ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Somebody Remind Assessor That These Are Tough Times

Orange County Assessor Bradley L. Jacobs has to realize that these are tough times. The county is bankrupt, needs all the money it can get and is depending on extraordinary efforts from all county workers who managed to hang onto their jobs while their colleagues were being laid off. And even more than usual, Orange County is depending on leadership from its elected officials, which is where Jacobs comes in.

The assessor has stopped defending some of the property assessments made by his office if those assessments are disputed by property owners. Jacobs argues that he does not have enough staff or money to handle the workload.

Especially worrisome has been the practice whereby the assessor’s office writes off complete hearings of appeals cases, in which several disputes are heard.

Jacobs might be able make an argument that it would not be cost-effective to have a staffer spend many hours justifying, say, a $200,000 assessment when a homeowner argued that the real value of the property was only $150,000. However, surely he should defend appeals in which the difference in estimated values can be in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars. These are, after all, times in which every dollar counts.

Understandably, county supervisors are unhappy with this situation and angry with Jacobs, who did not even attend last week’s supervisors’ meeting.

The supervisors have acted to help the assessor’s office with its workload and rightly have ordered an audit of the office to see just what is going on. They are limited in what action they can take against the assessor, because he is an elected official. They might take steps to do an end run around the office if that turns out to be necessary.

The Board of Supervisors moved to transfer six positions from Jacobs’ office to the clerk of the board to handle a portion of the appeal process. There is also a move to possibly deputize workers in the General Services Agency to get the work done. Clearly, none of this should have to happen.

Jacobs says that the county has not lost any money so far. But last year’s experience was unsettling and must not be repeated.

A year ago, before the bankruptcy, an inordinate number of appeals slipped past the two-year deadline in which the assessor’s office must defend the valuation it applies to a property. If the deadline is missed, the property owner’s valuation prevails. This is quite literally a case of the county allowing money it probably is owed to slip through its hands.

In one case, the Bank of America valued a parcel at less than $24 million; the county put the value at $120 million. The appeals deadline passed, and the bank won. The assessor’s office and the office of the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, which schedules appeals hearings, each blamed the other.

In all, about 100 assessment appeals missed the deadline, costing the county as much as $1.6 million in property taxes.

Jacobs’ office, which has several hundred workers, must prepare the county property tax roll as well as handle appeals. With property values dropping for several years, an increasing number of homeowners and businesses have appealed the valuations. While the pressures on the assessor and his staff are real, all in county government are having to make do with far less than before. It’s essential to set priorities and do what can be done.

Many departments in county government have lost employees and suffered large budget cutbacks as a result of the bankruptcy that was declared last year. The assessor’s office certainly is not alone. Jacobs needs to lead his staff members in working as hard as they can in an era of stringent restrictions. Throwing up his hands for lack of money or personnel is not going to help anyone.