphia, particularly, are inaccurately assessed. I, I know for a fact that even on my own block, that there are similar properties with, you know, 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. assessments that are way out of range. And I do think that this the inaccurate assessments helps to contribute to gentrification in our communities because a lot of folks call our office and say, "Oh, my property is only worth $30,000," or whatever, right? And so to them, if someone were to call and say, "Hey, we want to buy your house," to them that's the value, that's what it's worth. Where in our reality, particularly on my on my own block, I know that down the street, you know, renovated homes are a selling for $400,000. So our communities are losing a lot of equity because of the inaccurate assessments. And I do understand that, you know, no one wants to pay no higher taxes, but a more accurate assessment can give the community the equity that's needed to, to stay in that community. So I do hope that, you know, OPA, you know, really takes that into consideration when, you know, the next assessment, the, the next go around. My next question is on the senior tax 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. freeze. Is that something you implement or is that something that, that Revenue implements?
Revenue question. All right. I'll, I'll hold that for another day. The nonprofit application for exemption, can you give us can you is it possible for you to provide us the breakdown of the exempt properties that are in our districts so we can take a, a look at essentially how much money the city is losing in assessments? I do know there are a lot of churches in my district, for example, that aren't active and they still are receiving this non this tax-exempt status. So can we can you provide us with a list of information so we can see where this non the nonprofit status should no longer apply?
So are you looking for like a, a list individually by property or more of a high-level overview?
Individual by property. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Okay. So the high-level overview, and I mentioned earlier, stuff will be passed from the council. That'll be rolled out by district, so you'll see the total exempt amount. But if there's a more micro level breakdown, we can certainly work to, to provide that as requested.
You're welcome. That's all we have. I want to thank you for your testimony. I want to thank you to your leader, Rob Dubow, as well for steering this ship and everything under our finances for the City of Philadelphia. That's all we have. Can Helen call up the next administration department for testimony? Thank you very much.
Next we have Carla Pagan, executive director for the Board of Revision of Taxes.
Good 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. afternoon.
Carla Pagan, executive director of the board of revision of taxes. With me today is Linda Tucci, executive assistant.
Okay. Just start your state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Carla Pagan, executive director, Board of revision of taxes. And with me today is Linda Tucci, executive assistant. The Board of Revision of Taxes hears appeals on real property valuations and addresses exemptions and inequities in those values. The BRT is an independent seven-member board appointed by the Board of Judges of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The board is required to hear assessment appeals and determine the market value from the tax year in question. The appeal board hears and renders decisions for real property assessment appeals, unique nonprofit applications, Homestead Exemption appeals, and late petitions. The Board of Viewers, our three- member independent board, hears and renders 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. decisions for eminent domain cases. Our plans for fiscal year 2025. So Pennsylvania state law says that any person aggrieved by their assessment can file a BRT appeal. The BRT board and staff are committed to resolving the 13,500 appeals filed for tax year 2023 and the 3,000 appeals filed for tax year 2024. We've had quite a robust hearing schedule all of this calendar year and anticipate that same hearing volume next calendar year. So far this year, the BRT has resolved 7,040 appeals, averaging about 580 units a month. And then while our market value appeals are our highest priority, the board has also spent substantial time hearing Homestead Exemptions, abatement appeals, and nonprofit appeals. For fiscal year 2025, the board will continue having oral hearings every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and Mondays and Fridays for non-oral or administrative hearings. The BRT expects 2023 appeal filing volume to be complete by March 31, 2025 and 2024 appeals to be complete by June, the end of FY 2025. And that concludes oral testimony. We open the floor to questions. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Sure. Thank you very much. Just in terms of community outreach, I know when the assessment goes out, there's also a first level of review that's a part of the mailer that, that residents receive in terms of their property taxes. Is there a process where I think this also comes into Revenue. So I I'm thinking in the future we'll have Revenue and OPA in the same setting. But nevertheless, do your team engage in community outreach and telling people about the process for first level of review? If they're denied on first level review, how they can go to court? Also, is there any recourse in terms of individuals who do go to court but they don't have a lawyer, right? Can you give us an idea how that's being addressed?
Yeah. So to answer your first question, the BRT does participate in community outreach. Not as much as the assessment office or revenue department; really, when we're invited. So maybe every reassessment year, there might be three to five events that 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we've gone to in the past. But we're here and, you know, we welcome an invite. Secondly, about your appeal question. So assessment notices go out. There's the informal first level review appeal that's included with your assessment notice. The BRT appeals are more formal appeal. The State sets our filing deadlines, so our appeals are due the first Monday of October, so October 7th of 2024 appeals are due for 2025 reassessments. Our hearings are two different types. Oral hearings where you come before the board similar to this, and people present their value case. Or it's a non-oral administrative hearing where people submit the documents they want to appeal, and the board gives a written answer by mail. The appeals that property owners can take to the court, they can only appeal BRT level appeals at the Court of Common Pleas. And then once the court decision comes, it could it will always override our decision. So we encourage people to when you get your reassessment, file your first level 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. review. We also encourage people to file a BRT appeal. A handful of constituents may have their appeal answers back before our deadline, but if you're in the group that has your FLR answer back after our deadline, we don't want you to miss our deadline waiting for your FLR answer. So we tell people to file both appeals simultaneously.
What trends what trends are you seeing in terms of first levels of reviews?
So I can't answer about first level reviews. That's the, the OPA appeal. But for BRT appeals, it's usually consistent. Just looking at 2023 data, about 56 percent of those appellants get some type of relief, whether it's through a board hearing or through a settlement outside of a hearing. So about so 50-50 chance that you might
Excuse me. Yes, I meant to say formal appeals versus first level 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
of review. The chair recognizes Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.
Thank you, council thank you, Council President. And good afternoon.
I want to ask a few more questions about the appeals process for the OPA assessments before you, when you came on, but I know that y'all were together. From, from your testimony you stated and here written that you resolved about 7,000 appeals in 2023, while there were 13,500 filed. What, what more resources would you need to resolve all appeals filed per year? What do you need?
Time. So the one unique item about BRT appeals is that they really are hearings like this. So in a lot of cases, the board can resolve 100 even a couple thousand appeals if they're non-oral or administrative. They don't require any type of testimony. For the other types of oral appeals 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that we hear three days a week, people come in and they present their case, their value argument, before the board. You have testimony from the appellant and also from the Office of Property Assessment. So those cases take time. Sometimes a homeowner may take 8 minutes, and then we've had cases run an hour. 9 So it depends if people are arguing over $25,000 10 or $250 million. So there is the board's been incredibly busy, but there is a certain amount of time required to get through the oral cases, you know. The, the one - a good thing about BRT appeals, if you want to, you know, have FaceTime in front of your city officials, you can come and you can vent your concerns about your assessment, so. And the board takes the time to hear those from property owners.
Can you provide a breakdown of appeals decisions that were made based on race, neighborhood, income level? 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
So by law, we can't make any appeal decisions on income level. A lot of times appellants may come in and say, I only make this much, so I can't pay that much. So by law, the board can't make an appeal decision based on someone's income. We'll refer them to those revenue programs. Also on appeal, we don't collect any data on race. So you don't know race, religion, sex, gender. You don't know any of that when people are filing their appeal. So the decision so when one files an appeal, our job as appellants are to tell the city, "Hey, we believe you got this number wrong. Here's what I think it's worth." And that's what we encourage people to submit to us, whether it's in photos, maybe they have pictures of bathrooms or kitchens that need repair. Some people may attach roofing estimates or plumbing electrical estimates to say, "Hey, you know, I need $20,000 worth of repairs." So the board will look at what the appellant submits, and then we'll they'll also take into consideration the other homes in the 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. block and how the, the subject party property under appeal compares to other houses on the block.
Is there any public available information for decisions that are based on neighborhoods?
We can give you breakdown in your district or by zip code. Yeah. So you're looking for appeal results?
Why is that? It seems that that information should be collected and published publicly.
You know what? The question has never came up before. That's something that we could probably add to our website if it's a breakdown by zip code.
Yes, ma'am. Can people engage legal representation in their 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. appeals process?
Yes. It's not required. The appeal process is free and it's so it's not required. And our board is a diverse board, so you don't have to be a real estate expert to come in and appeal. A lot of people do hire attorneys, especially a lot of the commercial owned real estate, but most residential homeowners do not. They come in themselves.
Do you have a sense of what percentage of appeals include legal representation?
Okay. Are there any costs associated with filing an appeal?
Okay. CLS's recent report recommends an independent review of BRT and its appeals process, similar to what's been done for the property assessment process. Do y'all agree with that recommendation? And would you be open to an independent review?
We're open to it. Every 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. year we kind of think, you know, how are we going to improve outreach with all these, these technological advances? We always want to make sure we're considerate of people that don't have Internet access or no QR codes. So we do have our appeal forms on our website that outlines, you know, the appeal process. We are also a public facing department. So we're open 8:30 to 4:30; Monday through Friday for people to come in and file in person. And we take appeals by email as well.
Director, thank you so much for your responses today.
4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember O'Rourke. The chair now recognizes as Councilmember Young.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair. So I am someone who has been before the board representing clients, trying to get their assessments down on multiple occasions. So I know that process can be frustrating for folks who, you know, who don't have attorneys, who just feel like the city some of my clients, anyway, feel like the city has just been working against them rather for them in the during this process. So can you tell us, how has the inaccurate assessments affected the efficiency of the BRT?
I don't know if I can address the inaccurate assessments, but, you know, state law says the BRT has to be here because we as homeowners can appeal our assessments. So, so that's in place to protect us. Usually our appeal filing volume is dependent on how many notices the assessment 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. office mails out and the, the amount of the percentage change or increase. So our volume is direct related to usually the number of appeals that or excuse me. The number of changed assessments that go out. And then we probably have a base, maybe 2,500 people appeal every year whether they got changed or not. But so our volume usually increases if more people have a higher change in assessment.
And you mentioned, you said by law you're not allowed to make a decision based on someone's income on their on their assessed value. You refer them to the, the programs that the city has essentially. Now can you do you know, is this a state law? Is this a city law? Like, which laws are you prevent you from providing a decision based on someone's income?
Yeah. It's, it's very clear that the board makes a decision on real 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. estate assessment only and they use those facts tied to assessments to make the decision.
And I just know from my own practice that typically when there is a disagreement between the city and a property owner, and the property owner has an they, they have they have got a private appraisal done, they typically try to meet in the middle. Like, that's typically what seems to happen. Is there a process where the can you just, just talk to us about the administrative process of the appeals rather than going to in front of the board itself to see what goes into that? Because I'm just trying to see if there's a way we can lower the amount of actual appeals heard before the board. And there can be some kind of, like, mitigation done, more mitigation done prior to going to the, the full board.
Sure. So about 50 percent appeals get reduced every appeal season. And some of those happen because people come before the board, the board hears their case, and issues 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a revision letter. A lot of times, though, city assessors from the OPA will reach out and contact a person that has an appeal hearing coming up. And very often times, the OPA too could look at what the petitioner has submitted and say, "Oh, yes. We agree. This, this parcel requires or warrants a reduction." And in those cases, very often a city assessor will reach out to the property owner, and if there's a meeting of the minds and the value being offered, then, yes, you can settle outside of a hearing.
So is there more deference given to OPA's assessment versus the a person a property owner getting their own private appraiser?
No. So like the chief assessor was saying, the OPA does mass appraisal. They don't look at my house or Linda's house and make a decision per house. It's a cluster or a group of properties where if an appellant hires an independent appraisal, it's very specific, targeted to that parcel. That's, that's very strong evidence. So because what if my house is the worst house on 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the block? You don't know until you open the door.
Or maybe if I'm an income producing property, the City might not know, "Oh, I have three vacancies while my neighbor only has one vacancy." Or if I have a unit that needs repairs. So independent appraisals are very helpful in determining an a property owner's assessed value or their overall valuation. It's only required by our board if the assessment's
What about in cases where there was a recent sale of a property? Do you guys take into consideration the market value of that sale when making a decision on the tax appeals or not?
We do. So that's a that's a big indicator of value. A house for sale on the open market, sold under conditions not of duress. So very often, people will file 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. an appeal with us, and they might include their appraisal report they used to purchase or maybe a copy of their newly recorded deed. That's very common, yes.
Yeah. I only 7 asked that because I worked on a case where the 8 property was recently purchased. The City still 9 came in at a higher rate, and ultimately, they 10 negotiated and settled at an assessment value 11 that was still higher than what the property 12 owner purchased the property for literally, like, 13 that same few months ago. 14 And so that, that tends to happen a 15 lot. And I'm not, you know, just saying that 16 just from anecdotal experiences. I've, I've 17 represented clients directly in these matters. 18 So I just want to bring that to the to the 19 attention of 20
the, the board. 22 But I do know the board is you know, they have 23 been fair. I am going to give the board credit 24 where, where credit is due. They have been fair. 25 I just think that the numbers that you're given 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to start with aren't fair, and so we end up in a situation that we're in. But I don't have any more questions, Madam Chair, thank you so much for your, your deference.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Young. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Landau.
when I worked for the city of Philadelphia. It was good to see you two again.
I, I wanted to ask a couple of questions about what would make your volume lower. It's, it's striking that you had 13,000 appeals in FY 2023. Would your work be easier if OPA assessed properties each year?
Let's go back to why I think this. Oftentimes when you haven't assessed a property for multiple years, the jump is so significant
people get the sticker shock. Plus they haven't been saving up for it, and they aren't able to pay the higher amount, even if that higher amount is the correct amount.
Yeah. So my so my response to your first question. Was is our appeal filing volume would be lower if people had a smaller increase in change. Yes.
Okay. And then the next question, I, I, I, I just don't know the answer to this one; is that when the OPA sends out their assessment, is there language access information on there and is there language access information at your office for folks who want to file an appeal who don't speak English?
So the BRT has language access info only on the citywide language website. And then we work with a translator 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. company to help people that may come into our office that don't speak English. And that same translation company will also come or attend remotely our appeal hearing to help translation services. But, yeah, the only place that information is documented is on the citywide website.
I think we need more language access assistance through this entire process. It is so confusing, even for folks who speak English, that if you're if you're challenged there, it's a very complicated process to figure out how to go about these appeals. I would really hope that you guys could expand your language access.
I also, after a decision is made at the BRT, go back to my original scenario. Your taxes were set at $1,000, but I thought my taxes should be $800. So I file an appeal, and let's say I'm successful. It's $800. How quickly do you get that decision over to the revenue department?
So after someone comes to 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a, a board hearing, it's two to three weeks before they get their decision letter from us. So the appellants are mailed the decision letter first. It's to 72 hours before we send those 6 results to the Office of Property Assessment. 7 And then the Office of Property Assessment has to 8 prepare a separate document to send that value 9 change to revenue. 10
Why can't your 11 office send the, the decision directly to Revenue 12 right when you're getting it to the homeowner 13 instead of having to go back to OPA? 14
Yeah. Even though the 15 board changes has the power to change the 16 market value or an assessment on a property, we 17 don't have the authorization to make that change 18 directly. So we don't have the ability to change 19 an OPA value. 20
So that should 24 have been an OPA question. I got you. I the entire system has to go faster. I understand. 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I, I watched how much you guys are working. You have so many appeals to do. If the system were more efficient, we would have fewer appeals, fewer concerned residents, fewer less bias coming out. And also, the whole system could happen even faster. It's very, very challenging on the homeowners, as you know.
Especially when we go back to how it starts, with what you were saying, the clusters. My house is your house could be have far less value than the fancy houses being built down the street, but you're going to get dinged for it, and your property value is going to go up. You're then going to be charged a higher amount. You then have to go through an appeals process. You've got to wait. You've got thousands of thousands of cases before you because of what happened in the past. It's just we'd like to help figure out a, a quicker process
Yeah. And I understand how much is on you and how much you're working, but there's the whole I think we need I, I liked Councilman O'Rourke's suggestion of looking at the whole system through one of our helper, you know, our, our programs that will help you figure it all out.
Thank you. And last question. J. Young? No? Okay. I will recognize. Your light's on.
I'm sorry. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Just one last question. The nunc pro tunc process for late for late appeals, is there a standard, I guess, policy or, or review that the board has when determining when to allow a taxpayer to file a late appeal?
Yes. So we have the right as homeowners to appeal late whenever we see fit. But 90 days past the filing deadline, the board 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. is pretty lenient. When you when you're three months late, six months late, some people file 4 four years late, they become less lenient and the reason for filing late not may not be as clear. So it really is a case-by-case basis, but usually if you're in the first 90 days of the deadline, they're pretty lenient.
Yeah. I just think that most folks won't don't know the 90 days deadline, particularly if I'm paying my taxes late anyway, right? Which a lot of folks tend to do. So and I just think that you know, I, I hope the board provides a little more deference, particularly to those that are lower income, that are trying to get their stuff together and situated, who are just looking for help and don't know where to go. And, and sometimes it actually takes them a year to find out that they have this appeals process available to them. So I just want to put that on record. I hope the, the board, you know, considers the totality of someone's circumstances when making the decision 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. on allowing the nunc pro tunc late appeals. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.
You're welcome. Any other questions or comments from members of the committee hearing? None. We want to just say thank you
I know you do a lot of hard work and dedicated to helping the citizens here in the state of Philadelphia. So thank you very much.
The chair recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson for a motion that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. sharp in Room 400, City Hall.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move that City Council's Committee on the Whole stand in recess 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. until Tuesday, April 30th at 10:00 a.m. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 9 400, City Hall. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This committee will stand in recess until Tuesday, April the 30th, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. at which time we will reconvene at Room 400. Thank you very much. - - - (Committee of the Whole adjourned.) 4/29/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIPTIONIST I, GEOFFREY NJAGI, Legal Transcriptionist, do hereby certify: That the foregoing is a complete and true transcription of the original digital audio recording of the proceedings captured in the foregoing matter. IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 13th day of May, 2024. ______________________________________ Geoffrey Njagi