HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 09231997 - D1 D. 1
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
Adopted this order on September 23 , 1997 by the following vote :
AYES :Supervisors Rogers, Uilkema, Gerber, Canciamilla, DeSaulnier
NOES : None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN: None
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
SUBJECT: Report From The Assessor On Department Performance
IT IS BY THE BOARD ORDERED that the report from Gus Kramer,
County Assessor, on department performance is ACCEPTED.
I hereby certify that this Is a true and correct copy of
an action take and entered on the minutes of the
Board of Supe iso n th date shown. 1.1J.�1
ATTESTED: 1
PHIL BATC R, Clerk of the B and
of rviso County A istrator
BY J .Deputy
CC: Assessor
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GUS KRAMER
COUNTY ASSESSOR
1996 - 1997 PERFORMANCE REPORT
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Assessor's 1996-97
Performance Report
Table of Contents
Page
Description
Number
Section I Overview
Departmental Responsibilities.......................................................... 1
Organizational Structure................................................................... 1
Section II - Resources
Financial............:......:....................................................................... 3
Personnel.......................................................................................... 4
Affirmative Action.............................................................................. 4
SickLeave...................................... ............................................. 5
Staff Development.....:...................................................................... 5
Automation.......... ................ .......:............................................... 6
Section III - Customer Service
Service Delivery System................................................................... 7
CustomerProfile............................................................................... 7
Customer Relationships.................................................................... 7
Section IV - Annual Performance
Performance Indicators
Obtain AB818 Funding............................................................ 8
Meet AB818 Repayment Performance.................................... 8
Develop Internet, WEB Page.................................................... 9
Settle Major Assessment Appeals........................................... 9
Accomplishments...............................................................................10
Section V - Challenges and New Directions
Challenges................ .. .............. ................... ........................... 11
New Directions.:......................................................::: .....................12
ASSESSOR'S OFFICE
September 23, 1997
SECTION I - OVERVIEW
A. Department Responsibilities
The purpose of the Assessor's Office is to produce a timely roll of all property
subject to local assessment, administer legally permissible exemptions,
develop and maintain a set of current maps delineating property ownerships,
defend assessments as required before an appellate body and provide
information and service to the public as needed. The Assessor's Office is
mandated to render all functions that are currently being performed.
B. Organizational Structure
The Department is organized into four program areas. These program
functions are interrelated and work as a combined unit to meet the goals of
the office.
Appraisal - Ensure that all secured real and personal property within the
County has been accurately valued and entered on the regular and
supplemental assessment rolls.
Business - Ensure that all business personal property within the County has
been accurately reported and valued and values have been entered on the
regular and supplemental assessment rolls.
Support Services - Enroll all valid exemptions on the regular and
supplemental local assessment rolls, provide data entry and drafting services
to the department, review policies and procedures, and make changes where
necessary, and provide public service to agencies, private organizations and
to the general public.
Administrative Services - Establish and administer policies relative to
department operations and provide administrative guidelines for carrying out
these policies.
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.Section II - RESOURCES
A. Financial Resources
The budget is allocated as shown below among the four programs:
Program Expenditures Financing Net County Cost
Appraisal $4,906,304 $1 ,157,900 $3,748,404
Business 1 ,415,280 334,009 1 ,081 ,271
Support Services 2,453,152 578,950 1 ,804,202
Administrative Svc. 660,464 155,871 504,593
TOTAL $9,435,200 $2,226,730 $7,208,470
Financing
Source Amount
Property Tax Administration $1 ,935,828
Fees 254,475
Interdepartmental Transfers 36,427
Total $2,226,730
Property Tax Administration - Fees collected from Cities and Special
Districts and funds from AB818.
Fees - Revenue received primarily from the sale of assessment data and .
parcel maps.
Interdepartmental Transfers - Drafting services performed for LAFCO.
3
.B. Personnel Resources
Program Staff
Appraisal 62
Business 23
Support Services 43
Administrative Services 7
Total 135
This is the second year utilizing AB818 funds that we have been able to
restore part of our staff (two positions) that had been steadily decreasing over
the last few years. We are implementing a program of utilizing technicians
(five positions) to accomplish some of the routine tasks currently being
performed by the professional appraisalstaff. The utilization of technicians
should allow more work to be accomplished at a lower cost.
C. Affirmative Action
The Department is continually trying to improve its affirmative action representation.
As a result our extensive outreach program we were able to hire a number of Junior
Appraisers and Auditor Appraiser I's to help are program. We made progress and
will continue our effort until our goal is met. Management is where we have made
the greatest improvement, we now have four ethnic minorities and two females in
appraisal management positions.
The following describes the staff by affirmative action category:
Male Female Total Staff Workforce
White 49 48 97
African American 3 6 9 7.0% 7.6%
Hispanic 2 6 8 6.3% 10.5%
Asian/Filipino 6 5 11 8.6% 8.9%
American Indian 0 3 3 2.3% .8%
Filled Positions 60 68 128 53.1%* 45.4%
Vacant Positions 7
Total Positions 135
* Percentage of Female Staff
4
D. Sick Leave
The Department continues to discourage the indiscriminate use of Sick Leave.
Over the last three years the average Sick Leave used per employee has
remained fairly constant. The Sick Leave hours in BOLD were adjusted to
remove hours used for maternity leave and catastrophic events.
Adjusted Sick Leave Hours
TOTAL HOURS TOTAL HOURS
YEAR HOURS PER EMPL HOURS PER EMPL
1994 7,657.7 63.3 69715.2 55.5
1995 7,929.0 64.7 69971.1 56.9
1996 7,526.2 60.1 6759.2 54.1
E. Staff Development
Performance Evaluation - The Department requires that a performance
evaluation be done annually on all employees by their supervisor. All
supervisors are evaluated by their staff and the results of these evaluations
becomes part of the Supervisors own evaluation.
Professional Development - All appraisal personnel are required to attain an
appraisal certification issued by the State Board of Equalization, and to
maintain their certification are required to complete up to 24 hours of
continuing education annually. Qualifying courses are available through the
Appraisal Institute, State Board of Equalization, and we work with other
neighboring counties to provide qualifying courses.
We encourage all of our staff to take courses from the training institute, PC
software training from D.O.I.T., and other course work to assist in their career
development.
5
F. Automation
Automation has and continues to play an important role in allowing the office
to improve production so more work can be accomplished with fewer staff
resources. The office utilizes a combination of the County mainframe
computer, office Local Area Network (LAN), County Wide Area Network
(WAN), and Personal Computers to accomplish its' mission.
In the last two years we have acquired over 70 new personal computers and
were able expand our Local Area Network (LAN) through the Property Tax
Administration Funds provided through AB818. We have linked our offices
and the Clerk of the Board with fibre optic cable to provide instant access to
our Assessment Appeal Database and as well as other common databases.
We have one full time staff person with appraisal experience who writes and
maintains all of our PC database programs. By reassigning some of our staff
we have been able to enhance our in-house PC database staff to meet the
continuing automation demands of our appraisal and audit staffs. Many of our
appraisers and auditor/appraisers have learn the Access Data Base and have
developed programs to automate their daily operations.
Appraisal Division - Utilizes Personal Computers using in-house developed
software to assist appraisers in completing the more complex appraisals. The
programs speed the appraisal process as well as providing good
documentation for answering questions or presentations to the Assessment
Appeals board.
Business Division - Utilizes Personal Computers and in-house software to
assist the auditors in completing local and out of state audits. This last year a
new. PC program was implemented to improve the efficiency of our leasing
section. The use of portable personal computers has also enhanced the
speed of completing Audits as well as providing uniform documentation.
Support Division - Utilizes computers to draw the floor plans of new
construction and to compute square footage, removing a time-consuming task
from the appraisal staff. New software and two new.printers were installed to
make this program even more efficient. We recently upgraded our Computer
Aided Drafting (CAD) system software and are continuing the process of
converting our parcel maps into digitized formats. Funding from AB818 will
help to speed the labor intensive conversion process. Once converted this
system will provide many dividends in the future. In the next few months we
6
will be connecting our drafting computers to the County WAN, which will allow
direct access to maps maintained by the Public Works department.
Administrative Services - An enhanced Network Server and upgraded Novell
Software for our Local Area Network (LAN) were recently installed. Payroll
and personnel data is maintained on the network and provides easy access
for reporting data that is not available readily through the County system. This
division continues to develop and implement new procedures to improve the
overall production of the office.
SECTION 1111 - CUSTOMER SERVICES
A. Service Delivery System
We provide a wide variety of public service functions: Verification of
Ownership, parcel Numbers, Building Square Footage, Use Codes,
Parcel Maps, Assessment Data, Property Characteristics, Mailing labels,
Data Tapes. Most of these services are free to the property owner.
However, we do charge non property owners and commercial
companies who are reselling the data.
We provide service over the counter (Monday - Thursday 8:00 to 4:30
and Friday 8:00 -4:00), and telephone service (Daily 8:00 to 4:00).
B. Customer Profile
The Assessor's Office serves all the residents of Contra Costa County
by ensuring fair and accurate assessment of property in the County.
This includes all property subject to local assessment and the
application of all permissible exemptions. This necessitates dealing with
the single family residence as well as major commercial and industrial
property owners.
C. Customer Relationships
We are proud of the level of public service provided by our staff and
receive numerous unsolicited letters commending our staff. We have
developed a WEB page on the Internet that offers answers to many
7
taxpayer questions, we will also have forms that can be downloaded
thus saving both time and money for the office as well as the taxpayer.
The taxpayer can also communicate with our office using E mail on the
Internet. Our next goal on the Internet will be to provide more extensive
information regarding parcel ownership and values so as to reduce the
counter and phone traffic in the office.
Section IV - Annual Performance
A. Performance Indicators
1 . Obtain AB818 Property Administration funds. (Year 2)
The goal was to obtain the $2,022,000 allocated to Contra
Costa County. These funds were available to allow county
assessor's to reduce backlogs, enhance automation, defend
assessment appeals, restore staffing, and provide staff
training.
Outcome - With the Board of Supervisors approval we were
able to negotiate a contract with the State
Department of Finance and receive the funding.
However, we didn't receive the funding until late
in the fiscal year and were able start all of our
new programs but will have to complete some
this new fiscal year.
2. Meet AB818 Repayment Performance Criteria. (Year 2)
There were four performance-based repayment criteria
specified in the AB818 contract. These criteria were based
on assessing new construction with no building permits,
performing additional non-mandatory audits, continuing to
review and grant Proposition 8 reductions in value, and not
failing to defend all assessment appeals before the
Assessment Appeals Board. If these criteria were met this
would satisfy repayment of the loan.
Outcome - We performed at or above 100% on each of the
8
four specified criteria and therefore have satisfied
the repayment criteria for the 1996-97 AB818
contract.
3. Develop Internet WEB Page) to provide better Public Service and
help reduce the number of telephone and counter calls.
(www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/assr/assr.htm)
The goal was to provide to taxpayers a new medium for
gaining information and providing taxpayer input to our office.
And as a byproduct reduce the number of phone and counter
calls.
Outcome - The program has been in place for only three
months and already we are getting over 300
inquiries a month with the number growing each
month. Taxpayers are able to obtain answers to
many questions as well as download request
forms for certain programs. Taxpayer response
has been very positive and we plan to expand the
available information as soon as practical.
4. Settle a number of major complex assessment appeals some
that have been in negotiation for a number of years.
There have been some major assessment appeals that have
been pending for a number of years and have required the
services of outside appraisal expertise as well as our own
internal staff. These appeals are expensive and also require
an inordinate amount of staff time.
Outcome - This year with the availability of AB818 funding
we were able to hire specialized outside
appraisal firms to assist in resolving many major
appeals. There are still a some of major appeals
pending but resolving this group should expedite
the resolution of the remaining appeals.
9
B. Accomplishments
1 . Continued expanded public service hours so as to provide
counter service during the lunch hour.
2. Completed development of our Internet WEB page.
3. Continued to develop new informational brochures to provide
answers to many taxpayer questions. Also have included
forms for requesting tax saving programs.
4. Distributed new taxpayer brochures in all County Libraries
and into many other County Departments open to the public.
5. Expanded Local Area Network (LAN) to include all senior
residential appraisers and supervisors. Also included all new
technicians and clerical supervisors.
6. Successfully resolved a number of large assessment
appeals.
7. New personal computers for staff and upgraded network
server.
8. Participation again in Contra Costa Home & Garden Show.
9. Continued Real Estate Brokers Public Education Program.
10. Successfully implemented the change in Lien date.
11 . Successfully implemented the Real property Technical
Assistant program in Marine and the Appraisal Divisions.
12. Resolving all residential appeals within one year of filing
(Law allows'two years).
10
Section V - Challenges and !New Directions
A. Challenges
1 . Year 2000 Computer Update: January 1 , 2000 is going to be a
traumatic period for many organizations utilizing older computer
systems. The development of our mainframe Land Information
System (LIS) was started in 1982, therefore we will be faced with
updating a very complex system in the next two years. We have
spent many hours looking for new systems to replace our current
LIS system, but have been unable to find a new system that has all
capabilities of the LIS system.
We have already spent many hours working with Data Processing
staff in defining problems and developing potential solutions.
There are many challenges to be faced by Data Processing and
our office in making program changes and testing the many
programs to insure that all contingencies have been addressed.
This will entail hundreds of hours of staff time to complete the
project so we can continue to meet our statutory mandates after
January 1 , 2000.
2. Restoration of Proposition 8 Values: The real estate market in
the Bay Area appears to be starting to recover, this will result in
an increase in the number of sales as well as the need to start
restoring previous reductions in value (Proposition 8's). The
combination of these two events is going to put an unprecedented
burden on our staff. We are hoping that the implementation of our
Technician program, hiring new Professional staff, and the
increased use of computers will allow us to absorb this expected
increase in a work load.
11
B. New Directions
1 . Adequate Office Space: The real estate market recession has
caused a tremendous increase in assessment appeals in the
commercial and industrial area of the office. We have met this
increase through a combination of automation and additional
staffing, unfortunately both these solutions require additional office
space. We have been forced to split our staff into two locations
which is very inefficient and costly to operate. We have reached a
point where we are placing staff in totally inadequate space to
perform their jobs, space that doesn't meet ADA standards. We
need adequate space to house our entire office staff and to be
located near other county agencies involved in the tax assessment
function.
2. . Recorder/Assessor Integrated Imaging System: We have
developed a system in conjunction with the Recorders Office to
automate the processing of deeds utilizing imaged deeds and
inputting directly into our Land Information System Data Base.
The system is scheduled to be installed in the first quarter of next
year. AB818 will provide funding for the new system.
3. Automation: Automation continues to be the most effective way
for us to meet future challenges. We are always looking for areas
in the office where we can functions more efficient through
changes in procedures and automation. The Recorder/Assessor is
our major undertaking this year but we continue to look for less
ambitious project that can be pursued with less resources.
12
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GUS KRAMER
COUNTY ASSESSOR
1996 - 1997 PERFORMANCE REPORT
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Assessor's 1996-97
Performance Report
Table of Contents
Page
Description
Number
Section I - Overview
Departmental Responsibilities.......................................................... 1
Organizational Structure................................................................... 1
Section II - Resources
Financial........................................................................................... 3
Personnel......................................................................................... 4
Affirmative Action.............................................................................. 4
SickLeave........................................................................................ 5
StaffDevelopment............................................................................ 5
Automation....................................................................................... 6
Section III - Customer Service
Service Delivery System.........................................................
Customer Profile................................................................................ 7
CustomerRelationships.................................................................... 7
Section IV - Annual Performance
Performance Indicators
Obtain AB818 Funding............................................................ 8
Meet AB818 Repayment Performance.................................... 8
Develop Internet WEB Page.................................................... 9
Settle Major Assessment Appeals........................................... 9
Accomplishments..........................................................:..................10
Section V - Challenges and New Directions
Challenges..................................................................................... 11
NewDirections...................................................::...:........................12
ASSESSOR'S OFFICE
September 23, '1997
SECTION I -OVERVIEW
A. Department Responsibilities
The purpose of the Assessor's Office is to produce a timely roll of all property
subject to local assessment, administer legally permissible exemptions,
develop and maintain a set of current maps delineating property ownerships,
defend assessments as required before an appellate body and provide
information and service to the public as needed. The Assessor's Office is
mandated to render all functions that are currently, being performed.
B. Organizational Structure
The Department is organized into four program areas. These program
functions are interrelated and work as a combined unit to meet the goals of
the office.
Appraisal - Ensure that all secured real and personal property within the
County has been accurately valued and entered on the regular and
supplemental assessment rolls.
Business - Ensure that all business personal property within the County has
been accurately reported and valued and values have been entered on the
regular and supplemental assessment rolls.
Support Services - Enroll all valid exemptions on the regular and
supplemental local assessment rolls, provide data entry and drafting services
to the department, review policies and procedures, and make changes where
necessary, and provide public service to agencies, private organizations and
to the general public.
Administrative Services - Establish and administer policies relative to
department operations and provide administrative guidelines for carrying out
these policies.
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Section II - RESOURCES
A: Financial Resources
The budget is allocated as shown below among the four programs:
Program Expenditures Financing Net County Cost
Appraisal $4,9.06,304 $1 ,157,900 $3,748,404
Business 1 ,415,280 334,009 1 ,081 ,271
Support Services 2,453,152 578,950 1 ,804,202
Administrative Svc. 660,464 155.871 504.593
TOTAL $9,435,200 $2,226,730 $7,208,470
Financing
Source Amount
Property Tax Administration $1 ,935,828
Fees 254,475
Interdepartmental Transfers 36,427
Total $2,226,730
Property Tax Administration - Fees collected from Cities and Special
Districts and funds from AB818.
Fees - Revenue received primarily from the sale of assessment data and
parcel maps.
Interdepartmental Transfers - Drafting services performed for LAFCO.
3
B. Personnel Resources
Program Staff
Appraisal 62
Business 23
Support Services 43
Administrative Services 7
Total 135
This is the second year utilizing AB818 funds that we have been able to
restore part of our staff (two positions) that had been steadily decreasing over
the last few years. We are implementing a program of utilizing technicians
(five positions) to accomplish some of the routine tasks currently being
performed by the professional appraisal staff.. The utilization of technicians
should allow more work to be accomplished at a lower cost.
C. Affirmative Action
The Department is continually trying to improve its affirmative action representation.
As a result our extensive outreach program we were able to hire a number of Junior
Appraisers and Auditor Appraiser I's to help are program. We made progress and
will continue our effort until our goal is met. Management is where we have made
the greatest improvement, we now have four'ethnic minorities and two females in
appraisal management positions.
The following describes the staff by affirmative action category:
Male Female Total Staff Workforce
White 49 48 97
African American 3 6 9 7.0% 7.6%
Hispanic 2 6 8 6.3% 10.5%
Asian/Filipino 6 5 11 8.6% 8.9%
American Indian 0 3 3 2.3% .8%
Filled Positions 60 68 128 53.1%* 45.4%
Vacant Positions 7
Total Positions 135
* Percentage of Female Staff
4
D. Sick Leave
The Department continues to discourage the indiscriminate use of Sick Leave.
Over the last three years the average Sick Leave used per employee has
remained fairly constant. The Sick Leave hours in BOLD were adjusted to
remove hours used for maternity leave and catastrophic events.
Adjusted Sick Leave Hours
TOTAL HOURS . TOTAL HOURS
YEAR HOURS PER EMPL HOURS PER EMPL
1994 7,657.7 63.3 69715.2 55.5
1995 7,929.0 64.7 69971.1 56.9
1996 73526.2 60.1 6759.2 54.1
E. Staff Development .
'Performance Evaluation The Department requires that a performance
evaluation be done annually on all employees by their supervisor. All
supervisors are evaluated by their staff and the results of these evaluations
becomes part of the Supervisors own evaluation.
Professional Development - All appraisal personnel are required to attain an
appraisal certification issued by the State Board of Equalization, and to
maintain their certification are required to complete up to 24 hours of
continuing education annually. Qualifying courses are available through the
Appraisal Institute, State Board of Equalization, and we work with other
neighboring counties to provide qualifying courses.
We encourage all of our staff to take courses from the training institute, PC
software training from D.O.I.T., and other course work to assist in their career
development.
5
F. Automation
Automation has and continues to play an important role in allowing the office
to improve production so more work can be accomplished with fewer staff
resources. The office utilizes a combination of the County mainframe
computer, office Local Area Network (LAN), County Wide Area Network
(WAN), and Personal Computers to accomplish its' mission.
In the last two years we have acquired over 70 new personal computers and
were able expand our Local Area Network (LAN) through the Property Tax
Administration Funds provided through AB818. We have linked our offices
and the Clerk of the Board with fibre optic cable to provide instant access to
our Assessment Appeal Database and as well as other common databases.
We have one full time staff person with appraisal experience who writes and
maintains all of our PC database programs. By reassigning some of our staff
we have been able to enhance our in-house PC database staff to meet the
continuing automation demands of our appraisal and audit staffs. Many of our
appraisers and auditor/appraisers have learn the Access Data Base and have
developed programs to automate their daily operations.
Appraisal Division - Utilizes Personal Computers using in-house developed
software to assist appraisers in completing the more complex appraisals. The
programs speed the appraisal process as well as providing good
documentation for answering questions or presentations to the Assessment
Appeals board.
Business Division - Utilizes Personal Computers and in-house software to
assist the auditors in completing local and out of state audits. This last year a
new PC program was implemented to improve the efficiency of our leasing
section. The use of portable personal computers has also enhanced the
speed of completing Audits as well as providing uniform documentation.
Support Division - Utilizes computers to draw the floor plans of new
construction and to compute square footage, removing a time-consuming task
from the appraisal staff. New software and two new printers were installed to
make this program even more efficient. We recently upgraded our Computer
Aided Drafting (CAD) system software and are continuing the process of
converting our parcel maps into digitized formats. Funding from AB818 will
help to speed the labor intensive conversion process. Once converted this
system will provide many dividends in the future. In the next few months we
6
will be connecting our drafting computers to the County WAN, which will allow
direct access to maps maintained by the.Public Works department.
Administrative Services - An enhanced Network Server and upgraded Novell
Software for our Local Area Network (LAN) were recently installed. Payroll
and personnel data is maintained on the network and provides easy access
for reporting data that is not available readily through the County system. This
division continues to develop and implement new procedures to improve the
overall production of the office.
SECTION III - CUSTOMER SERVICES
A. Service Delivery System
We provide a wide variety of public service functions: Verification of
Ownership, parcel Numbers, Building Square Footage, Use Codes,
Parcel Maps, Assessment Data, Property Characteristics, Mailing labels,
Data Tapes. Most of these services are free to the property owner.
However, we do charge non property owners and commercial
companies who are reselling the data.
We provide service over the counter (Monday - Thursday 8:00 to 4:30
and Friday 8:00 -4:00), and telephone service (Daily 8:00 to 4:00).
B. Customer Profile
The Assessor's Office serves all the residents of Contra Costa County
by ensuring fair and accurate assessment of property in the County.
This includes all property subject to local assessment and the
application of all permissible exemptions. This necessitates dealing with
the single family residence as well as major commercial and industrial
property owners.
C. Customer Relationships
We are proud of the level of public service provided by our staff and
receive numerous unsolicited letters commending our staff. We have
developed a WEB page on the Internet that offers answers to many
7
taxpayer questions, we will also have forms that can be downloaded
thus saving both time and money for the office as well as the taxpayer.
The taxpayer can also communicate with our office using E mail on the
Internet. Our next goal on the Internet will be to provide more extensive
information regarding parcel ownership and values so as to reduce the
counter and phone traffic in the office.
Section IV - Annual Performance
A. Performance Indicators
1 . Obtain AB818 Property Administration funds. (Year 2)
The goal was to obtain the $2,022,000 allocated to Contra
Costa County. These funds were available to allow county
assessor's to reduce backlogs, enhance automation, defend
assessment appeals, restore staffing, and provide staff
training.
Outcome - With the Board of Supervisors approval we were
able to negotiate a contract with the State
Department of Finance and receive the funding.
However, we didn't receive the funding until late
in the fiscal year and were able start all of our
new programs but will have to complete some
this new fiscal year.
2. Meet AB818 Repayment Performance Criteria. (Year 2)
There were four performance-based repayment criteria
specified in the AB818 contract. These criteria were based
on assessing new construction with no building permits,
performing additional non-mandatory audits, continuing to
review and grant Proposition 8 reductions in value, and not
failing to defend all assessment appeals before the
Assessment Appeals Board. If these criteria were met this
would satisfy repayment of the loan.
Outcome - We performed at or above 100% on each of the
8
four specified criteria and therefore have satisfied
the repayment criteria for the 1996-97 AB818
contract.
3. Develop Internet WEB. Page) to provide better Public Service and
help reduce the number of telephone and counter calls.
(www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/departlassr/assr.htm)
The goal was to provide to taxpayers a new medium for
.gaining information and providing taxpayer input to our office.
And as a byproduct reduce the number of phone and counter
calls.
Outcome - The program has been in place for only three
months and already we are getting over 300
inquiries a month with the number growing each
month. Taxpayers are able to obtain answers to
many questions as well as download request
forms for certain programs. Taxpayer response
has been very positive and we plan to expand the
available information as soon as practical.
4. Settle a number of major complex assessment appeals some
that have beeri'in negotiation for a number of years.
There have been some major assessment appeals that have
been pending for a number of years and have required the
services of outside appraisal expertise as well as our own
internal staff. These appeals are expensive and also require
an inordinate amount of staff time.
Outcome - This year with the availability of AB818 funding
we were able to hire specialized outside
appraisal firms to assist in resolving many major
appeals. There are still a,some of major appeals
pending but resolving this group should expedite
the resolution of the remaining appeals.
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B. Accomplishments
1 . Continued expanded public service hours so as to provide
counter service during the lunch hour.
2. Completed development of our Internet WEB page.
3. Continued to develop new informational brochures to provide
answers to many taxpayer questions. Also have included
forms for requesting tax saving programs.
4. Distributed new taxpayer brochures in all County Libraries
and into many other County Departments open to the public.
5. Expanded Local Area Network (LAN) to include all senior
residential appraisers and supervisors. Also included all new
technicians and clerical supervisors.
6. Successfully resolved a number of large assessment
appeals.
7. New personal computers for staff and upgraded network
server.
8. Participation again in Contra Costa Home & Garden Show.
9. Continued Real Estate Brokers Public Education Program.
10. Successfully implemented the change in Lien date.
11 . Successfully implemented the Real property Technical
Assistant program in Marine and the Appraisal Divisions.
12. Resolving all residential appeals within one year of filing
(Law allows two years).
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Section V - Challenges and New Directions
A. Challenges
1 . Year 2000 Computer Update: January 1 , 2000 is going to be a
traumatic period for many organizations utilizing older computer
systems. The development of our mainframe Land Information
System (LIS) was !started in 1982, therefore we will be faced with
updating a very complex system in the next two years. We have
spent many hours looking for new systems to replace our current
LIS system, but have been unable to find a new system that has all
capabilities of the LIS system.
We have already spent many hours working with Data Processing
staff in defining problems .and developing potential solutions.
There are many challenges to be faced by Data Processing and
our office in making program changes and testing the many
programs to insure that all contingencies have been addressed.
This will entail hundreds of hours of staff time to complete the
project so we can continue to meet our statutory mandates after
January 1 , 2000.
2. Restoration of Proposition 8 Values: The real estate market in
the Bay Area appears to be starting to recover, this will result in
an increase in the number of sales as well as the need to start
restoring previous reductions in value (Proposition 8's). The
combination of these two events is going to put an. unprecedented
burden on our staff. We are hoping that the implementation of our
Technician program, hiring new Professional staff, and the
increased use of computers will allow us to absorb this expected
increase in a work load.
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B. New Directions
1 . Adequate Office Space: The real estate market recession has
caused a tremendous increase in assessment appeals in the
commercial and industrial area of the office. We have met this
increase through a combination of automation and additional
staffing, unfortunately both these solutions require additional office
space. We have been forced to split our staff into two locations
which is very inefficient and costly to operate. We have reached a
point where we are placing staff in totally inadequate space to
perform their jobs, space that doesn't meet ADA standards. We
need adequate space to house our entire office staff and to be
located near other county agencies involved in the tax assessment
function.
2. Recorder/Assessor Integrated Imaging System: We have
developed a system in conjunction with the Recorders Office to
automate the processing of deeds utilizing imaged deeds and
inputting directly into our Land Information System Data Base.
The system is scheduled to be installed in the first quarter of next
year. AB818 will provide funding for the new system.
3. Automation: Automation continues to be the most effective way
for us to meet future challenges. We are always looking for areas
in the office where we can functions more efficient through
changes in procedures and automation. The Recorder/Assessor is
our major undertaking this year but we continue to look for less
ambitious project that can be pursued with less resources.
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