California Taxpayers Association President Robert Gutierrez last week presented San Diego County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk Ernest Dronenburg Jr. with an award for Dronenburg’s history of working to improve California’s tax structure.
San Diego County Assessor Ernest Dronenburg Jr. (center) accepts an award from CalTax President Robert Gutierrez (left), joined by Jordan Marks, the taxpayers’ rights advocate in the Assessor’s Office.
“Thank you for a lifetime of protecting taxpayers’ rights,” reads the award, presented September 15 at a CalTax event in Coronado. “We appreciate your bold leadership and dedication to fairness and sound tax policy.”
Dronenburg, who has served as assessor since 2010, is retiring at the end of his current four-year term. He is the past president of the California Assessors’ Association, was a national partner for state and local taxes with Deloitte LLP for 11 years, and previously served for 20 years as an elected member of the State Board of Equalization.
Dronenburg chaired the BOE five separate times, and also led the BOE’s Property Tax Committee. During his tenure on the board, he wrote the original property tax rules for Proposition 13 and was instrumental in passage of the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights.
Dronenburg thanked CalTax for the recognition, and noted that when his term ends, it will mark the first time he will retire voluntarily – he left the BOE due to term limits and left Deloitte due to the mandatory retirement age for partners.
The assessor, who was raised in San Diego, said he plans to spend more time with his wife at their home on a 33-acre working flower farm.
Dronenburg also spoke highly of Jordan Marks, the taxpayers’ rights advocate in his office and a candidate in the November election to be his successor.