Local agencies, like school boards, cities and fire districts, got a bit of a nasty shock in December when they received a letter from the Sonoma County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector Erick Roeser. In it, the agency announced the triggering of the calamity reassessment process, a state tax law that is triggered when there is more than $10,000 worth of real property damage from a state-declared disaster.
This process was triggered, in part, because the county tax rolls had already been issued for the year when the fires struck.
Each tax year, Roeser’s office must dole out the property tax shares to the various agencies using what is called “countywide apportionment factors.” These are determined yearly by the county auditor and say, essentially, which agencies get how much money.