LA County Assessor Ushers in New Era of Technology

The L.A. County Assessor’s Office is ushering in a new digital era Friday with the launch of a cloud-based platform that will replace what the office called 40 years of outdated technology.

Assessor Jeff Prang and county Supervisor Lindsey Horvath “flipped the switch” on the system, marking a symbolic change for the county. The new system will be used for the 2025 Assessment Roll and bolster public access to property information, according to the office.

Previously, the county’s 2.4 million real property assessments were maintained in paper files and microfiche that had to be processed manually. Information requests had to be researched by hand, which the assessor’s office described as a “slow” and “all-consuming” process, requiring an in-person visit to one of its six district offices.

The effort, known as the Assessor’s Modernization Project, was completed in partnership with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, moving more than 40 years of paper-based filing to the cloud-based system.

Using the technology, county residents can access the Assessor Portal to easily search for property information online. The public portal provides a more user-friendly search engine for a larger field of data for all property parcels compared to the previous system, according to Prang’s office.

Users can access data on a desktop computer or a mobile device. Maps and other digital systems will also allow users to see the property or parcel of land they are searching for. County residents can conduct and complete transactions online, sign documents electronically, and if they have questions, they can get help from the AI Assessor Chatbot, according to the office.

The Assessor’s Office rolled out the cloud-based system over time to avoid major pitfalls that are likely to happen under what is known as a “Big Bang” approach, where technology is launched all at once and can lead to failures and cost overruns, officials said.

For county staff, when they use the cloud-based system, each step requires a supervisor’s review and check before moving on to the next level, which officials tout as ensuring a more secure process.