Watching the Board of Supervisors’ blasé attitude toward the County’s core function of property tax collection it’s hard to escape the sense that Mendo is on the verge of imploding and nobody has any idea how to stop it.
All the Supes and top staff seem to agree that Mendo isn’t collecting the taxes that are owed in at least three main categories:
• Unassessed parcels not on the tax rolls, which some say might be 30% of the parcels in the County (many of them abandoned pot grows), but nobody really knows).
• Then there are assessed property owner who have simply not paid and are in some kind of default.
• And lastly there are parcels that are underassessed because of either improvements since their last assessment (added structures, etc.), or have not had their assessment increased upon new ownership.
Let’s call these categories: a. Unassessed, b. In Default/late, c1. Underassessed-improvements, c2. Underassessed-Ownership change.
No one knows how much these uncollected taxes add up to, but it’s assumed to be in the tens of millions.
The majority of property taxes the County collects go to schools, the County gets its own large chunk, and special districts get the rest. So if Mendo isn’t collecting taxes due, not only is the County shorted, but so are schools and special districts.
The last time the Board discussed this problem at their June 21 meeting they asked staff to try to decrease the number of unassessed parcels from an estimated 30% to around 15% in two years. They asked that the CEO report include a bi-monthly report on how that’s going (which we doubt will ever occur). That’s all they requested.
But weak as that is, it only addresses the unassessed parcels; and does nothing to collect from tax default parcels or the underassessed parcels.
At that meeting a County employee told the Board that the County needs to prepare an “improvement plan” since everyone seems to agree that there are a lot of uncollected taxes in the County and that County employees have been hard-hit by the tax collection deficit because it translates to no cost of living increase.
The Supervisors not only didn’t respond to that employee, but they didn’t really address the problem. Their vague request to decrease the percentage of unassessed parcels that no one knows the number of is hardly an effective benchmark. Nor does it focus on the right parcels/owners.
Several factors have been mentioned which contribute to this expanding problem: Understaffing in the Assessor’s office, understaffing and inexperience in the Tax Collector’s office, the County’s new but still incomplete and problem-plagued property tax system (“Aumentum”), the collapse of the marijuana industry, and a deep-seated lack of understanding and attention from the Supervisors and the CEO.
So herewith we offer the AVA’s Tax Collection Improvement Plan for Mendocino County.
Phase I: Identify the top ten parcels or parcel owners in each of the four categories using available information from the County’s parcel mapping system, tax default/billing lists, local bank escrow officer input, and local groups like fire departments (some of which have their own parcel data and are familiar with property activity in their area). Then gather and assign a tax collection team to pursue each of the top ten taxpayers who owe taxes in each category, focusing on the low hanging fruit as it appears. Plus penalties and interest as applicable.
The County could also enlist the District Attorney’s office at some point since tax evasion is a crime.
Aside: If the Coast Reader who said recently that lots of Coastal area B&Bs and Hotels are being bought up by outside businesses or corporations, it’s likely that those properties are now underassessed and should be among the obvious top ten in that category and first to be attended to.
Phase II would then extend the experience from Phase I to tackle the next biggest (or longest time in default) group of properties.
By breaking the problem down into identifiable, high-value chunks, the County can use its limited staffing and resources to focus on the most valuable targets first.
We also think that the school districts, the County Office of Education and special districts should be willing to help because their own revenue depends on the County’s tax collection.
If the County doesn’t get on top of this most basic function of government soon, they will find themselves spiraling down further, losing more employees, and more staff loss — falling further and further behind, to the point that it will be impossible to ever catch up.
Insurance At A Premium
First District Supervisor Candidate Carrie Shattuck has been trying to figure out where all the money is coming from to pay those costly outside lawyers to handle Mendo’s many lawsuits, including the pending cases. So far she has discovered, as we expected, that most of the cost is covered by the County’s General Liability insurance. But, Shattuck notes, Mendo’s general liability insurance now costs about $4 million a year, which is higher, proportionately, than other area Counties. Shattuck has also discovered that Mendo’s insurance costs are distributed and buried in the various departmental budgets by some arbitrary formula that assumes that departments should carry a proportionate load. This approach not only obscures the real cost of the County’s outside lawyers, but puts an additional burden on departments, most of which don’t incur much legal liability. As Probation Chief Izen Locatelli told the Board at a recent budget hearing, it’s not fair to burden the departments with a bunch of overhead costs over which they have no control and for which they can not be held accountable. But that’s apparently the way Mendo does it.
Shattuck also told us on Monday that she had resigned from this year’s civil grand jury because they told her that she couldn’t address the Supervisors during public expression while serving on the Grand Jury at the same time! Shattuck was fully prepared to comply with the Grand Jury’s requirement not to discuss the Grand Jury’s activities in public. But to be told that she can’t even ask the Board ordinary questions or address them as a private citizen on other unrelated matters is ridiculous.
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First District Supervisor Candidate Adam Gaska: Most of the cost of the insurance premiums, at least the rise in them, should be attributed to County Counsel as they are the primary reason the County gets sued.
ms: The reasons the County gets sued vary, from ordinary property damage from operations to alleged wrongful terminations, boundary line disputes and contractual disputes, etc. I wouldn’t blame County Counsel with the “reasons” for the lawsuits. The suits you are probably referring to are claims of wrongful terminations which were mainly initiated by then-CEO Carmel Angelo. The County has a “risk management” office which I believe is in the County Counsel’s office which is supposed to be trying to keep a lid on insurance costs. It’s an obscure financial situation which needs more scrutiny than it gets because of the high dollar amounts involved and the fact that it comes out of the General Fund. When was the last time the County reviewed its assets to see if their insurance is based on a proper inventory? Is workers comp (which is very expensive) based on the right number and category of employees? But these kinds of insurance costs could be rightly assigned to the departments if properly calculated. Etc. We think all outside counsel costs should be attributed to the County Counsel’s office. We’re not sure about the general liability costs, but we don’t think it should be assigned to departments. It should be its own budget line item and the Supervisors and the “risk manager” should review it not less than quarterly.
Gaska: All true but he is the County’s lawyer. He should be giving the BOS better counsel. Carmel has been gone just over a year. He doesn’t represent the County in almost any of the litigation. He doesn’t even weigh in and advise that we should settle like in the Grewal case. It was County Counsel that did suggest charging for PRA requests. The BOS is getting bad counsel. There needs to be a mechanism to penalize someone doing a bad job.
ms: After County Counsel and the Board botched his first attempt at a pay raise as we noted in a Brown Act complaint at the time, Curtis arranged for the County to pay a costly outside attorney to re-agendize the item and ended up giving Curtis an even bigger raise than they first proposed.
As we documented at the time:
- County Counsel Pay Raise: The Plot Thickens
- County Caves On County Counsel Brown Act Complaint
- Giant Pay Raise For County Counsel Christian Curtis Re-Proposed by Supervisor Williams
Grand Jury Rips Human Resources Management
On June 21, The County Grand Jury issued their evaluation of Mendo’s Personnel Management Department: “25 Years of Transient HR Leadership and a Hobbled HR Department.”
Abbreviated Excerpts: “…Compared to similar counties in California, Mendocino has among the highest percentage of staffing vacancies, among the highest turnover in employees and HR leadership, and among the longest time from job posting to hire. Over the past 25 years, the County has had a staggering total of 19 people leading the HR Department, with an average tenure of only 1.2 years. This constant turnover has decreased the department's effectiveness and caused attrition among experienced staff. … The Grand Jury’s hope is that through this report, the HR Department will get the support it needs so that they in turn can support the entire County workforce. … When the GJ requested HR policies, procedures, training, or guidelines regarding performance management, the GJ was informed that the department had no relevant written policies. Instead, the typical performance management process was described to the GJ verbally. … Many of the same issues and potential solutions identified by the GJ in this report had already been recognized by the [County’s] team. However, it was perplexing to discover that no significant changes have been implemented in the five years since.”
Full Report: mendocinocounty.org/home/showpublisheddocument/59317
The Annual Schraeder Handout
It’s time again for the annual $22 million-plus lump sum, no bid, sole-source, no-questions-asked hand-out to Camille Schrader’s Redwood Quality Management Monopoly and its various subsidiaries. The “agreement” is retroactive again as well. The Supes used to be bothered by retroactive contracts that they were expected to rubberstamp. No more. They obviously don’t care anymore. This means that even if the Supes wanted to discuss this giant handout, or ask whether it does any good, or consider breaking it up into smaller, competitively biddable pieces, or question the enormous dollar amount (highly unlikely), no discussion of the inadequate reporting… Too late, never mind, staff already handed it over.
Supes Agenda Item 4b: Discussion and Possible Action Including Retroactive [sic] Approval of Agreements with 1. Redwood Quality Management Company DBA Anchor Health Management, Inc. ($3,600,000), 2. Redwood Quality Management Company DBA Anchor Health Management, Inc. Medication Support Services ($2,000,000), 3. Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center ($596,000), 4. Mendocino County Youth Project ($930,000), 5. Redwood Community Services ($11,179,365), and 6. Tapestry Family Services Inc. ($3,775,662) to Provide Specialty Mental Health Services to Eligible Medi-Cal Beneficiaries of Mendocino County for a Total Combined Amount of $22,081,027, Effective July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024
And a nice $300k Cherry for Camille (also no bid, and on consent even though it's a whopping $300k).
Consent Agenda Item 3ai: Approval of Agreement with Redwood Community Services, Inc., in the Amount of $300,000 to Provide Emergency Support Services for High Needs Children Detained by the Department of Social Services, Family and Children’s Services, Effective July 12, 2023 to June 30, 2024
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