California officials want Calaveras County to pay back $313,543 it got by wrongly giving a golf course, $700,000 homes and about 400 substandard parcels agricultural tax breaks under the state's Williamson Act.

The law allows counties to grant tax breaks for 10-year periods and the state then pays the counties money to offset the property tax losses. The act was designed to preserve agricultural lands.

An audit by the state Department of Conservation revealed that Calaveras repeatedly charged the state for Williamson Act contracts when it shouldn't have. The issue centers on how the state defines prime agricultural land.

Calaveras claimed 16,734 acres as prime in 2006-07, but only 605 of those acres actually qualified, according to the audit.

The state classifies prime land as land that can support one head of cattle for one month, County Assessor Randy Metzger said. Calaveras, however, has given prime-land status to property that can support one head of cattle for one year, he added. Prime land gets $5 per acre per year from the state while non-prime land only gets $1 per acre per year. The county incorrectly received $313,543 from the state because of how it interpreted prime land.

Metzger said the county has probably been misinterpreting its prime land for as long as 15 years, but the audit can only cover the past five years.

The county also allowed Williamson Act contracts on home sites, which is not an acceptable use, the audit states. Calaveras must pay back $8,847 to the state for the money it collected on home sites between 2002-03 and 2006-07.

Believed included in the mix up is the controversial Trinitas Golf Course south of Wallace, pricey homes in Jenny Lind, Angels Camp, and Mountain Ranch, and an untallied number of smaller parcels were cited without specifics.

The state will dip into Calaveras' future subventions until the money is repaid rather than issue a fine, Metzger said. Calaveras typically pulls in about $190,000 a year for its Williamson Act contracts; Metzger said that number will now drop to about $130,000.

Individual landowners could face fines from the state. If a breach of contract is found then the state can fine landowners as much as 25 percent of the value of the property in breach, according to Don Drysdale, a spokerperson for the Department of Conservation.

The 23-page document cites numerous errors and oversights by county officials.

The Ridge at Trinitas golf course is referenced as one example where the county did not properly enforce Williamson Act rules. The audit states that the contract on the Wallace property expired in 2006, but construction on a golf course began as early as 2001, which is not an allowed agricultural use.

“A breach of contract may have occurred since a golf course appears to have been partially or completely built on contracted land before the contract expired in 2006,” the audit states.

A county questionnaire used to determine whether a property produces any viable agricultural products is also inadequate, the audit states. The county requires landowners who sign a Williamson Act contract to produce at least $2,000 a year in agricultural product. The audit revealed that some landowners would claim potential income, such as the market value of unsold cattle, as agricultural production, but the state will only accept real income.

Some landowners simply did not return the county's questionnaire.

“Most landowners return completed questionnaires but some do not,” the audit states. “Not only are these landowners not in compliance with the county's resolution, but the county can not validate that the landowners are using the property for a commercial agricultural use as required by the Williamson Act.”

The county also included almost 400 “substandard” parcels in 2006-07. Non-prime land must meet a 40-acre minimum. While the audit states that “most of” the parcels that do not meet the 40 acre minimum are a part of a larger contract, some individual parcels do exist that could be “subject to a breach of contract.”

Some contracts fell through administrative cracks when a parcel was split or underwent a lot-line adjustment. In such cases, multiple property owners were allowed to reap the benefits of one Williamson Act contract.

In October 2007, Calaveras County supervisors voted down contract renewals for two properties that received Williamson Act contracts after a subdivision, but individually did not meet county standards.

The October decision was reached as the audit was underway. Agricultural Commissioner Mary Mutz called the audit an “educational experience.” On Jan. 22 county supervisors also reviewed the county's policy on Williamson Act contracts to make sure that only acceptable properties get contracts. No formal action was taken and the review has gone back to the county's Agriculture Advisory Committee.

“I think a large part of why the county has gotten on top of it is because of this audit,” Mutz said.

The county must respond to the findings within 30 days of the audit, Drysdale said. Most of the state's recommendations require the county to review the violations and “remedy” any problems, but does not say what qualifies as a remedy. Drysdale said the county does not need to fix the problems within 30 days, but must create a “plan” to solve the issues.

Mutz attributed the problems discovered in the audit to communication errors between the county Surveyor, Planning Department, County Assessor and the Agriculture Department.

“We're learning a lot more from the Department of Conservation and I think now there is an understanding among county departments that when something is zoned Agriculture Preserve that we all need to talk to each other about it,” Mutz said. A parcel must have Agriculture Preserve zoning to be awarded a Williamson Act contract.

Both Metzger and Mutz said that Calaveras has not always been up to par with the state law regarding the Williamson Act. Metzger said many of the mistakes were misinterpretations of the law.

“It was inadvertent,” he said. “It wasn't anything malicious.”

The audit was conducted between August and November 2007 and sent to the county Jan. 31.