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