Dronenburg Receives Government Excellence Award in LA County

Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk Ernest DronenburgPublic service can bring all kinds of surprises.

Winning the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s 2012 Award for Excellence by a Government Official qualified as a big one for Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk Ernest Dronenburg.

In fact, it was so unexpected, Dronenburg hadn’t planned to be at the presentation at all.

Given to a top public sector tax professional—not necessarily from Los Angeles—each year, bar association officials presented this year’s award to Dronenburg on May 24 at the 2012 California Tax Practitioners’ Conference in downtown Los Angeles. About 600 people attended the event.

Organizers let Dronenburg know he was the winner to make sure he made it to the presentation. He had planned to leave the event early to catch a plane.

“I was surprised and honored,” he said. "I’ve been recognized many times for many things and it’s always a surprise because I just do my job.”  

Previous winners have included California State Controller John Chiang, former Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach and State Franchise Tax Board Executive Officer Selvi Stanislaus. Dronenburg was selected from a pool that included other county assessors, members of the state Assembly, attorneys and State Board of Equalization members, said Chris Matarese, a Glendale-based attorney who chaired the event.

“All the attorneys hold him in the highest regard,” Matarese said.

Before becoming San Diego County Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk in November 2010, Dronenburg served 20 years on the California State Board of Equalization. During that time, he served five stints as Chairman and heard more than 20,000 tax appeals. He also wrote the initial rules for 1978’s Proposition 13, which capped property taxes across the state.

A graduate of San Diego State University with a degree in Business Administration, Finance and Accounting, Dronenburg also worked for 12 years as a national Tax Partner at accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. He served on the San Diego County Board of Education for six years.

Dronenburg has testified at the local, state, national and international levels on taxation, published several tax-related papers and been a frequent lecturer at universities and technical groups.

In his current position, Dronenburg said he has focused on customer service and efficiency. He re-opened Assessor/Recorder/Clerk offices in Kearny Mesa and Chula Vista and pushed the office’s closing times from 4 to 5 p.m. Dozens of additional forms are now available to the public online.   

Dronenburg also hired additional assessors to tackle a backlog of property tax assessment appeals, triggered largely by the economic downturn. The effort is saving the county over $2 million in its first year, he said.

Over the past few years, the number of assessment appeals has finally started to level off and is “not increasing by a significant amount” any more, he said.

“Things are pretty quiet now,” he said.