Relative abundance

Amid accumulating reports of malfeasance and mismanagement, California’s Board of Equalization, a 138-year-old relic with no counterpart nationwide, has faced an enduring question: Why does it exist? A new state report provides an answer: to hire its employees’ relatives.

More than a sixth of the board’s nearly 5,000 workers were found to be related to each other by blood, marriage or living arrangements in an internal survey conducted in April, according to the newly released results of a State Personnel Board investigation. Moreover, investigators noted that because of survey flaws, the 17.5 percent of the staff found to share such connections could be an understatement. One employee complained that the board was populated by the “three F’s”: family, friends and friends of family.

Along with revelations that the board misused its staff and powers for political purposes and mishandled tens of millions of dollars, the nepotism allegations led the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown to enact legislation reforming the tax board in June. Most of its staff and duties, which included collecting more than $60 billion in annual revenue from various taxes, were turned over to the newly created state Department of Tax and Fee Administration, answerable to the governor. The Board of Equalization was left with fewer than 200 employees and a few constitutionally assigned duties, including reviewing and adjusting property tax assessments and setting levies on insurers and alcohol.

While the overhaul made overdue progress, it dodged the need for consolidation, instead creating three agencies out of one and adding them to the existing Franchise Tax Board.

As a result of the latest investigation, the Board of Equalization was ordered to dismiss three improperly hired employees, including the daughter of a state legislator. The board and the new tax department must also rewrite their nepotism policies and relinquish the authority to hire employees and take other personnel actions for a year.

All that is fine as far as it goes, but the Board of Equalization’s diminution hasn’t given it a reason for being. Arguably, the constraining of its duties makes its continued existence even more questionable, reducing it to little more than a jobs program — not only for bureaucrats and their cousins but also for the four extraneous politicians, often ex-legislators, who make six figures sitting on it. That explains but doesn’t excuse the Legislature’s failure to give voters the opportunity to abolish the board.