Mr. Larson In your KHUM radio interview on the Toby in the Morning show you accused the Humboldt County Assessor’s Office of lacking transparency. Please provide specific examples of this alleged behavior. In the same interview with Toby in the Morning, you made a very serious allegation that the Assessor’s Office is colluding with the County to intentionally assess properties at an inflated value to increase revenue for the County. This suggests a conspiracy that would hold real legal consequences for anyone involved, past and present. What evidence do you have that supports your serious allegations? Disclosure of evidence to the public now would almost certainly guarantee your bid for election. Failure to disclose such evidence suggests the evidence doesn’t exist and that you’re making such allegations purely for political gains.

— The Salty Farmer

Response

Ben Larson

Hello and thank you for asking important questions.  First I will address your allegation that I accused the assessor office of fraud and collusion, which is false.  I never said those words.  What I did say was the Assessor is an elected position for a reason.  It’s not the Assessor’s Office job to balance budgets.  It’s their job to assign fair market values for taxable reasons.  Therefore if the the assessor office is leaning into revenue growth goals then that is not advocating for the tax payers. 

I have heard several first hand accounts from property owners receiving assessments on newly purchased properties that are several thousand dollars above what they purchased the property for and they want to know why.  I don’t have a good answer for that and when those people have sought answers from the Assessor Office they have not been satisfied with the responses they get. 

Maybe LoCo can open up a comment section for the people of Humboldt County to tell their stories and experiences in dealing with the current Assessor’s Office.  That would be very interesting to see.  

Now to address the accusation of a lack of transparency.  Again, these are not my personal experiences, but people in the community who have come to me to express their frustration as a result of their experience in working with the Assessor’s Office. 

One example I have already given is the lack of explanation as to how the assessment of their property was reached. 

Another is regarding the property questionnaires that receive.  They don’t get the why behind the questions they’re being asked to answer.  When people don’t understand what’s being asked of them they don’t trust the process.  

Here is direct quote resulting in a transparency issue pointed out by the Board of Equalization in the most recent practices survey dated December of 2022; “We found that the Assessor’s value change notice provides incomplete information on the assessment appeal filing period and does not contain an explanation of the stipulation procedure.  By not including all the required information on the value change notice, the Assessor is not in compliance with statute and taxpayers are not being provided with all the information they are entitled to receive.”

That is not me saying that.  That is a direct quote from the most recent Board of Equalization Humboldt County Assessment Practices Survey, which are completed at least every 5 years for each county.  

Here is another transparency issue pointed out in that same BOE survey regarding their internal audit process; “We could not determine the scope of the Assessor’s audit investigations because an audit checklist was not included in the workpapers.  We subsequently found that the Assessor’s audit program does not include the use of a comprehensive audit checklist indicating the areas of investigation.”  They go on to state “According to Assessors’ Handbook Section 504… an audit checklist is vital for an audit to be thorough and complete.”

Again, these are not my words.  These are examples pulled directly from BOE reports which are publicly available and searchable.  

As Assessor, correcting these issues would be a high priority upon taking office.  With my experience in preparing for bank audits, I’m confident I can tackle these issues.  

Vote Ben Larson Humboldt County Assessor

 

 

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