By Ben Christopher, CalMatters

The global pandemic notwithstanding, most California owners are still on the hook to pay their property taxes next week — thus far, the state isn’t granting any reprieves. 

Though both federal and state lawmakers postponed the deadline for income taxes through July 15, the statewide due date for homeowners and commercial real estate owners to cough up their property tax payments is still April 10.

And if you don’t like it, take it up with Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Although property taxes are collected by counties in California, property tax deadlines are set by state law. The only way to alter them is either by legislative act — impossible now that state lawmakers are sheltering-in-place along with most everyone else — or by executive order. 

Newsom’s apparent reluctance to grant a coronavirus property tax delay has raised the ire of low-tax advocates such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

“Tenants, small businesses have all gotten breaks and that’s all justified, we don’t argue with that at all,” said association president Jon Coupal. “We’re the primary representative of homeowners in the state of California and we’re the only ones left at the train station.” 

(Image: California's property tax payments are still due by April 10, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Image via iStock with alternations by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters)

The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But Newsom’s likely already heard the counter argument from state and local government groups.

On March 21, the California Association of County Treasurers and Tax Collectors, along with city, county and school district government groups, wrote an open letter to  Newsom asking him to leave the April 10 deadline in place.

The reason, they wrote, is that property taxes play a unique role in local budgets. 

Unlike sales and income taxes, which may trickle in over the course of a year with each transaction and withholding, nearly all property tax payments land in county and municipal coffers in the week just before the biannual deadlines, December 10 and April 10. 

“Extending the deadline,” the groups wrote, “would have a dramatic impact on local funding, as almost all local agencies rely on the property tax for the majority of their general funds.” 

Keith Williams, president of the treasurers’ association and the treasurer/tax collector for Mariposa County, said that schools would be particularly hard hit by a delay, as they depend on property taxes for a third of their revenue. Citing an unpublished analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, he noted that 10% of school districts statewide do not have enough spare cash to endure a two month delay.

Many local governments have also structured loans and bonds on the presumption of an April windfall.

“A lot of debts are timed to be paid when these collections come in,” he said. “Counties aren’t sitting on a bunch of money to pay the debt, it’s just timed.” 

Land owners who find themselves short on cash come April 10 as a consequence of the coronavirus crisis may have some wiggle room, but it depends on where they live. 

While counties lack the  legal authority to postpone the deadline, state law allows them to waive late fees and interest payments on delinquent payments for “reasonable cause and circumstances beyond the taxpayer’s control.”

Though he did not have an exact number or list, Williams said most counties will be allowing delinquent homeowners to file for a waiver.

In San Mateo and Los Angeles counties, for example, officials will accept late payments, so long as those property owners provide “justifiable documentation” or fill out a request. 

How those coronavirus property tax delay requests are processed and what is considered justifiable is up to each county, said Williams. 

“I can’t answer for them.” 

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Sonoma County says it will consider waiving penalties for late property tax payments related to COVID-19 on a case-by-case basis.

The second installment of the 2019-2020 Annual Secured property tax bill was due Feb. 1 and becomes late if not paid by April 10. The Sonoma County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office (ACTTC) says it does not have authority to extend the delinquency date.

“We encourage all property owners who can pay on-time to do so,” the office said in a press release. “This revenue helps to fund many critical public services, such as police, sheriff, fire and emergency response, public health, public works, and education, and pays debt service on voter approved bonds and other legal obligations.”

The ACTTC will consider written requests for a penalty waiver due to the COVID-19 emergency after April 10. The COVID-19 penalty waiver application and information will be available on the ACTTC website after that date. 

(Image: Sonoma County / Credit: Pixabay)

The ACTTC office is currently closed to the public through May 3 in accordance with the Sonoma County Public Health Order to shelter in place. Property owners can make payments online, by phone, or by mail.

Online and phone payments are accepted at sonomacounty.ca.gov/Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax-Collector/ or by calling 1-888-636-8418 or (707) 565-2281 (toll free). 

Checks, cashier's checks, and money order payments should be sent to: 

County of Sonoma Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector 
P.O. Box 3879
Santa Rosa, CA  95402-3879

If you have questions or can only pay with cash, contact the Tax Collection staff by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take lives and strain resources, you might be wondering how you can help. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is help slow the spread of the virus by following public health guidance. But if you’re still looking to do more, here are several ways you can make a difference in Sonoma County and beyond.

Volunteer

Volunteers are urgently needed to help the Sonoma County community respond to challenges related to COVID-19, the county says. The Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership is coordinating Sonoma County volunteers to make sure community members stay safe, healthy, fed and connected to social services.

To learn about current COVID-19 volunteer opportunities visit: The Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership – COVID Response

If there are no volunteer opportunities posted at this time, you may register for future need by listing your availability and skills here: Volunteer Portal 

Nonprofit agencies looking for volunteers can indicate their needs at https://cvnl.org/volunteer-recruitment-help/.

Donate Blood

There is an urgent need to replenish blood supplies in Sonoma County. To donate, call (707) 258-4825 or visit vitalant.org to make an appointment.

Donate

To best meet immediate needs and to protect the health and safety of the community during the COVID-19 response, local nonprofits request financial donations instead of clothes or used items.

The Salvation Army requests NEW (in the original package) personal protective equipment (PPE) to supplement healthcare shortages. These items can be donated at:

Salvation Army
93 Stony Circle
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
Monday – Friday, 9am – 3pm

Items needed:

• New unused N95 masks with or without the valve
• Unopened protective goggles in original packaging
• Unused original packaging hospital gowns

It is preferred to have items in bulk. Only healthy people should be dropping off donations. If you are not feeling well or are exhibiting any COVID-19 symptoms, please stay home and call your doctor.

Sonoma County Business Donations

The Sonoma County is currently seeking donations from the business community for items that would continue support for our regional healthcare employees, provide necessary patient-care and help safely identify Coronavirus concerns.

The primary items needed include:

• New unused N95 masks with or without the valve
• Unopened protective goggles in original packaging
• Unused original packaging hospital gowns
• Tyvek Coats and Body Suits
• Nitrile gloves
• Bleach
• Face shields

Contact (707) 565-6038 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any support you might be able to provide.

Statewide

The state of California has a page dedicated to ways to help during the pandemic. Actions include: 

• delivering meals
• donating to food banks and shelters
• volunteering at food banks
• supporting nonprofits
• conducting wellness checks on vulnerable people
• creating hygiene kits, and
• donating blood

By Erica Hellerstein, Mercury News

For the past few weeks, as coronavirus radically altered daily life, 79-year-old Diana Fernandes has been struggling quietly inside her San Francisco home, weathering a challenge from within.

Fernandes lives alone — her husband died in 2017 — and has been left to manage a painful foot injury and the threat of the virus on her own. As an asthmatic, she is already in a higher risk category so she has been avoiding contact with people. She hasn’t seen another person since March 14.

She misses watering her plants outside and shopping at Trader Joe’s for her favorite foods: apricots, figs, English muffins, mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes. Now, she’s relying on regular deliveries from Meals on Wheels for food.

“I have to live with what I can,” said Fernandes over the phone from her home. “It would be nice to have someone to take care of me but it is expensive so not to worry. I do my best.”

Fernandes is among the millions of elderly Californians who live alone amid a strange new reality imposed by the coronavirus. Confined indoors, they are safer from the threat of the virus, but increasingly vulnerable to isolation, fear and anxiety as their connections to the outside world shut down. Friends and volunteers can’t visit, and most senior centers are closed.

(Image: Food bank volunteer Betty Kimmel wears a protective mask as she hands out oranges to seniors at Teamsters 315 Hall in Martinez on March 19, 2020. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters)

Already, social service providers are fielding heart-breaking calls from seniors, alone, hungry, some disabled and without the financial or community support needed to get through a lockdown with no end in sight.

“One elder called and said, ‘Am I going to die?’ That was how she opened her conversation with me,” said Cathy Michalec, executive director of Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly San Francisco, a nonprofit aimed at reducing senior isolation that is sending care kits to elderly residents. “Seniors are isolated always. I think for some seniors really it just amplified the fact that they are alone.”

Experts say isolation can pose a significant risk to seniors. Statewide, there are about 5.7 million Californians over the age of 65, according to the California Department of Aging. Roughly one-fifth live alone.

“Nutrition and isolation are two of our top concerns right now,” said California Department of Aging director Kim McCoy Wade. “If I have one message, it’s for us all to be checking in on each other. Somebody you might not have called last week or two weeks ago, call them now.”

Sally, a San Francisco 80-year-old who asked to be identified by her first name only, spends so much time on the phone now she sometimes feels “like a teenager.” But the daily calls that have become a staple of her quarantine can’t replace the face-to-face interactions with friends that were part of her life before the virus swept through the Bay Area.

“I didn’t know what an extrovert I was,” she said. “I always thought I was an introvert. But I’m not. I really miss my friends. I had a really good life before, I didn’t realize it. Now I feel like I’m a prisoner.”

As she struggles to cope with the isolation imposed by the virus, she has a growing list of worries: running low on food and supplies: declining physical and mental health; missing out on exercise and walks that were a part of her routine; and of course, contracting the virus. She takes her temperature every morning.

Still, she has found some bright spots. She is a poet and recently hosted a reading over the phone for about 15 people — an event she said was a “big success.” She’s also making sure to catalog her experiences and hopes to submit them to a local library’s archive.

Social service agencies, nonprofits and volunteers who work with seniors are also scrambling to adapt as more older people seek food and emotional support. With tens of thousands of home-bound seniors across the Bay Area, local service providers are seeing two patterns play out at once. The first is a spike in need among seniors who may not have previously required help from food relief organizations. The second is a declining number of volunteers, particularly at local food banks and Meals on Wheels chapters, where a significant portion of the volunteer base is over 65.

On a typical day, Contra Costa County’s Meals on Wheels program serves about 2,300 meals to home-bound seniors and people in senior living centers. That’s already grown to 2,800 meals daily. Santa Clara County’s Health Trust Meals on Wheels program has more than doubled its weekly meal distribution, too, and seen a jump in the number of people calling for help, said director Teresa Johnson.

But even as the need for support rises, visitation and activity programs have been cut by shelter-in-place orders. Brendon Coates, 37, a volunteer with Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly-San Francisco, can’t see the senior he has been visiting twice a month since 2018. Usually, when Coates stops by, they talk about old Hollywood movies and swap sugar-free chocolates. Coates has been calling regularly and checking in, but said he does sometimes worry about how his older friend is doing, isolated and with no family nearby.

Phone lines and DIY volunteer groups that have sprung up to help Bay Area seniors have also seen a flood of calls. Paige Wheeler Fleury, who helped found the volunteer-led Oakland at Risk website, which connects healthy young people in Alameda County with seniors and other-high risk community members who need help with groceries, supplies, or phone check-ins, described “heartbreaking” situations: a 94-year-old disabled woman with no friends or family members who doesn’t have money for food; a blind man in his late ‘70s who has no microwave, refrigerator, or stove and relied on a now-closed senior center for daily meals, with no money until April 1.

“He called us about three times and said, ‘I’m hungry and I have no one to help me.’ It was pretty emotional when I spoke to him,” she said. The group was able to send out an emergency delivery of food, but Wheeler Fleury said she is short on sign-ups for volunteers in his area — Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood — who could continue to help get him groceries.

Dr. Patrick Arbore, an expert in elderly suicide prevention and isolation and founder of the San Francisco-based Friendship Line, a crisis intervention and support phone hotline for seniors and people with disabilities, said the line has seen an uptick in calls as seniors navigate theloneliness of coronavirus. He recommends people who live in buildings with seniors slip the 800 971-0016 phone number of the Friendship line — which serves people across California — under their doors.

“It can be a life-sustaining link for them,” he says. “It’s a very stressful time and when I talk to older people over a period of six hours as I did today and I hear them, I hear the fear. They will say, ‘I’m scared.’ And their routines are just totally altered. And that’s the thing that I can hear is that they’re alone.”

Erica Hellerstein is a reporter with the Mercury News. This article is part of The California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequity and economic survival in California.