Counties report progress and persistent delays in assessment-appeals process; LA County details tech, training fixes

Los Angeles County officials told a state Board of Equalization work group May 20 that a two‑year push on training, digitization and scheduling analytics cut the time to schedule new assessment appeals and boosted online filings — but clerks and assessors from large, medium and small counties said continuances, mass professional filings and lack of permanent staff still cause delays statewide.

Jennifer Tran, deputy executive officer for the Los Angeles County Assessment Appeals Board, credited a multi‑phased business process improvement program and IT updates for quicker service and fewer continuances. “After publishing a video tutorial on how to file an appeal electronically, nearly 50% of the total applications received are now filed online,” Tran said, adding that new scheduling strategies reduced the average time to schedule a new application from about 10 months to roughly five months. Tran told the work group LA County published video tutorials that have received nearly 15,000 views and that by March 2025 nearly 80% of the 2021–22 backlog had been closed or finalized.

Why it matters: assessment appeals involve multiple local offices — clerks of the board, assessors, and auditor‑controllers — and delays lengthen taxpayers’ uncertainty and can cascade into refund and billing problems. Several participants urged statewide actions to reduce the number of repeat continuances and to better manage filings from high‑volume tax agents.

Statewide picture and key pain points

Bridal Balhaques, chair of the California Clerk of the Board of Supervisors Association (CCBSA) assessment appeals subcommittee and lead appeals clerk for Ventura County, told the board that many counties have fewer than one full‑time equivalent dedicated to appeals and that large batches of mass filings from professional tax agents create a “data entry backlog that has a domino effect on the rest of the assessment appeals process.” Balhaques described proposals the clerks’ subcommittee submitted to the BOE, including: (1) requiring professional filers to self‑certify a pre‑filing analysis of merit; and (2) requiring electronic filing for professional filers who submit more than a county‑specific threshold of appeals per year when the county offers e‑filing.

Smaller counties echoed staffing and funding limits. Melissa Kitz, assistant clerk of the board in Butte County, said her office still manages appeals with Excel spreadsheets and roughly “half a person” supporting the appeals workload; she estimated county‑specific software development at about $200,000 — “not realistic” for many small counties.

Several counties and advocates suggested concrete tools and policy changes

- Tighten continuance practice and discovery timelines: assessors and clerks said untimely information exchanges drive continuances. San Diego Deputy Chief Deputy Assessor Brooke Hill recommended clearer guidance that incomplete responses to statutory information requests be treated as “good cause” for continuances and that pre‑hearing conferences include agreed deadlines for exchange of evidence.

- Standardized training and onboarding: LA County, Sacramento and San Diego described expanded quarterly training for board members and hearing officers. Tran urged the BOE to consider standardized training for consistency across counties.

- Docketing/case‑management systems: several speakers said modern docketing and case‑management tools would allow parties and clerks to coordinate discovery and calendar multi‑day hearings more predictably; some clerks cautioned a rigid statewide mandate could be hard to implement across counties of different sizes.

- Limit mass filings and encourage early pre‑filing analysis: clerks proposed rules or thresholds for professional agents that would require pre‑submission analysis or mandatory e‑filing above a per‑county volume threshold.

- Expand shared resources/grants: multiple small and medium counties asked for state grants or shared, open‑source systems that could be used across counties and integrated with assessor systems.

What the BOE said it will do

Chair Member Vasquez said the work group will prepare minutes and a summary of findings for the board’s June 18 meeting and may reconvene the work group later in 2025 to convert the suggestions into formal recommendations. ‘‘We hope to come to some consensus and identify actionable next steps,” he said.

Ending: The work group heard a mix of success stories — the LA County example of digital tutorials, data analytics and cross‑training — and warnings that local staffing and repeated continuances keep schedules slow in many counties. The BOE will compile the testimony and proposals for follow‑up and possible rulemaking or legislative recommendations.