To: Board of Supervisors
Department or Agency Name(s): Clerk-Recorder-Assessor
Staff Name and Phone Number: Rhiannon Yeager (707) 565-1866
Vote Requirement: Majority
Supervisorial District(s): Countywide
Title:
Title
Assessor Backlog Positions
End
Recommended Action:
Recommended action
A) Adopt a Resolution amending the County Clerk-Recorder-Assessor department allocation list to add 3.0 permanent Appraiser III, 1.0 permanent Assessment Specialist, and 2.0 time-limited Clerk-Recorder-Assessor Specialist II for a five-year term in the Assessor’s division effective May 2, 2022.
B) Approve reducing the FY 2022-23 Recommended Budget General Fund Contingencies by $685,870 to finance increased operational costs, which will conversely also result in an increased General Fund support through FY 2026-27, reducing to $487,000 as ongoing thereafter once the requested five-year 2.0 time-limited positions term ends in May 2027.
end
Executive Summary:
The Assessor’s Office is requesting the addition of four (4) permanent positions and two (2) time-limited positions for a 5-year term ending June 30, 2027. This request is necessary to complete all mandated services required of the Assessor, by addressing significant backlogs in assessments in order to provide accurate assessments to taxpayers, maintain a high level of customer service and reduce impacts to other County Departments.
Discussion:
The Assessor’s Office is required under Article 13A of the California Constitution to assess all property for property tax purposes. Proposition 13 requires that property be reassessed when a qualifying event occurs, such as a change in ownership or new construction. When these events occur on a date other than January 1st, a supplemental event is created, resulting in a supplemental assessment and tax bill. Assessments must be completed for all qualified events in a given calendar year by June 30th of the following year to be considered timely and be enrolled in the assessment roll. At that time, the assessment roll is closed and passed to the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector (ACTTC) Department to create and issue tax bills.
Supplemental events that are not worked timely (by the close of the assessment roll) are worked through the roll correction process, in the next (or later) years. This impacts property owners who may wait for over a year for a correct assessment and tax bill, and creates additional paperwork for both the Assessor and ACTTC. Currently, the Assessor’s Office is valuing events approximately 24 months after the occurrence, 18 months outside the timely enrollment period expectation, a time frame that has grown steadily longer since 2017, when the time frame was 6 months. The number of roll corrections, or the supplemental events that were not timely processed, has grown from approximately 2,700 in 2008/2009, when the Assessor had a staff of 74.0 FTE to 12,000 in 2020/2021 with a staff of 64.8 FTE. Since then, the office has only processed about 6,000 annually, because current staffing levels are unable to process more, causing the timelines to fall further behind.
Backlog of Assessment Workload
Over the last 15 years, the Assessor’s Office has had a permanent staffing cut of 9.2 positions, primarily due to budget cuts required to bridge County deficits as well as efficiencies gained from the implementation of a computer assisted mass appraisal system, while workload has risen or been maintained, resulting in delays of assessments. Additionally, several years of calamity events has created more of a backlog, due to the number of times a property must be assessed after a calamity event. Over the same period staffing has been reduced by 12%, while workload has grown or stayed stable. The number of permits/construction events evaluated for reappraisal has shown a steady increase over the years, going from 11,727 in FY 2008/2009 to over 24,000 in FY 2020/2021. Our Exemptions unit has seen a large increase in filings for Low Income Housing projects over the last several years. These claims involve initial complex documentation and research, as well as annual compliance verification and monitoring once they’ve been approved. This has put a large strain on our Exemptions Unit and their ability to process all exemptions timely. Other workload factors have remained generally stable, such as the number of re-appraisable transfers and splits/subdivisions.
The 2017/2018 roll year began with an increase in workload was due to the strong real estate market which influenced new construction. The same year, the Assessor’s Office worked 5,398 calamities. Beginning in the FY 2019/2020 roll year, 8,500 work items were left incomplete to be worked as roll corrections. An additional 247 calamity reductions were added due to the Kincade fire that year. The FY 2020/2021 roll year was closed after working an additional 376 calamity reductions due to the LNU and Glass wildfires with 12,000 work items incomplete. Each roll year, unfinished items from previous years are added to the current years’ work items. A computer assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) system purchased during the great recession allowed the Assessor’s office to appraise and process residential Proposition 8 decline in values and some residential transfers. While there has been a major decline in Proposition 8 assessments since the purchase of the CAMA system due to a strong real estate market, the workload that has been increased is complex and unable to be valued using the CAMA system, such as calamity events and new construction. To date there are 3,344 outstanding calamity assessments with 659 final calamity rebuild permits that are considered late and will be valued through the roll correction process. All remaining calamities are assessed on an annual basis until construction is completed.
The Board of Supervisors has previously supported the Assessor’s Office due to unprecedented workload. In response to the calamity events of 2017, the Board of Supervisors granted funding for 3.0 appraisers for 3-year time limited term from FY 2018/2019 to FY 2020/2021, and 3 support staff for 2-year time limited terms from FY 2019/2020 to FY 2020/2021. Appraisers must become certified and trained before taking on appraisal work items. It typically takes approximately one year before they are considered to be trained. Hiring of temporary staff is challenging, due to the desire of certified staff to have permanent, stable employment. Delays in initially hiring the 3.0 time-limited appraisers meant that work was not started on the increased workload until several months later. Additionally, when permanent appraisers or staff retire, time-limited staff apply for and are moved into permanent position allocations, creating a cycle of vacancy, and hence shortening filled allocations for the remaining term of positions.
A typical training period for an Appraiser is one year. During the first year, the appraiser is studying for the State Board of Equalization certificate necessary to perform their job, learning the appraisal practice and Assessor systems. Due to the cyclical nature of property tax assessment, it takes approximately three years for an appraiser to be fully trained in residential assessment. Calamity assessments can be complex and the time-limited appraisers hired in response to the 2017 wildfires assisted with more entry level residential work and not the fire assessments. This allowed the more experienced appraisal staff to focus on the complex assessments related to the 2017, 2019 and 2020 wildfires. The passage of AB 2013 in 2020, increased the work involved with fire repairs from restoring previously established base year values to doing a market appraisal comparison for every event.
Backlog Impacts
Numerous departments and agencies rely on the data and information from the Assessor’s office, and experience negative impacts when work is not done in a timely manner. The Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector (ACTTC) relies on the timely processing of assessment and owner information to send out tax bills, including supplemental bills resulting from sales and new construction. A backlog increases the ACTTC workload related to processing corrections, issuing corrected tax bills and customer service. Permit Sonoma utilizes Assessor ownership data in their permit database. Having out of date information results in permits being issued to prior owners, as well as lot line adjustments and subdivisions being delayed until the Assessor completes their work. Department of Agriculture, Weights & Measures utilizes Assessor ownership data to issue VESCO permits. The current backlog has resulted in staff in Department of Agriculture, Weights & Measures to have to manually research legal ownership via recorded documents to determine current ownership before issuing permits. Taxing agencies, including school districts, are also affected by delayed tax revenue distributions.
Requested Staffing Resources
The department is requesting addition of four (4) permanent positions and two (2) term-limited positions for a 5-year term to address the backlog of work and prevent further backlog growth.
Three (3) Real Property Appraisers will assist by appraising all re-assessable events, and balance out assignments for a manageable workload per appraiser. While training for a new appraiser takes a minimum of one full year, these appraisers can address residential transfers and non-fire related construction allowing the more experienced appraisers to focus on calamity reassessments and Proposition 19 assessments. Based on discussions with comparable counties during conferences and business meetings, Real Property Appraisers have an estimated 500-800 more work events per year than other counties throughout the state. The increase in workload items is due to multiple wildfire events, construction and legislative changes.
One (1) Assessment Specialist will value exemptions and assist with entering assessed values into the property tax system. Current backlogs exist with Assessment Specialists keying values into the property tax system to the assessment roll, delays in reading recorded deeds due to the increase in recordings and processing welfare, disabled veterans and low-income housing exemptions.
Due to shortages of certified staffing, supervisors and managers are frequently filling in to provide basic customer service including reception desk staffing, phone calls and supporting the front counter. While all personnel provide some level of customer service, moving staff from their area’s specific responsibility to provide reception duties slows down the crucial work processes. Two (2) five-year time limited Clerk-Recorder-Assessor Specialists I/II will assist with customer service, as well as workflow processes as the office transitions to more electronic workflow options. They will assist with necessary scanning, and allow certified staff to focus on their own priorities in addition to assisting with the daily needs of providing customer service to taxpayers.
Strategic Plan:
N/A
Prior Board Actions:
11/16/2021 - Proposition 19 Staffing
02/09/2010 - Authorized purchase of computer aided mass appraisal system (CAMA)
Fiscal Summary
|
Expenditures |
FY 21-22 Adopted |
FY22-23 Projected |
FY 23-24 Projected |
|
Budgeted Expenses |
$47,854 |
$685,870 |
$706,446 |
|
Additional Appropriation Requested |
|
|
|
|
Total Expenditures |
$47,854 |
$685,870 |
$706,446 |
|
Funding Sources |
|
|
|
|
General Fund/WA GF |
$47,854 |
$685,870 |
$706,446 |
|
State/Federal |
|
|
|
|
Fees/Other |
|
|
|
|
Use of Fund Balance |
|
|
|
|
Contingencies |
|
|
|
|
Total Sources |
$47,854 |
$685,870 |
$706,446 |
Narrative Explanation of Fiscal Impacts:
Should the Board approve the 6.0 positions, the department anticipates that the most will be hired by the end of May 2022. Based on this, FY 2021/22 position costs are estimated to be $47,854. There are sufficient appropriations in the Assessor FY 21/22 budget to cover current year costs.
The FY 22/23 cost for 2.0 time-limited Clerk-Recorder-Assessor Specialists is $199,337, $121,992 for the Assessment Specialist, and $364,541 for 3.0 Appraisers.
The 2.0 time-limited Clerk-Recorder-Assessor Specialist positions are estimated to cost $1,068,606 over the 5-year term.
Funding for the annual cost of these positions will reduce available General Fund Contingencies by $685,870 beginning in FY 2022-23 for a beginning balance of $4.3M, and in FY 2027-28 will be reduced by $487,000 for a beginning balance of $4.5M thereafter once the five-year time-limited positions terms end in May 2027. If additional ongoing sources become available, the Board may choose to restore General Fund Contingencies during FY 2022-23 budget hearings.
|
Staffing Impacts: |
|
|
|
|
Position Title (Payroll Classification) |
Monthly Salary Range (A-I Step) |
Additions (Number) |
Deletions (Number) |
|
Appraiser I/II/III |
$3,389 - $4,119 |
3 |
|
|
Clerk-Recorder-Assessor Specialist |
$2,184 - $2,654 |
2 |
|
|
Assessment Specialist |
$2,647- $3,217 |
1 |
|
Narrative Explanation of Staffing Impacts (If Required):
Staffing levels have been unable to keep up with increased workload due to new housing, vineyards, and businesses, and large increase in workload related to the multiple wildfires beginning in 2017. The new positions will relieve some of the workload added, as new processes are developed to meet the new mandates.
Attachments:
Resolution
Related Items “On File” with the Clerk of the Board:
N/A