What's That Charge on Your California Property Tax Bill?

Besides the 1% Proposition 13 ad-valorem tax and voter-approved bond rates, a California tax bill has a "direct assessments" or "fixed charges and special assessments" section. These are flat, per-parcel charges levied by local districts for a specific benefit — lighting and landscaping, sewer and water, vector control, flood control, Mello-Roos / CFD bonds, PACE energy loans, and more. This page lists 1,719 of them across San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange County, with the typical amount per parcel where the county publishes it.

Type a keyword from the line as it appears on your bill into the search above — for example "vector", "lighting", "CFD", "LMD", or the district name. The table shows the full agency or district name, the type of charge, how many parcels pay it, and the average amount per parcel. Your county tax bill also lists a phone number for each direct assessment; the listed district sets the exact amount under its own formula.

No. Property tax proper is the ad-valorem tax — 1% of assessed value under Proposition 13 plus voter-approved debt. Direct assessments and fixed charges are separate, flat charges for a specific benefit (a district's bonds or services), billed on the same statement for convenience. They are not based on your home's value and are not capped by Proposition 13's 1%.

Usually not individually — most are district-wide charges you pay because your parcel is inside the district, and they end only when the underlying bond is repaid or the district dissolves. A PACE assessment is the exception: it is a loan the owner chose, repaid over its term. If a charge looks wrong for your parcel, contact the district listed on your bill (each direct assessment carries a phone number) or your county auditor-controller.

This decoder currently covers San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange County — the counties whose auditor-controllers publish a machine-readable direct-assessment roster. San Diego and Orange report the parcel count and average dollars per parcel; Los Angeles publishes the agency directory and contact for each charge. We add more counties as their data becomes available.