Accomplishments as County Assessor

By Larry Stone

CONSTITUTIONAL DUTIES OF THE ASSESSOR

The position of County Assessor is one of only three countywide elected officials created by the California State Constitution. The others are the District Attorney and the Sheriff. In Santa Clara County, the Assessor represents more people than any local elected official north of Los Angeles. The position was placed in the Constitution for only one reason: the Assessor must be independent of the Board of Supervisors who spend the property tax revenue that property assessments generate.

In Santa Clara County the Assessor manages 242 employees and a $22.6 million base budget. The 2005 assessment roll exceeded $240 billion generating over $2.4 billion in property taxes for public schools, the county, cities, redevelopment agencies and other special districts.

The Assessor is principally a manager in charge of a large assessment operation. If the Assessor's Office is not properly managed, and assessed values are not accurate, it could be detrimental to both taxpayers and the public agencies that rely upon property tax revenue. Last year, the Assessor's workload included:

• Processing 128,600 title documents
• Processing 26,000 building permits received from the 15 cities in Santa Clara County
• Enrolling business personal property values from 42,884 businesses
• Assessing 4,160 boats, 927 airplanes and 9,406 mobile homes
• Auditing 1,116 major corporations

Government Code 24002.5. (a) A person may not exercise the powers and duties of the office of assessor unless he or she holds a valid appraiser's certificate issued by the State Board of Equalization pursuant to Article 8 (commencing with Section 670) of Chapter 3 of Part 2 of Division 1 of the Revenue and Taxation Code.

STRONG MANAGEMENT

PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

All six divisions in the Assessor's Office have been actively engaged in efforts to reduce the bureaucracy and increase productivity, accountability and performance. Each division has developed mission (purpose) statements, established goals (outcomes) and selected performance indicators that will accurately measure performance, increase productivity and enhance accountability. The Assessor has introduced a full activity-based cost accounting system, which allows management to allocate limited resources more effectively. This comprehensive cost accounting system is consistent with the Assessor's commitment to fully implement a comprehensive performance-based management and budgeting system.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

The Assessor has smashed the "glass ceiling" for women and minorities. In 1995, only two of ten senior managers in the Assessor's Office were female. Today, six of ten are women including the Assistant Assessor, the second highest-ranking position in the office. Fifty-five percent of the Assessor's staff are women and fifty-two percent of the office is comprised of protected class minorities.

BACKLOG REDUCTION

When Larry Stone took office on January 1, 1995, he faced an "unworked" backlog of 12,680 building permits and 3,358 property transfers, valued at over $2 billion. Through skilled management and the targeted application of resources, the backlog was eliminated in less than four years. This comprehensive initiative generated $43 million in property taxes for our schools, and other local governments.

ASSESSMENT APPEALS STREAMLINING

In the early 1990's, assessment appeals reached historic levels threatening millions of dollar in property taxes, and consuming a significant portion of the Assessor's financial resources and professional staff. Assessor Larry Stone contacted Joint Venture: Silicon Valley's streamlining council and arranged for the pro-bono assistance of two quality assurance and process experts from local, high-tech companies to work with his professional and clerical staff to overhaul and streamline the entire assessment appeals process. Twenty percent of all activities were eliminated. The time required to process and resolve an assessment appeal was cut in half as a result of this cooperative joint venture, permanently reducing the number of professional staff devoted to assessment appeals.

ETHICS

Larry Stone was the first Assessor to establish a formal, comprehensive ethics policy in the Santa Clara County Assessor's office. The policy provides explicit instructions as to what constitutes a conflict of interest. It makes clear that the Assessor's office will adhere to swift and firm enforcement. Eighty percent of Assessor employees are required to complete the FPPC's Form 700, the State imposed financial disclosure report, in addition to local property ownership and outside employment forms. These disclosure requirements are not intended to interfere with an employee's right to own property or engaged in outside employment, but rather to ensure there are no conflicts between the work performed and an employee's personal situation.

In addition, Assessor Stone has led by example with regard to transparency and public disclosure of his own property ownership and personal financial resources. Annually, he makes a full public disclosure of his financial records far beyond what is required law. He is the only county official to do so. His disclosure contains a detailed personal financial statement including the fair market of all assets held personally and the exact amount of all income received. Assessor Stone also makes his federal income tax returns available to the media. He has provided this detailed disclosure for each of the 27 years he has been an elected official, as Mayor and Councilmember in Sunnyvale and now as County Assessor. As an elected official he has consistently sought to strengthen conflict of interest rules. His underlying philosophy includes rapid, full disclosure and aggressive enforcement. This combined with the fact that the assessment roll is public information makes it very easy for the Assessor and other employees to be held to the highest ethical standards. Fundamentally, Assessor Stone believes ethical conduct is integral to all decisions and actions in the Assessor's Office. It starts at the top and is not reserved just for campaign literature.

INTRODUCED NEW TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

Through the creative application of limited resources, Assessor Stone has increased by a factor of eight, the formal training available to the entire staff including, clerical personnel. Scores of formal classes have been established ranging from highly technical subjects designed to enhance the professional skills of auditors and appraisers, to the creation of a fully dedicated, computer-training laboratory. In addition, classes covering improved office communication, time management and organizational and management skills have been offered to all staff. Certified appraisers and auditors have received formal technical training beyond the statutorily required minimum and 72 percent of the professional staff have achieved advanced certification status awarded by the State Board of Equalization.

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY

All divisions in the Assessor's Office have demonstrated significant increases in productivity, successfully closing the annual assessment roll on time in accordance with State Constitutional requirements--despite a significant increase in assessment activity and no increase in staffing levels. Each year, the three major divisions, Real Property; Business Personal Property, and Standards and Services have experienced substantial, often double-digit increases in workload. Last year, each division completed 98.9 percent of required work, a standard that is maintained year in and year out. At the same time, the Assessor has returned unspent, $6.8 million to the County's general fund, and operated under budget nine of the past eleven years.

TECHNOLOGY

COMPUTERS, SOFTWARE AND MAINFRAME UPGRADES

The Assessor's first priority in assuming office in 1995 was to overhaul an antiquated, legacy computer system. The situation at best was dismal. The office had a dozen PC's for 242 employees. There was no access to the internet, no interoffice intranet and the telephone system was so antiquated the Assessor was the only employee with voice mail capability. A major upgrade to the archaic HP mainframe computer was purchased and installed. Subsequently the old mainframe was completely phased out in 2005. Additionally, over $1.5 million has been expended to purchase state-of-the-art "pentium" PC computers, including modern software applications. The new equipment has allowed for the creation of a local area network (LAN) system throughout the office.

NEW TELEPHONE SYSTEM

The Assessor's Office receives over 260,000 telephone calls annually. The 1970's era telephone and old style "public announcement" system was void of a modern voice mail, auto attendant or call sequencing capabilities. A $220,000 telephone system was acquired and installed to more efficiently serve our customers including individual and business taxpayers and public agencies.

MAPPING AND IMAGING SYSTEM MODERNIZATION

In 1995, the Assessor acquired a modern computer-aided design (CAD) system and GIS software for the Mapping Section. The capability to draw maps electronically has increased productivity and accuracy, eliminated laborious hand drawn, pen and ink parcel maps and discarded a decades old ammonia based, blue-line printing system which was dangerous to employee health. The Assessor joined the County Recorder in developing an electronic imaging system to process over 128,000 deeds annually.

DEFENSE OF HIGH-PROFILE ASSESSMENT APPEALS

Since 1995, several major high technology companies including Lockheed Martin, IBM, Intel have filed assessment appeals requesting refunds of tens of millions of dollars in property taxes. In each case the Assessor vigorously and successfully defended the assessed value preserving, the tax base critical for schools and local governments.

NEW PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT

By September 1998, all three floors of the Assessor's Office were completely renovated--the first such modernization since the building was constructed in 1976. This renovation and reconfiguration included modern office furniture, carpet and computer cabling with attention paid to safety and ergonomics. Total cost of this renovation exceeded $2.8 million. The change included extensive cabling necessary for the next generation of computers. The entire cost was paid from grants the Assessor received from the State of California, and no County general funds were involved in this major project.

PAPERLESS WORK ENVIRONMENT

Last year, the Assessor embarked upon another major project designed to create a paperless work environment. The staff is in the process of imaging 25 million documents. The entire project will be complete in 18 months. Enormous efficiencies have already been achieved. The time to process a deed has been reduced from 65 workdays to eight workdays. An ancillary, but important, benefit to document imaging is an increase in valuable floor space previously used for file cabinets. Together, these technology advances have provided staff with the tools to creatively rethink daily tasks and live the old adage of "working smarter not harder."

CUSTOMER SERVICE

ELECTRONIC FILING

In 1998, the Assessor's Office launched the "first in California" electronic filing for high-tech businesses. Nearly 100 of the largest companies in Silicon Valley were encouraged to file their annual Business Property Statement electronically, saving taxpayers and the Assessor's office time and expense. The new system was developed as part of a partnership initiative with the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group.

Since then the Assessor has "rolled out" two new products to encourage electronic filing. The first product, e-filing, is designed for the small business owner. In 2006, the Assessor expects as many 20 percent of eligible business may file electronically. The second product was designed for large businesses with complex filings with multiple locations throughout California. In 1995, 100 percent of all property statements, over 55,000 in all were manually keypunched by clerical staff. Today virtually all business property statements are processed electronically.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEYS

The Assessor's Office has initiated customer satisfaction surveys. Every division has developed a survey tool to sample, on an annual basis, their major customer base. These results are extremely positive.

NEW PUBLIC ACCESS TERMINALS

Computer terminals in public service areas of the Assessor's Office have been installed allowing taxpayers and other interested parties to electronically access public information data from the Assessor's files thereby reducing expensive "hands-on" involvement of staff.

ASSESSOR WEBSITE

In 1998 the Assessor launched a new web site with over 100 pages of information and 18 downloadable forms. The website includes an internet property "look-up" feature allowing property owners to access property records any time of the day or night from any location. The site remains among the County's top five most visited sites and has allowed the public service staff to focus on other tasks. As a result, telephone requests for information have dropped dramatically.

ONE-STOP CUSTOMER SERVICE

In 2005, the Assessor's Office consolidated the public service counters located on each of the three floors into one location. The consolidation eliminates the need for customers to go from floor to floor to have all their questions answered. At the same time security on all three floors was upgraded.

ASSESSOR'S ANNUAL REPORT

Beginning in 1999, the Assessor's Office began publishing an annual report which provides a detailed overview and data of the current and past year's assessment rolls. The report, now in its seventh year, has been successful in educating members of the media, elected officials and community opinion leaders.

IMPROVED COMMUNICATION WITH MAJOR CUSTOMERS

Shortly after taking office, the Assessor established regular scheduled meetings with redevelopment agencies, "basic aid" school districts, city managers, finance directors and other public agencies. New reports were created that provide more timely, customer friendly information critical for local government budgeting and decision making.

REGULAR, TIMELY CORRESPONDENCE WITH ALL TAXPAYERS

The Santa Clara County Assessor's office is one of only eight offices in the state to provide a notification to all property owners of their assessed value before the assessment roll is closed. Taxpayers are invited to contact Assessor staff to correct errors in assessments before the roll is closed and the formal appeals process commences. Regular, customer friendly communications are the cornerstone of the changes instituted in the Assessor's office.

TAX RELIEF, FAIRNESS AND EQUITY

LOW VALUE ORDINANCE

The Assessor introduced the low value/minimum assessment ordinance adopted by the Board of Supervisors which provides property tax relief to thousands of small businesses. The ordinance exempts from taxation all business property where the aggregate assessed value is less than $5,000. The ordinance is aimed at assisting taxpayers in which the cost to assess and process tax collection exceeds the total revenue generated by the tax.

DISASTER/CALAMITY ORDINANCE

The Assessor authored a new County ordinance providing emergency property tax relief for property owners and businesses who suffer property losses in excess of $5,000 from a natural disaster or calamity. Victims can receive a temporary reassessment of their property until the damage is repaired. ACCURATE "VALUES" DESPITE POLITICAL PRESSURE

The Assessor is well known for resisting unacceptable pressure from taxpayers regarding their assessments, and similar, unwarranted political pressure from elected officials who benefit from the property tax revenue. The Assessor is independently elected for a very good reason: to insure that the Assessor remains free from the political pressure of the Board of Supervisors and others. A Grand Jury inquiry initiated by the Management Auditor for the Board of Supervisors agreed with the Assessor and validated the accuracy of the assessment roll. The Assessor's legal obligation is to assess all real and taxable personal property accurately and process and apply all assessments, including exemptions, in a fair and timely manner.

STATEWIDE LEADERSHIP

"A+" RATING FROM STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION (SBE)

SBE conducted an exhaustive, audit and sample survey of the assessment roll and compliance with Revenue and Taxation codes and statutes. The office achieved a 99.25 percent compliance ratio, one of the best in the State. SBE auditors commented that the Santa Clara County Assessors office is one of the best managed in California.

THE NEXT FOUR YEARS

While much has been accomplished, the Assessor believes there is still plenty to be done. He genuinely believes the best is yet to come for the Assessor's office. Some of the more exciting proposals under consideration for the next term include:

• Completion of the $19 million replacement of the comprehensive Assessor Information Management System.
• Budgeting entirely by service levels
• Performance evaluations for all employees
• Compensation plan that rewards superior performance and sanctions under achievement
• Maintain measurable, annual increases in office productivity
• Use the bully pulpit to "banish the bureaucracy" in Santa Clara County. Demand innovation, technology enhancements, performance management and quantifiable performance outcomes throughout Santa Clara County.