CLEARLAKE— Lake County Tax Collector/Treasurer Patrick Sullivan gave an update from his department at this week’s Judge’s Breakfast on Thursday in Clearlake. He discussed their accomplishments from 2022 and 2023 focusing on the progress being made to remediate the county’s numerous tax defaulted properties.
Sullivan highlighted the treasurer/tax department’s successes in 2022 which included the management of billing and collections of property taxes, continued development of the investment program as well as the collection and implementation of both the Transient Occupancy Tax and Cannabis Cultivation and Business Taxes.
Sullivan also noted improvements overcoming staffing issues stating, “If all goes well in the next few months we will be fully staffed.” Clearlake Mayor Russ Perdock asked about position salaries, equating the current starting pay with that offered by McDonalds or Burger King asking, “This is the economic engine for our county that brings the dollars in that we need for our public service, our first responders, and I think you’re woefully understaffed and underpaid.” Sullivan said he appreciated the sentiment. “We have got the sorting age up to $18 or $19 an hour,” he said, “but after a year we can get them up to about 22.” Perdock retorted, “That’s still not enough.”
Sullivan noted the department’s largest success was the extensive Chapter 7 Tax Sale, where the county was able to sell or auction over 1,000 tax delinquent properties for the first time in many years. Currently there are still over 4,500 properties considered in delinquent tax status with over 2,000 of those properties located in Lucerne. According to Sullivan most of these properties located in Lucerne are not buildable as is, therefore being deemed to be worth less than $5,000 which make up a majority of tax defaulted properties in the county. The department is still working on developing a long-term solution for tax lien sales, as the process of the sale from listing through auction is rather costly, with Sullivan noting it can cost up to $700 per auction. Many of these debts date back to the 1990s and drastically outweigh the property’s actual value, much less it’s selling price. For these instances Sullivan discussed the creation of a “low value ordinance and review discharged across departmental programs, reducing existing inventory and limiting collections activity to more cost-effective operations.”
Another recent accomplishment finalized around seven weeks ago by the tax/treasury department involved the use of improved software systems which now supports check and payment processing, allowing for electronic payments which will vastly increase the efficiency and timeliness of payments and payment processing. District 2 Bruno Sabatier said, “It used to take about six months, I would get calls from the school districts saying where’s our money and that is now not a complaint that I receive.”
Sullivan also discussed some of the changes in county investments which have led to an increase of interest revenue. “There was a complete restructuring of the treasury and banking operations,” he said, adding that banking accounts have all been converted to interest gaining accounts adding a projected $1.2 million this year, expected to grow to $2.5 million over the next few years.
The Judge’s Breakfast is held every Thursday morning beginning at 7 a.m. at the Clearlake Senior Center. They offer a full breakfast but purchase is not required to participate. Next week’s guest speaker will be Kristin Sicke, general manager of the Yolo County Flood Control and Irrigation District. More information can be found on their Facebook page.
