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A name plate at the Treasurer-Tax Collector service window at the OC CIvic Center on Fed. 27, 2025. Credit: ERIKA TAYLOR, Voice of OC<\/p>\nWhile more than two thirds of Orange County voters resoundingly reelected Shari Friedenrich for Treasurer\/Tax Collector in the June primary, she\u2019s increasingly protesting being shut out of her office by county supervisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just this past week, as county budget deliberations got underway in public, supervisors didn\u2019t allow Friedenrich to finish her public remarks about her concerns on proposed budget cuts to her office after they limited public comment on the budget to one-minute, given an unusually large amount of speakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time I can remember watching that happen to an independently-elected official addressing colleagues during a public supervisors\u2019 meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s especially odd given that Friedenrich \u2013 a Republican endorsed by the county GOP, who has now been re-elected to her post four times over the past decade \u2013 was raising critical budget issues about losing 15 staff positions, which she argues threatens the stability of her office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a far cry from the attention given to the office after bad management and oversight triggered a county bankruptcy filing back in 1994, at the time, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be clear for the record,\u201d Friedenrich warned county supervisors, \u201cIn my professional judgment as the elected official charged by California law with core mandated services of safeguarding, managing, collecting, accounting for and disbursing every dollar of the billions in public funds, these reductions will materially impair my ability to fully perform the statutory core duties assigned to this office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Friedenrich warned that the core duties she\u2019s highlighting include collecting property taxes, which brings in over 90% of the county\u2019s discretionary revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A name plate at the Treasurer-Tax Collector service window at the OC CIvic Center on Fed. 27, 2025. Credit: ERIKA TAYLOR, Voice of OC<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consequences of these staffing reductions are not theoretical,\u201d she warned. \u201cThey increase the risk of delays in treasury operations, financial reporting, reconciliations, tax administration, collections and other essential functions while increasing inefficiencies and costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically, stability is the very reason why county supervisors voted to take away management authority of the county\u2019s $16 billion investment pool away from Friedenrich last year, arguing that her tightly-wound management style and high office staff turnover rate created the specter of instability in the office, seen largely as the county\u2019s banker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[Read: OC Supervisors Break Silence; Publicly Blast Treasurer\u2019s Alleged Workplace Hostility<\/a>]<\/p>\n While Friedenrich has admitted she needed work as a manager in the past and accepted management coaching from the CEO\u2019s office, she also points to a record of high returns on investments amongst California treasurers, something backed up by the former chairman of the citizen oversight panel that used to oversee Friedenrich\u2019s work \u2013 a reform implemented after the county bankruptcy.<\/p>\n Over the past year, county supervisors have dismantled most of those 1994 reforms, including moving investment powers to their own CEO\u2019s office, which recently changed the investment mix.\u00a0<\/p>\n Supervisors also set up their own Investment Oversight Committee <\/a>to oversee investments but make all the appointments themselves and don\u2019t offer taxpayers much information<\/a> about the panel or its members.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the last Investment Oversight Committee, Friedenrich blasted supervisors\u2019 moves<\/a> to take over investment power as illegal, an allegation supervisors deny, arguing state law gives them authority to delegate investment authority or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n Currently, Orange County is the only county in California that does not delegate investment authority to the treasurer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dana Schultz, Friedenrich\u2019s former deputy who is now in charge of investments under the CEO\u2019s office just challenged her former boss directly in the June primary with the backing of the county general employee union and a direct endorsement from Republican Supervisor Don Wagner.<\/p>\n Friedenrich got the endorsement from the OC Republican Party and former Treasurer\/Tax Collector John Moorlach.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before the election, I wrote a column interviewing both candidates and detailed their different views toward county investments, allowing them both to answer written questions in their own voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n