Transparency lacking on Fresno County property tax bills, grand jury finds | Opinion
When was the last time you took a close look at your property tax bill?
Not just the total amount due, payable to the Fresno County Treasurer-Tax Collector every six months, but all the different school bonds listed under special assessments of varying rates and amounts.
For example, my current property tax bill contains 15 Clovis Unified School District bonds and refinances (with amounts ranging from 18 cents to $121.74) as well as seven from the State Center Community College District. The 22 special assessments are given abbreviated names such as “Clovis USD 2004” and “State CCC 16 C” plus a four-digit tax code, a contact phone, a numeral “value base,” a rate per $100 and the amount being charged.
Most people (including myself) simply pay the bill, no questions asked. But what if a taxpayer wanted a more thorough explanation of these special assessments, including the full name of each bond, its total amount and maturity date? Shouldn’t that information be listed on the bill, or at least readily available?
Turns out this is not a hypothetical situation. School bond transparency on property tax bills is the subject of a new Fresno County Civil Grand Jury report.
The 15-page report released last week, in response to a complaint filed by a county property owner, details several flaws in the current system – including antiquated software and a deficient website – and provides six recommendations that would make future tax bills less opaque.
“The Grand Jury conducted interviews with the complainant, personnel from the Fresno County Assessor’s and Fresno County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Offices, and with personnel from entities appearing on tax bills whose duties included informational contact with property owners having questions about the entity’s special assessment(s),” the report states.
“Through these interviews and information gathered during this investigation, the Grand Jury found that there appears to be a lack of transparency on the property tax bill relative to the special assessments levied by school districts.”
Per state law, Oscar Garcia, the county’s auditor-controller/treasurer-tax collector (what a mouthful of a job title), has 60 days to respond.
“The Fresno County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector appreciates the service of the Civil Grand Jury members,” Garcia said in a statement. “We have read their report and are actively working to address the findings and recommendations.”
An initial takeaway is that the development of property tax bills is a complicated process – one that has become increasingly complex as more and more school bonds gain voter approval. According to the report, the same Fresno County residence that had five special assessments listed on their 1995 tax bill had 28 of them in 2024.
Despite those increased complexities, the computer programming running the county’s property tax system hasn’t changed in decades. The file systems are written in COBOL with the earliest coded in 1968.
While COBOL remains in use, the report states, it is antiquated enough that creating new inputs requires “knowledgeable programmers” from a dwindling talent pool of coders.
“Due to the declining number of educational institutions teaching COBOL, the problem of maintaining and coding the Fresno County legacy property tax program will only increase over time,” the report states.
Phone numbers, website no help
In 2020, the county added a “contact phone” column to its property tax bills as a means for the public to obtain information about school bonds.
But when grand jury members actually phoned the numbers printed on the bills, many were nonfunctional. Others were answered by school district personnel who were of little to no help.
“There appears to be a strong informational disconnect between these school districts with outstanding voter-approved bond obligations and the (Fresno County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector),” the report states.
Strong informational disconnect. Gonna file away that one for later use.
Lastly, and most troubling of all, the county is woefully inadequate at providing information online. Multiple searches for “special assessments” on the Fresno County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector website and clicks under the “Property Tax Information” heading produced no relevant results or dead links.
“Transparency of special assessment taxes on property tax bills is lacking in Fresno County,” the report concludes.
To improve service to taxpayers, the Grand Jury makes six primary recommendations. They include prioritizing the purchase of a new software system away from COBOL, adding “Start Date,” “Dollar Amount,” and “Maturity Date” columns for each listed school bond and specific website improvements.
Paul Nerland, the county administrative officer, and Garcia should take this grand jury report seriously and implement its recommendations as soon as reasonably possible.
Just because most Fresno County property owners pay their tax bills without a second glance doesn’t mean we should get the wool pulled over our eyes.
