Q&A: Placer County Assessor candidates discuss taxes

Appointed incumbent Matt Maynard faces Sam Sherrod in the race for Placer County Assessor on the June Primary ballot. The responsibility of the Placer County Assessor is to discover, appraise and assess all taxable real estate, such as homes, businesses, land and personal property, in the county. The Assessor does not establish property tax laws. In the primary, the candidate who earns 50 percent of the vote plus one will win the seat and begin a four-year term in 2023. The Auburn Journal reached out to each candidate and asked four questions related to the position of county assessor. Their answers follow: Matt Maynard Occupation: Placer County Assessor Experience: Current position since January 1, 2022, 15 years inside the Placer County Assessor's Office, 9 years as a senior manager in the office/4 years fee appraisal experience in the private sector/5 years office management and web development. Contact/website: electmattmaynard@gmail.com, vote4mattmaynard.com Why are you running for Placer County Assessor? I am honored to currently serve as the Placer County Assessor, and I have a thorough understanding of what it takes to manage the office efficiently and effectively. The citizens of Placer County deserve and expect that their Assessor will operate with fairness, integrity, and transparency, always protecting taxpayer dollars in the effective operation of the office. This is how I currently manage the Assessor's Office, and I am committed to upholding these tenets in the future. Placer County currently has just under 190,000 individual assessments with a tax roll that is going to eclipse a net taxable value of $90 billion for the first time in our county's history. This unprecedented tax roll paired with the massive amount of new construction planned for the south county makes it critical that the Assessor understands how to effectively manage the office and allocate personnel and resources when and where they are needed. My adaptive leadership skills, valuation knowledge, and nearly a decade of management experience within the office have prepared me to take on this challenge. How does the Placer County Assessor serve the people? The Assessor administers the California constitutional laws and property tax code at the local county level. This includes preparing and delivering the annual and supplemental tax rolls that are used to fund schools, local government, and essential services. The Assessor also prepares and maintains parcel maps for the county, updates the parcel data in the Geospatial Information System (GIS) base layer maps, and serves as the repository of property characteristics and information. Our office provides this data to a multitude of stakeholders inside and outside the county, including the public. The Assessor does not have the legal authority to raise or lower taxes, change tax rates, or determine which California property tax laws should be followed. I believe the most important way that the Assessor serves the people is to make sure that the tax laws are administered in a fair and equitable manner at the local level. How can the Assessor's office improve its services? While I believe that we currently provide an exceptional level of customer service and accessibility, we can always improve. I would like to expand the GIS mapping information available to the public. There are a lot of opportunities in this area to put information at the public's fingertips with quicker, easier access. I also plan to provide more of our services and forms online so that the public can conduct their business with our office from anywhere, at their convenience. I will be increasing our public outreach as well. How does inflation play into the assessed values of homes and what can you do as Assessor to make sure the valuation of properties is fair? Inflation ultimately permeates into all facets of the supply chain, and the cost of building materials is not spared. The increase in the cost of building materials affects the total cost to construct a home. For the developer to make any profit, they must increase the sales price of the home to the consumer. Eventually, inflation will start to impact the assessed values of homes as the Assessor enrolls the taxable value when it is sold. The effects of inflation on the market cannot be ignored by the Assessor, because to do so would require the Assessor to ignore external forces that are a major contributory factor to market value. In time, inflation will be reflected in both the sales comparison approach and the cost approach to value when a fair market appraisal of the property is performed. Sam Sherrod Occupation: Placer County Supervising Appraiser Experience: 18 years of Assessor's Office Experience Contact/website: www.sherrod4assessor.com Why are you running for Placer County Assessor? I want to advocate on behalf of the taxpayers of Placer County. I have spent my entire 18-year career in the Placer County Assessor Office. I have learned how to lead the office, listened to taxpayer concerns and have developed several plans to reduce taxes. Placer County has added over $40 million to the tax roll each year for the last ten years, to a now lofty $893 million tax base. I propose we use a portion of the annual increases to provide tax relief for our taxpayers. At times, we will need to change the tax law to accomplish this mission and I will go to Sacramento to fight for the taxpayers of Placer County. I am endorsed by the Gold Country Taxpayer's Association. How does the Placer County Assessor serve the people? In the traditional sense the Assessor values all assessable property in Placer County and effectively serves our property owners a plate full of taxes. I envision an Assessor who is elected by the taxpayers and who looks for ways to legally help taxpayers reduce their tax burden. With inflation as it is, we literally cannot afford to keep donating $40 million per year to the County without getting some tax relief. How can the Assessor's office improve its services? When the housing market crashed in 2007, the Assessor's Office lowered values to avoid taxpayer appeals, not because they were being sympathetic. During the Covid pandemic countless businesses suffered and some closed their doors permanently. The Assessor's Office could have provided Covid relief but chose not to be proactive. The Assessor's Office must provide tax relief when it is legally possible. How does inflation play into the assessed values of homes and what can you do as Assessor to make sure the valuation of properties is fair? Let's be honest, there is no fairness in property taxes, just a sense of fairness. For example: My neighbors and I have the exact same house, but I pay $4,000/year and they pay $2,000/year, because we bought at different times and at different prices. The spread in this example widens further when inflation is present because homes sell at higher values, hence higher taxes. I propose changes to the Homeowner's Exemption to effectively reduce tax burdens and also provide some equalization of taxes. When the Homeowner's Exemption was enacted in the late 1970's it was a 20% discount on the median price of a home in California. Today it is a less than 1% discount. We need to bring this discount back and make homeownership more affordable for the sake of our future generations.