Assessor Responds: No Gridlock, Just Heavy Traffic

Good for you, Jenny Erickson!

To paraphrase the title of the Howard Jarvis book, you got “mad as hell”--and you spoke out (“Property Tax Transfers Hit Gridlock,” July 16).

One thing I learned from the late Howard Jarvis, whose endorsement helped elect me assessor in 1986, was to pay attention to constituents’ complaints.

It’s always a disappointment when an elected official sees his or her department criticized in the press. But I applaud Erickson’s determination to get her story heard and remind the politicians that senior citizens aren’t going to ride in the “rumble seat” of government programs after a lifetime of paying taxes.

The Erickson problem involved a law, Proposition 60, passed solely to benefit seniors by allowing them to buy a new home within the county but keep their old tax base as long as the new home cost the same or less than the former one.

Proposition 60, which I supported, was approved by the voters in November, 1986, only a month before I took office.

As assessor, I took over an agency long neglected in both funding and staffing, while responsible for appraising about 2.1 million parcels of property a year and implementing special services such as Proposition 60.

Since then, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has supplied the needed budgetary increases, and we’ve put all our regional offices back on a normal five-day-a-week schedule, opened two new ones, increased hiring and are about to release a third record-breaking property roll--all within the guidelines of Proposition 13.

Twenty-two percent of all the revenue received by county government comes from the 1,600 dedicated employees of this department, who bring in $50 for every $1 spent.

Hundreds of cities, school boards and special districts also depend heavily on the local property tax to fund services, such as law enforcement and fire protection.

But no government agency will ever function perfectly. To assure a zero error rate would probably require a doubling of staff and budget in a county this size.

To avoid the kind of problem that happened to the Ericksons, the Orange County Assessor’s Department, for instance, has a special $2-million “imaging” computer system to centralize all records--yet their workload is only one-fifth of Los Angeles County’s.

My data processing staff has been working on a similar system for this department. The only obstacle is cost; but in a department already receiving $61 million in hard-earned tax dollars, we take that problem seriously.

But in voicing displeasure over how her Proposition 60 claim was handled, Erickson understandably got a few facts wrong.

We have never had only one employee working on Proposition 60 claims, and there were a number of people whose duties included handling such forms long before the Erickson problem arose. There are now at least six employees involved in the Proposition 60 program.

It is true that we had received 5,849 Proposition 60 applications by the time the Erickson claim was submitted in January and that only 5,230 had been approved.

But the difference included nearly 400 claims that were incomplete when filed, and more information is being sought from the homeowner.

The 220 pending applications will be processed by the middle of the month--and I don’t think that translates into the “gridlock” suggested by the Times Speaking Out headline.

I should also note that the Assessor’s Department does not compute or collect taxes, nor even mail out the bills. I am hardly in possession of the $2,500 in extra taxes paid by the Ericksons because of the delayed Proposition 60 approval. The refund due will come from the Auditor-Controller Department in December.

The Assessor’s Department has more than enough to do already, including the handling of about 375,000 deeds a year, processing 240,000 reappraisal ownership transfers and reviewing 110,000 construction permits issued annually.

Ironically, it was what seemed like sound advice given to the Ericksons by a real estate broker that actually began the series of events resulting in the mishandling of their claim.

The real estate broker’s suggestion was not to delay in filing a Proposition 60 claim. It is possible to permanently lose the right to seek a Proposition 60 benefit by filing past certain deadlines, which were made part of the law.

I would urge anyone considering a Proposition 60 transfer to request our Homeowners Guide to Proposition 60 by writing the Assessor’s Office, Room 225, Hall of Administration, 500 W. Temple St., Los Angeles 90012. The brochures are also available at our 12 regional offices.

But in heeding an expert’s advice, the Ericksons submitted their Proposition 60 claim a full six weeks before the deed on their new Westlake Village home was given to the Registrar-Recorder Department to be processed and then turned over to my office.

Had the claim and the deed been submitted at the same time, none of this would have happened.

We receive from 1,500 to 3,000 deeds a day from the registrar-recorder and it is not physically possible to check every deed to see if it might involve a Proposition 60 claim filed earlier and separately.

However, there is no denying that human error on the part of the assessor’s staff compounded the Erickson claim situation.

We have been working jointly with registrar-recorder personnel for quite some time to develop a better system of processing Proposition 60 claims, and new procedures are due to take effect in January that should eliminate such errors.

Although I was elected by a million-vote majority, after spending 15 years as a deputy assessor, each constituent’s concern is very important to me.

I mention that in closing because I like to feel that being selected to serve as only the 22nd assessor of Los Angeles County was party due to my commitment to make this office the best it can be and to take quick action whenever that goal isn’t being met.