1 BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 2 450 N STREET 3 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 4 5 6 7 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT 8 SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 9 10 CUSTOMER SERVICES AND 11 ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY COMMITTEE 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Reported by: Juli Price Jackson 21 No. CSR 5214 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 1 2 P R E S E N T 3 4 For the Board Barbara Alby of Equalization: Chair 5 Betty T. Yee 6 Member 7 Jerome E. Horton Member 8 Michelle Steel 9 Member 10 Marcy Jo Mandel Appearing for John 11 Chiang, State Controller (per Government Code 12 Section 7.9) 13 Diane G. Olson Chief, Board 14 Proceedings Division 15 16 For Board of Equalization: Anita Gore Deputy Director 17 External Affairs 18 Kari Hammond Manager 19 Outreach Section 20 Deborah Cooke Legal Counsel 21 22 ---oOo--- 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 1 450 N STREET 2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 3 SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 4 ---oOo--- 5 MS. OLSON: Okay, our next item is Customer 6 Service and Administrative Efficiency Committee. 7 Ms. Alby is the Chair of this committee. 8 Ms. Alby. 9 MS. ALBY: Good morning, Members and everyone. 10 Today we have one item on for the Committee on the 11 agenda, it's Transparency at the Board of Equalization. 12 Two of the core goals and objectives that we 13 established in our strategic plan required that we 14 remain constantly vigilant in making our processes and 15 information transparent to our taxpayers. 16 Under Goal No. 1 we planned to improve the 17 taxpayer experience and stated that we would do this by 18 expanding our communication to taxpayers through our web 19 services and providing them with tools to help them meet 20 their business needs. 21 Under Goal 2, we plan to maximize voluntary 22 compliance in part by improving taxpayer education about 23 tax laws and by providing online information to them. 24 The purpose of this report is to inform the 25 Board on how we are meeting these goals and what steps 26 remain to be done. 27 Here to present our report on transparency at 28 the Board of Equalization is Anita Gore and she'll 3 1 present that report. 2 MS. GORE: Thank you, Chairwoman and Members. 3 I'm Anita Gore, Deputy Director of External Affairs 4 Department. 5 With me today is Kari Hammond, the Manager of 6 our Outreach Section and Deborah Cooke, the legal 7 counsel in charge of our Disclosure Office. 8 Today I'm reporting on the tremendous efforts 9 we have made in the past couple of years to become a 10 more open and transparent agency. 11 You have before you a summary report that 12 briefly outlines the progress that's been made. As you 13 can see, the BOE uses many tools to offer information to 14 our taxpayers and the public at large. 15 Our web site is a key method we use to reach 16 people. Thousands of pages of information exist on our 17 internet site that offer information on our programs and 18 educational efforts. We work directly with taxpayers 19 through our outreach efforts and based on their 20 individual requests for information. 21 In addition to those things included in the 22 summary report on transparency, we've also served over 23 11,000 taxpayers through our in-person seminars held 24 throughout the state in the last three years. 25 The taxpayer information sections call center 26 has experienced a 57 percent increase in call volume 27 since 2007 -- from approximately 400,000 calls in 2007 28 to almost 630,000 calls in 2009. Taxpayers not only get 4 1 simple tax questions answered when they speak with a 2 Customer Service Representative, they also get real time 3 assistance in e-filing returns. 4 As new programs are implemented at the Board, 5 program staff and outreach staff work together to inform 6 and educate taxpayers through direct mail, e-mail 7 notifications, speaking engagements, meetings, the BOE 8 website and through the media. 9 We are committed to continuous improvement in 10 making information available. 11 To enhance transparency in the future to both 12 internal and external audiences, we will aggressively 13 build and strength government and community 14 partnerships, optimize technology using the web and 15 social media and other cutting edge technology as it 16 becomes available. 17 One of the most common ways for the public to 18 receive information is through specific requests made 19 through the Public Records Act. The BOE simplifies the 20 process for requesting information through the PRA by 21 the use of direct links to information on how to make a 22 request to the BOE and an e-mail link that can be used 23 to send a request directly to the Disclosure Officer. 24 And now I'd like to turn this over to Deborah 25 Cooke, who's here to discuss our current efforts in 26 making all BOE documents and information available to 27 the public and some of the challenges we face. 28 MS. COOKE: Thank you, Anita. 5 1 Madam Chair and Members of the Board, 2 notwithstanding the great strides that the Board has 3 already made in making its operations more transparent 4 to the public, there are still some public documents 5 that are not yet published or available on the Board's 6 website. 7 Staff, however, is working diligently to 8 develop ways to increase transparency while continuing 9 to protect taxpayer confidentiality. 10 As Miss Gore mentioned, a variety of 11 publications and documents are currently published or 12 available on the BOE website. However, there are areas 13 that we are currently working to expand disclosure. 14 And there are three main areas: One, is with 15 the respect to our legal opinions. Currently all of our 16 annotated sales and use tax, special taxes and property 17 tax legal opinions are available on the Board's website. 18 However, we still have more to do. Staff is working to 19 upload all of the full length legal opinions. Currently 20 90 percent of those full length legal opinions are 21 available on the website and taxpayers can access that 22 information by clicking on the annotation that's 23 currently already on there. 24 The second area is with respect to the Audit 25 Program Management Guidelines and the Compliance Policy 26 Management Guidelines. These guidelines primarily 27 contain the Board's confidential audit and collection 28 strategies. However, work still needs to be done to 6 1 extract out any nonconfidential information and make 2 that available to the public without jeopardizing the 3 Board's ability to effectively administer the various 4 tax and fee programs. 5 We recognize that many people may not know 6 about the current progress already being made to 7 increase transparency with respect to these two 8 guidelines. 9 Currently when something in these guidelines 10 is determined upon review to be public, it is removed 11 and incorporated into the respective public manuals, 12 which is the Audit Manual and the Compliance Policy and 13 Procedures Manual. This occurs when we receive a 14 request pursuant to the Public Records Act for material 15 contained within those confidential guidelines. 16 A records request is not denied immediately 17 simply because it relates to a manual previously deemed 18 to be confidential. Instead, the material is thoroughly 19 reviewed by the program area and then secondarily 20 reviewed by the Disclosure Office to determine if any 21 portion of it can be segregated and provided to the 22 public. 23 If it is found that some information is 24 segregable, the Tax Policy Division will then remove the 25 disclosable material and incorporate it into the -- into 26 the public manuals. 27 The last phase that's currently being done is 28 to actually remove all -- remove from the confidential 7 1 guidelines the nonconfidential content. This work is 2 currently in progress and an updated Audit Program 3 Management Guidelines is going through the clearance 4 process right now. 5 Work on updating the other confidential manual 6 is in progress and we'll be happy to report back to you 7 on the continued progress in that regard. 8 And, lastly, the third area that still requires 9 some attention is with respect to the operation memos 10 and the Department policy memos. These documents are 11 not currently posted to the Board's website. They may 12 or may not include confidential and/or taxpayers' 13 proprietary information. Most have been incorporated, 14 however, into the appropriate manuals and, thus, 15 superceded or deemed obsolete. However, we will work 16 with the program staff to insure that confidential 17 information is properly removed from the remaining memos 18 and establish a process to automatically upload the 19 Board's operation and policy memos to the Board's 20 website. 21 We look forward to assisting staff in putting 22 all public information on the Board's website so it is 23 readily accessible. We'll make every effort to work 24 with the program staff in doing this, while at the same 25 time, insuring that we do not compromise confidential 26 taxpayer information and the Board's confidential audit 27 and collection strategies. 28 Thank you. 8 1 MS. GORE: That concludes our report. 2 If you have any questions, we'll be happy to 3 answer them. 4 MS. ALBY: Thank you very much. 5 And I want to commend you, in particular, just 6 hearing your report, Miss Cooke -- excellent work. 7 I'm glad to hear that and I'd like to comment 8 further on that after the Members do. 9 And Miss Hammond didn't say anything, but I 10 know that I speak for the Board, the great job you do 11 out there. We appreciate everything you do to bring 12 this agency to the public and help them with compliance 13 and just get to know what we do up here. So, thank you 14 so much. 15 And, of course, Anita, great work as always. 16 Any questions, Members? 17 MS. YEE: Comment. 18 MS. ALBY: Comments? 19 MS. YEE: Thank you, Madam Chair. 20 I wanted to just commend you for your continued 21 leadership in this area. This just goes -- it's such an 22 integral part in terms of our mission in serving 23 taxpayers. And I'm pleased with the progress that we're 24 making as an being in this area. 25 I just wanted to point out that later on in the 26 agenda there is kind of a counterpart to this, under the 27 Deputy Director's report, and it relates to greater 28 transparency related to government records generally 9 1 pursuant to Prop. 59 that the voters approved in 2004. 2 So, I think -- I think there is a whole host of 3 changes that I certainly would like to see as we 4 continue to advance increased transparency of the work 5 that we do. 6 So, thank you. 7 MS. ALBY: Thank you, Ms. Yee. 8 Any other comments, Members? 9 I would like to actually add to that. You 10 actually took every point that I wanted to move into 11 as -- Miss Cooke -- relative to the things that we need 12 speed up a bit. 13 So, what I would like to do is -- my intention 14 really is to work with staff and with the Members for 15 your input and develop a timeline so that we can 16 accomplish -- all of a sudden, we -- BOE's been subject 17 to many timelines and we have to add another one -- and 18 especially me, this is something I care deeply about and 19 I would like to see something move along before I say 20 sayonara and have some sort of an idea what's going to 21 happen in the future, how fast we're going to do these 22 things because they are very important to the taxpayers 23 that they have this information as a guideline in order 24 to -- so they don't have to appear before us. 25 So, I really am very pleased with your work. 26 So, I look forward to Member input. In the next weeks 27 we're going to meet with staff and put some sort of a 28 plan together on how we can move that along as speedily 10 1 as possible. 2 So, I thank you all very much. 3 And no more questions? 4 This meeting is adjourned. 5 ---o0o--- 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 11 1 . 2 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3 4 State of California ) 5 ) ss 6 County of Sacramento ) 7 8 I, JULI PRICE JACKSON, Hearing Reporter for the 9 California State Board of Equalization certify that on 10 SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 I recorded verbatim, in shorthand, to 11 the best of my ability, the proceedings in the 12 above-entitled hearing; that I transcribed the shorthand 13 writing into typewriting; and that the preceding pages 1 14 through 11 constitute a complete and accurate 15 transcription of the shorthand writing. 16 17 Dated: February 9, 2011 18 19 20 ____________________________ 21 JULI PRICE JACKSON 22 Hearing Reporter 23 24 25 26 27 28 12