We at the Government Watch group want to inform the residents of San Mateo County that the San Mateo County Assessor’s Office has been mismanaged over the last ten years by Mark Church and Jim Irizarry. This mismanagement has wasted tax payer money by spending upwards of 60 million dollars on an unneeded computer system and has also tied the hands of churches and non-profits in San Mateo County by charging them taxes that they do not need to pay.

Regarding the $60 Million dollar computer system that is less efficient than the previous system paid for decades ago, there are some interesting facts that the public should know.  During the lock down in 2020, the workers of the Assessor’s Office, like many in the private sector, were required to work remotely.  They did this using the old computer system previously paid for.  During this time, the Assessor’s Office closed the roll in record time, two years in a row.  Now comes the “new and improved system”; the new system, three years after it was developed, is still riddled with bugs in its software.

Our tax payer money is now being lost in two ways: one, from the initial development of the new system; and two, from the correction of many errors in this grossly inefficient system. To make constant corrections, these computer system vendors now have their own cubicles and they spend their time fixing their poorly designed system with tax payer money.  This situation is unfortunately a win for the developers of the computer system and a loss for the taxpayers.

Therefore, the question remains: how long will this misuse of your tax dollars go on? 

Regarding the churches and the non-profits, it is very important that they are told in due time what taxes they are not required to pay. Under Mark Church and JIm Irizarry, it routinely takes four years before these non-profit organizations are given their true release from taxes, and thus necessitating huge payment of unnecessary taxes. This gravely impacts their ability to make hiring decisions and carry on operations in their own way.  We are told that this process in other counties takes one year at most, not the routine four years as done under Irizarry and Church. That’s four years of an organization paying taxes they shouldn’t have to pay.  

What can be done about this? 
Pass on this information and talk to your representative on the Board of Supervisors that oversees the Assessor’s Office.
Stay in touch with this information source.

Note: this is a non-partisan effort. Our concerns are wasted tax dollars and churches and non-profits being hurt.
This effort is unofficial and all of the information is officially on the records.