HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 10011996 - D1 D. 1
THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
DATE: October 1, 1996 MATTER OF RECORD
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Board of Supervisors considered the 1995 -1996 Performance
Report from Gus Kramer, County Assessor. No action was taken.
THIS IS A MATTER FOR RECORD PURPOSES ONLY
NO BOARD ACTION TAKEN
GUS KRAMER
COUNTY ASSESSOR
1995 - 1996 PERFORMANCE REPORT
Al
rA_ co
Assessor's 1995-96
Performance Report
Table of Contents
Page
Description Number
Section I - Overview
Departmental Responsibilities............................................................. 1
Organizational Structure...................................................................... 1
Section II - Resources
Financial.............................................................................................. 3
Personnel............................................................................................ 4
AffirmativeAction................................................................................ 4
SickLeave.......................................................................................... 5
StaffDevelopment.............................................................................. 5
Automation.......................................................................................... 6
Section III - Customer Service
Service Delivery System..................................................
CustomerProfile.................................................................................. 7
Customer Relationships...................................................................... 7
Section IV - Annual Performance
Performance Indicators
Obtain AB818 Funding.............................................................. 8
Meet AB818 Repayment Performance...................................... 8
Implement Technician Program in Marine Division................... 9
Implement Technician Program in Valuation Division............... 9
Accomplishments.............................................................................. 10
Section V - Challenges and New Directions
Challenges........................................................................................ 11
NewDirections....................................................................................12
fD l
ASSESSOR'S OFFICE
September 10, 1996
SECTION 1 - 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 roils.
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.
i
� \
. & §
(
a 2
LU `
;
ccIt\
. ( ,
;
/ �
8
cc
§ 2 0
k z `
� §
w §
�
� � . \ / § ■
< § ƒ § u
¥ % §
7 ƒ `
\
/ \ % g
I k
( o
d \ \
, f i ■
q � \
§ k
#
t ` �
2 \ .
\ � \ % §
#
} ��
Section II - RESOURCES
A. Financial Resources
The budget is allocated as shown below among the four programs:
Program Expenditures Financing Net County Cost
Appraisal $4,602,884 $9321473 $3,679,411
Business 1,3449358 282,990 1,061 ,368
Support Services 2,283,455 4431479 1,831 ,305
Administrative Svc. 551 .823 56,518 495,305
TOTAL $81782,520 $1,706,730 $7,075,790
Financing
Source Amoun
Property Tax Administration $1,494,328
Fees 175,975
Interdepartmental Transfers 36.427
Total $1,706,730
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 57
Business 13
Support Services 56
Administrative Services 7
Total 133
This is the first year utilizing AB818 funds that we have been able to restore
part of our staff (seven positions) that has been steadily decreasing over the
last five years. We are starting to implement 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.
We recently completed an extensive outreach program to develop employment lists
for both Junior Appraiser and Auditor Appraiser I. We made progress and will
continue our effort until our goal is met.
The following describes the staff by affirmative action category:
Male Female Total Staff Workforce
White 62 64 126 50.8%* 45.4%
African American 2 6 8 -6.6% 7.6%
Hispanic 2 6 8 6.6% 10.5%
Asian/Filipino 4 4 8 6.6% 8.9%
American Indian 0 2 2 1 .6% .8%
Vacant Positions 0 0 6
Total Positions 132
* 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.
Ad"usted Sick Leave Hours
TOTAL HOURS TOTAL HOURS
YEAR HOURS PER EMPL HOURS PER EMPL
1994 71657.7 63.3 61715.2 55.5
1995 71929.0 64.7 61971.1 56.9
1996 7,842.0* 64.8* 71013.0* 53.9*
*Projected based on seven months activity
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 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.
Recently we acquired more than 50 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. We are planning to enhance our in-house PC database staff to meet
the continuing automation demands of our appraisal and audit staffs.
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. The use of 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. This has removed a time-consuming task from
the appraisal stall. We recently installed a Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) system
and are in 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 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 Server and upgraded Novell Software for
our Local Area Network (LAN) was 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
6
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 are currently
developing WEB pages on the Internet that will offer answers to many
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. 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.
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
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 four
specified criteria and therefore have satisfied the
repayment criteria for the 1995-96 AB818 contract.
s
3. Implementation of the Real Property Technical Assistant classification
in the Marine & Aircraft Section.
The goal was to replace 85% of a journey level appraiser and
100% of a Senior Clerical position with one technician. This
required introduction of new computer programs and
reassignment of functions to existing staff.
Outcome - The program has been in place for six months and
we have obtained the anticipated efficiencies and
realized the expected savings.
4. Implementation of the Real Property Technical Assistant
positions in the Valuation Divisions.
There are many functions performed by professional appraisers
and auditors that are routine in nature and can be performed by
technicians who have received adequate training. The
combination of the professional appraisers and auditors with
trained technicians should result in more production at a lower
cost. Implementation of these positions has created new
promotional opportunities for the clerical staff.
Outcome - Last year through the use of AB818 funds we were
able to create the positions and in this current year
we have filled the positions and are in the process
of training our new technicians along with our new
Junior Appraisers.
9
B. Accomplishments
1. Expanded public service hours so as to provide counter service
during the lunch hour.
2. Started development of our Internet WEB page.
3. Hired and trained six new Junior Appraisers. (AB818 Funds)
4. Expanded Local Area Network (LAN) to include all commercial
& industrial appraisers plus the audit staff. (AB818 Funds)
5. Successfully resolved a number of large assessment appeals.
6. Expanded training opportunities for Professional and Clerical
staff through the use of AB818 funds.
7. Completed an audit of Assessment Appeal process with
recommendations.
8 Created Real Property Technical Assistant position in office.
9. New personal computers for staff and upgraded network server.
10. Administrative Reorganization.
11. Participation in Contra Costa Home & Garden Show.
12. Participation in the Home Buyers and Sellers Faire.
13, Real Estate Brokers/Public Education Program.
10
�l
Section V - Challenges and New Direction
A. Challenges
1. Change of Lien Date: January 1, 1997 the Assessment Lien date
changes from March 1 st to January 1 st This is going to result in many
procedural changes as well as significant changes in many of our data
processing programs. The County General Fund will notice a reduced
growth in the assessment roll due to the shortened lien period (10
months) in the first year.
We have been planning this change with data processing staff for a
number of months and hopefully will have a smooth transition. Many
of our staff have been actively involved with the data processing
changes and developing the required changes in procedure.
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 does not 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. 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 changes and saving realized this
last year in the Marine Division is an example of our goals.
12