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Assessor’s ‘Real Estate Watchdog’ reauthorization advances after five-year pilot
Summary
The subcommittee advanced an ordinance reauthorizing and revising the Real Estate Watchdog program, which the assessor says produced about $1.07 million in additional property tax revenue during a five-year pilot; changes include a straight 10% reward up to $100,000 and 3-1-1 as the intake point.
The Budget & Finance Subcommittee advanced legislation to reauthorize the Real Estate Watchdog program and revise its reward structure, an initiative sponsored by Supervisor David Chu and presented by Assessor Phil Ting.
Ting told the committee the pilot program produced $1,074,349 in additional property tax revenue over five years and paid one reward of $66,600. The ordinance would standardize the reward as 10% of collected taxes up to a $100,000 cap (lowering the prior maximum from $500,000) and shift intake to 3-1-1 to avoid confusion with the city’s whistleblower program.
Budget staff confirmed the program operated without additional city staffing and recommended approval. Supervisors questioned administrative burden: Ting said 60 referrals over five years averaged about a dozen per year and required modest staff time for follow-up. He explained limits set by California law and Proposition 13 on detecting changes of ownership and noted that in at least one large case the office recovered more than $1 million in back taxes after tracing a transaction that dated to the late 1990s.
The committee voted to send the ordinance forward with a recommendation to the full Board.
