The seven-member panel is expected to decide whether it should simply apply to property values a ratio that could automatically cut property taxes 44 percent, or whether the School District of Philadelphia should have a chance to cut its losses by cross-appealing assessments to push them higher.
City finance director Rob Dubow has not released an estimate of revenue loss from the appeals, which cover 60 percent of Philadelphia's nonresidential tax base by value and just a sliver of residential property value.
Dubow said the $80 million worst-case estimate does not have much relevance and "substantially overstates the city's risk" because he expected the ratio, a key factor in that calculation, to change.
Uri Monson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, a state body that keeps tabs on Philadelphia's finances, said he had been unable to get a sense of how big the revenue loss would be.
"We kept trying to come up with numbers on this, but every time we did it, there were so many unknowns," said Monson, who is leaving his post in Philadelphia to become Montgomery County's chief financial officer.
An attorney for one of the property owners with pending appeals described the school district's cross-appeals as retaliatory because they applied only to owners who filed appeals.
"We just want to pay our fair share of tax, and if that means the city will lose some amount of money, then it's money that the city should not have anyway," said Carl S. Primavera, who is handling an appeal for the owner of the former DisneyQuest site in the 800 block of Market Street.
