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Inyo County says property tax system backlog largely cleared; 289 items remain
Summary
County IT and finance staff told the Board of Supervisors the new property tax management system has processed thousands of items and issued hundreds of refunds, but 289 legacy items and conversion issues remain to be cleared to avoid erroneous tax bills.
Inyo County officials told the Board of Supervisors on March 25 that the county—fs new property tax management system has moved from crisis to "business as usual," but several hundred legacy issues still require manual work.
Chief Information Officer and project manager Shendahr said county teams and the vendor worked intensively to process more than 2,500 backlog items and more than 500 current items; the effort resulted in 412 refunds issued to taxpayers. The remaining backlog is 289 total items, including two supplementals and roughly 287 roll corrections. About 57 items stem from data-conversion issues and roughly 230 are personal-property or welfare-exemption corrections that must be verified before billing.
"We locked ourselves in a room 8 to 5 and checked items off a whiteboard," Shendahr said, summarizing the cross-department working groups and vendor site visits that accelerated progress. Department leads from the assessor, auditor, and treasurer-tax-collector joined the presentation and credited interdepartmental coordination for the turnaround.
Board members asked whether the report would satisfy the county grand jury; staff proposed using the presentation as the official record and continuing to make quarterly reports while the remaining items are cleared. One supervisor asked for follow-up showing when the system reaches a target level of operational fluency across departments.
Staff said the highest priority is correcting items that would otherwise produce erroneous tax bills; some corrections date back to early 2021. Most penalty-related corrections involve relatively small amounts (staff said penalties generally cap at $250 for the welfare-exemption/penalty cases), but clearing them is important to avoid sending incorrect bills.
Moving forward, staff described a regular cadence: assessors submit changes on the 1st and 15th of each month, those go to the auditor for certification, and then to the tax collector to issue bills. Remaining "nice-to-have" automation items, such as refund queuing, will be implemented in the next phase to improve efficiency.
The board expressed appreciation for the work and asked staff to return with additional operational metrics once the remaining backlog is cleared.
