Personal Property:  21%

3 of 12 Auditor-Appraisers cut.  (Last-minute funding from the Board of Supervisors was used to fund the Supervising Auditor-Appraiser position, which was actually scheduled to be cut 6 years ago.

2 of 12 support positions cut.  (But NOT the Program Tech I position, although that was promised.)

Real Property: 5%

0 of 36 Appraisers cut.  (There were a few retirements.)

3 of 19 support positions cut.  

Property Transfers and Exemptions:  32%

6 of 19 positions cut

Mapping: 29%

2 of 7 positions cut.

Whew!  Good thing that the least efficient division kept most of its staffing.  Now that is leadership.

or, how to use the budget crisis to get rid of people we find inconvenient while making sure the people we like not only keep their jobs, but have promotions available.

There used to be 2 seniors.  Then there were 3.  Then there were 2.  Now there will be 1.  Of course both the Sup AA and Sr AA have seniority sufficient to bump down, so ... no one knows who really goes.

Three people is 25% of the Auditor-Appraiser staff.

And actually, I thought there was 1 vacant Auditor-Appraiser position already.

There is 1 "vacant" Supervising Appraiser position because 1 of the 3 existing just put in for retirement.  The second position will be "cut" after the occupant is promoted to Chief Appraiser.  Because the Chief Appraiser has already been pre-selected for Assistant Assessor, there will be a convenient vacancy.

"3 vacant" Appraiser positions?  (I've heard they were down 9 positions.   I also heard they had zero County-funded vacancies, only the State-funded positions that were lost along with their State funding.)  

Conveniently, 3 Appraisers are at a convenient retirement age.   I wonder -  if they need to lose an extra body, will they pick the body that ran against his boss for the Assessor position?

Did anyone actually get laid off here?  Or was this just a method of encouraging retirement?

Six human bodies (as opposed to these vague "vacant" positions ) is only 15% of the Appraiser staff.    And please note that almost  20% of the Appraiser staff is considered supervisory.

One Secretary position was vacant for several months and nobody noticed.  The real question is why they bothered to fill it then, only to cut it now.  

Deciding who loses their Program Techs will be an ugly fight.  Those 3 are 25% of the Program Tech staff.

And once again , we run into freaky phantom vacancies.  Those "vacant" positions have been "cut" during each of the last two budgets.  This will be Cut #3.

Here is where the plot sickens a bit more obviously ... 3 divisions, 3 Chief Office Assistants.  But 1 Chief OA is, here is that word again, conveniently close to retirement.  One of the other COAs has been champing at the bit to wield her powers over the other divisions and here is a convenient excuse.  Get 1 COA to retire.  Then move that pesky disobliging COA out of the way, and the remaining COA  is free to run everything her way.   Which might be a good thing, if you had the right kind of supervisor.  That doesn't apply here.

It may look like they are cutting from the top to save the larger salaries, but this is really very clever.

These people have a great deal of seniority.  They won't lose their jobs, they will merely get "bumped down" to a lesser position.  This is great news for the department, since they get to retain the knowledge and ability of the senior employee but only have to pay the lesser salary.  This is not so great news for those recent hires who will be finding themselves on the EDD unemployment telephone queue, applying for benefits.