Board of Equalization releases FY 2023—24 annual report showing $8.7 trillion net assessed value and $95 billion local property tax revenue

Executive Director Yvette Stowers presented the Board of Equalization's fiscal year 2023—24 annual report during the April 20 meeting, summarizing property-tax data, exemptions, and BOE activities during the reporting year.

Stowers told the board the total net assessed value for the year (net of exemptions) was $8,700,000,000,000, which includes $8,600,000,000,000 in locally assessed property and $152,200,000,000 in state-assessed property. The report shows approximately $95,000,000,000 in total local property tax revenue for fiscal year 2023—24, an increase of about $6 billion (7%) year over year. Stowers noted that roughly 54 cents of every property-tax dollar goes to public schools, with counties, cities and special districts receiving the remainder.

The annual report includes new features this year: photo locations are identified in captions, statewide maps of assessed values and average tax rates by county, and expanded open-data links. Stowers highlighted several program accomplishments: the BOE issued 57 advisory letters to county assessors, updated three assessors' handbooks, amended 24 prescribed property-tax forms, completed 10 assessment practice surveys or compliance audits, and trained about 2,252 students in appraisal and assessment courses.

On welfare and exemptions, Stowers reported that the BOE co-administers the welfare exemption clearance process and reviewed 1,894 verification filings of organizations holding an organizational clearance certificate. The BOE's Legal Entity Ownership Program (LEOP) identified 986 changes in control in FY 2023—24, resulting in reassessment of 11,173 reportable parcels. The BOE processed 365 jurisdictional boundary changes, generating approximately $425,000 in revenue to the state's general fund (as reported).

Stowers also reviewed other tax programs the BOE administers, including the tax on insurers and the alcoholic beverage tax; those programs showed mixed year-to-year changes. She noted that the BOE's state-assessed properties division adopted $152.5 billion in assessed values for state-assessed companies that year and that these assessments contribute to local school and community revenues.

Board members asked questions about the composition of the large charitable-nonprofit exemption category (noting hospital and affordable-housing exemptions), and about small declines in the railroad-car and alcohol-and-beverage tax revenues, which staff attributed in part to COVID-era shifts and port bottlenecks in the prior reporting year. Members praised the report format and staff work and asked staff to consider additional data requests offline.

Stowers said the full annual report and underlying datasets are available on the BOE website and open data portal. She thanked BOE staff for the work on the report and offered to answer follow-up questions by email or at upcoming meetings.