The following is a transcribed interview with Ernie Dronenburg.
Tell me about yourself and the Million Thanks Campaign.
Well, I’m the accessory quarter clerk for the County of San Diego, and this is my third term. First elected in 2010, reelected in ’14 and reelected in ’18. Looking around for ideas, we saw this exemption that [we] couldn’t understand why more people hadn’t qualified for. We concluded that it was a matter of ignorance, that they didn’t know about it. Not that they were stupid, it’s just that they just hadn’t heard. And so Harry dubbed Jordan Marks in 2018 and gave this to him as one of his first projects. He’s a taxpayer rights advocate, which is our customer relations guy. We don’t have taxpayers- we have customers, and we’re all about great customer service. That means not waiting for people to ask for help, but going out and giving them help.
Would you say you’re the conservative answer to a government program, and you’re actually running well?
I’d say that in spades.
Would you say the Democrats have been making it harder because of your political background?
They haven’t lately, but when I first started, they were all confused. I was a tax man who really wanted to help taxpayers, and I was out there spending resources to help taxpayers. What’s interesting to me is that when I came in, I created this atmosphere [in which] we don’t make widgets, we don’t make golf clubs, we don’t make racket balls… we make great customer service, and that’s our product. I’ve got a buy-in for all forms of people who work for me, and that’s their product. And now, everybody gets trained in it.
Your training courses- that’s in-house training too?
Yeah! In-house training. Then, we measure them partially on customer service, and then we reward them on [good] customer service. That’s the way you do [good business], that’s business sense on how capitalism works.
With your 400 employees, are you seeing yourself setting bigger goals for your campaign?
This was one of the goals we picked out to go after. Our goal, initially, was to have double the amount of people qualified for this exemption. That was our long-term goal. Our short-term goal was to raise it substantially. Well, we hit the ball out of the park, we raised it over 50% since January of last year, when Jordan came on and I gave him this project.
What are some hurdles you’ve faced?
Well, it’s a program building on itself. We tell people, they come in, they qualify, we encourage them to identify other people and talk to other people about the program. So it’s a missionary program. Our mission is to bring in the first and then keep looking for more, but we tell the people that we help “Go be a missionary and help other people.”
Are you seeing more help from referrals, or from your own employees?
Well, it’s mostly us, but we do get referrals. We set our reach goal for reaching one million [people helped] by the end of our fiscal year, June 30 of 2020.
How is that goal looking for you?
We started out with 5,600. A million would be 10,000. We’ve been pushing and pushing, and to date, we’ve done better than we ever expected, and we’re at 9,417 as of today. We’ve already added 3,800.
So, tell me about yourself- what made you as a person want to start this program? Was there a certain experience that drove you to do it?
I spent 13 years in the Coast Guard Reserves, and I also have been fortunate to help people that need financial counseling. I spent 11 years as a partner with Deloitte, the largest tax firm in the world, as a national tax partner for state and local taxes. So I was aware of the program but needed the resources, and that’s where Jordan came in. That’s when I identified a resource we could dedicate to this, and he’s taken it on and done a terrific job.
Have there been any local elected officials that have gone out of their way to help you?
I get a lot of people saying they’re supporting, but I can’t identify anyone who’s done anything above and beyond. However, the realtors have been very helpful, especially Robert Calloway of the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors. The realtors can be a real key because when somebody comes in to buy a house and try to qualify, and they’re told, “Well, your taxes are going to be $10,000,” they’ll say “that’s a lot of money.” [But if the realtor asks them] “Well, are you a disabled vet?” and they say yes, [we] can reduce that by $1,500. [Realtors] can right away identify people, and it helps them qualify.
Are veterans scared to not qualify, and thus not trying to qualify?
Well, veterans will come out, and they’ll be considered a disabled veteran—remember, this is for disabled veterans. And they’ll give them a rating of, let’s say, 70%, [based on their disability], well, they get discouraged because it’s so high. That rating can change over time because they can become more disabled, and we can help them work with the VA to increase their rating. There’s a few we’ve gotten up to 100%. But over time, if somebody is disabled, the body [may not] heal itself and might cause other parts of the body to become disabled.
Do you have any standout success stories?
We have this one guy in Lemon Grove who didn’t know anything about the program, and he was actually sent to us by Calloway. We sat down with him, and at the time, you could qualify if you were 100% disabled. But there was a secondary exemption you could get if you were low-income, meaning that you had less than $40,000 in income. He wasn’t aware of that exemption, much less the first part, and so we worked with him to complete a balance sheet and income statement to prove he was in the low-income category. He ended up with an additional $60,000 in exemption for being in low income, so his total reduction and property taxes was about $200,000 assessed value, meaning about $2,000 in taxes. He gets $130,000 for being 100% disabled, but on top of that, because he’s low income, he gets another $60,000, so it works out to be around $2,000. He was such a nice man, we helped him and he was so thankful for what we did. This man had less than $40,000 in income, divide that by 12 months, and that comes out to roughly $3,400 [a month]. Now, we’re telling him “you don’t have to pay $2,000 in property taxes each year.” It’s almost a five percent increase in his income.
This is money that we give government so that they can supply what we as individuals can’t supply- roads, armies, police forces, but [in this case], it’s [the disabled veterans’] money; this is not a tax break for these people. The government has said, “Because you’re disabled, we’re going to have you give us less.” It’s not a tax break, because [the government] isn’t giving us anything back.
San Diego County has more disabled vets than Orange and LA County combined. This is a real harbor for disabled veterans. A lot of it is because this city is where they ended up, in hospitals and on duty. A lot of them decided to stay—and what’s not to like about San Diego?
Have you thought about branching out?
This is offered statewide, and we’ve changed some of the psyches of other counties. We’ve also changed the statewide form that requires them to ask when they’re doing a preliminary change in ownership form whether or not the person is a disabled vet.
Did you face some drawbacks trying to change the form?
No, the other counties heard how well we were doing, and they volunteered to help.
I was the legislative chairman of the legislative committee for the statewide organization of assessors. Now, I’m the vice chairman of the association, and I’ll be the president in a year and a half. That gives me the platform to talk with the other assessors on a regular basis about good ideas. You’ve got a good idea, you just throw it out. You can’t always do it, but you can be the missionary to tell other people about it.
Do you think that more exposure for your program will get more veterans reaching out?
Yes, especially working with [realtors]. We were given an award for this program by the San Diego County’s Taxpayers Association, because of our partnerships and working to do better things in government. Robert Calloway and his people, the VA Association, and our group all pushed this.
Are you seeing more realtors telling their clients about this program?
We haven’t been able to [survey it], but everyone who we tell about this is excited about it.
How large is your team of salesmen?
Jordan has a team of about six people. Now, they’re not all working full time- we have about three full-time positions total. It’s just the guys in my office, and some of the realtors, who are volunteering more for this now. It’s a big sales opportunity for them.
Is there anything—or anyone—you want to highlight?
[One of our best] is Jordan Marks. He’s the main spearthrower, and Robert Calloway [has contributed significantly] as well. I’m just the salesman for the program. We have a good team that’s making it happen. It’s not me—I’m just one of the evangelists.
