Too Good a Job?

One of the few agreements between Assessor Bradley L. Jacobs and the team of outside auditors who scrutinized his department is that he needs more people. How to get the extra staff has Jacobs at loggerheads with county supervisors and the auditors.

This month, the supervisors again urged Jacobs to apply for a loan from the state to hire workers and better handle an increasing workload. The assessor said he is ineligible for the loan because, ironically, his office is doing too good a job. Several years ago, when the state offered the loans, it said they would go to counties that did not reduce the budget or staffs of their assessor’s offices. That was wise, for it stopped counties from trying to substitute state funds for county money that would be spent elsewhere.

Jacobs says his staff, once over 300, now is around 290. He argues that the cut in staff and in his budget, in part due to the bankruptcy, makes his office ineligible for the loans. The assessor is charged with figuring out how much individual properties in the county are worth. It’s a massive job, requiring high-powered computers. The current valuation of all the property in the county is $173 billion. Taxes paid on that property work out to the neighborhood of $2 billion.

Jacobs would be well-advised to apply for the state loan. Counties receiving the loans are required to establish efficiency targets. If they meet them, the state converts the loans into grants.

Orange County could receive as much as $13 million in two years if Jacobs is wrong. If he is right and the application is denied, he would be in better position to renew his request to the supervisors for more money.

As Jacobs notes, the most recent audit of his office found that it was doing more with less money than other assessors’ departments around the state. Over the years, Jacobs has kept staff and budget down.

There have been problems in years when many homeowners requested reviews of their property tax bills because recession knocked down the value of their homes. But a lapse in scheduling appeals two years ago turned out to be the fault of the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, not the assessor.

Jacobs has done good work over the years but he needs more people now. If he cannot get it from the state, he will have a more compelling argument to get it from the supervisors when the next budget is formulated.