L.A. County assessor to retire slightly ahead of schedule
Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach announced Tuesday that he will retire in March, before the end of his term later this year.
“I’ve been with this office for 39 1/2 years now, been assessor for 10,” he said. “I feel it’s the right time. I’ve accomplished a lot of what I wanted to do.”
Auerbach, 61, asked the county Board of Supervisors to allow his assistant, Robert Quon, to lead the agency until a new assessor is elected in November.
Quon has indicated that he will not be a candidate to permanently lead the largest property assessment agency in the nation, with more than 2.3 million real estate parcels, 1,450 employees and a budget of more than $157 million.
“The next assessor should be someone from within the department,” Auerbach said. “I consider experience, technical knowledge and a commitment to public service to be the critical requirements for this job as voters make their decision.”
The office has been consumed by an increase in workload as property values plummeted in recent years, prompting downward assessments.
“We looked at a large number of single-family homes this last year,” he said. “About 335,000 were reassessed downwards. That was without any taxpayer having to write a letter and ask.”
But he acknowledged that Chief Executive William T Fujioka’s request that all departments begin drafting 9% cuts in their budgets might negatively affect his office’s ability to continue to cope with the onslaught of work.
“If we don’t complete our work in the assessor’s office, there is less revenue that will be collected by the county, and that revenue goes to cities, schools, special districts,” he said. “If there really is a 9% cut, we will not be able to do that.”
Nevertheless, he said he continued to endorse Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 ballot initiative that placed limits on property tax increases and made property assessments so cumbersome in California.
“I really do support Proposition 13. That may be a little bit unusual because I am a Democrat,” he said, “but I owned a home prior to Proposition 13 and I saw people that were greatly affected by the reassessments prior to Proposition 13. Not only the reassessments but increases in tax rates at the same time. You really did have taxpayers that were taxed out of their homes.”
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