San Andreas, CA… The 2019 — 2020 Calaveras County Grand Jury has just released a report entitled “Assessor’s Office”. The Summary section of the report states why the grand jury undertook the investigation and notes the report’s most significant issues, findings, and recommendations, as follows: “Numerous citizens have expressed concern regarding the Calaveras County Assessor’s Office being significantly behind in property reassessments. The backlog results in delayed property reassessments, which in turn causes the need for multiple supplemental bills, leading to taxpayer confusion. There was also concern over office management, specffically employee retention, and how it affects productivity and the work environment.

The Calaveras County Grand Jury last investigated the Calaveras Count)? Assessor’s Office in 2016-2017. For many years the Calaveras County Assessor’s Office has been unable to close an approximate three-year gap on residential property reassessments and approximately a four-year gap on commercial property reassessments. This problem was exacerbated by the Butte Fire in 2015. The backlog remains due to several factors. Additionally, recommendations of the 2016-2017 Calaveras County Grand Jury were never acted upon.

Many citizens in Calaveras County are upset with the Calaveras County Assessor ‘s Office because late reassessments are creating unexpected tax bills. Different processes are available to assessors in order to address their workload. The potential delayed or lost revenue due to multiyear backlogs is an important consideration.

The Calaveras County Assessor’s Office has found it difficult to recruit and retain qualified employees. Additionally, the Calaveras County Assessor’s Office staff is under constant pressure to address the backlog which has no end in sight.”