Confused About Property Assessments? Neysa Fligor’s Plan Brings Clarity to Santa Clara County

When Santa Clara County needed a new assessor for the first time in three decades, voters chose the person who already ran the office. Neysa Fligor was sworn in as the 23rd Santa Clara County Assessor on January 26, 2026, after cruising to victory in the December 30 runoff election with a credential profile that her opponents could not match. She holds a law degree from Georgetown, California State Board of Equalization Certified Property Tax Appraiser (required by CA law), and direct management experience over the same 250-person office she now leads. Her election is also historic: she is the first woman ever elected Santa Clara County Assessor, and the first Black woman to serve as a county assessor in the state of California.

Those are two distinct achievements — one institutional, one statewide. Understanding either requires knowing who Fligor is, where she came from, and what the role she now holds demands.

Quick Reference

Background and Education

From Jamaica to Georgetown Law

Neysa Fligor was born and raised in Jamaica, where she completed high school before moving to Miami to live with her parents and attend Florida International University. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations, then earned her Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.

At FIU, she minored in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She chose Georgetown Law to be close to family and initially focused on international law. What shaped her direction more than the coursework, though, was a consistent pull toward public service. “I was very public service-minded,” she said. “I wanted to give back to the community.”

That instinct defined every career move that followed.

Legal and Private-Sector Career

From County Counsel to HP Inc.

After law school, Fligor built roughly two decades of legal experience across two very different sectors. She served as Deputy County Counsel for Santa Clara County, where her work covered general government, litigation, and health and hospital legal matters. That role gave her direct familiarity with how county government operates, including its legal exposure around property, contracts, and public administration.

She later moved into the private sector. By 2017, she was the lead senior counsel for global supply chain operations at HP Inc. That position involved managing complex, high-volume legal operations across international supply chains — a different kind of scale than county government, but equally demanding on precision and risk management. She was still working at HP as a lawyer when she announced her run for assessor in June 2025.

The HP role is often cited as corporate experience, but it was more than resume padding. Managing legal compliance for a global technology company’s supply chain requires the same attention to process, accuracy, and large-scale data integrity that the Assessor’s Office depends on every year.

Los Altos City Council

Historic Firsts at the City Level

Fligor’s path to county office ran through the Los Altos City Council, where she compiled a record of firsts before she ever filed for assessor.

In 2016, she ran for the Los Altos City Council and lost by six votes. She ran again in 2018 and won — decisively. She won every precinct in Los Altos and became the first-ever Black Los Altos City Council member, beginning her term in January 2019. She was re-elected in 2022. In January 2021, she was elected the city’s first Black mayor in its 68-year history.

She was clear-eyed about the symbolism. “The mayor is a rotated role,” she said. “It doesn’t take away the symbolism or significance of it. But in 2018, they voted for me — a majority of Los Altans. That, to me, said a lot about our residents.”

Beyond the historic dimension, the council tenure built real governing experience: fiscal oversight, housing policy, public safety, and stakeholder management across a community with competing interests. During her second term, her priorities included promoting fiscal responsibility, protecting open space, and addressing the housing crisis. She also served as president of the Santa Clara County Cities Association, which broadened her exposure to county-level issues well before she formally joined the Assessor’s Office.

Path to County Assessor

From Staff Attorney to Elected Leader

In February 2024, Fligor joined the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office directly — first as an attorney handling complex assessment appeals, then as a member of the Executive Management Team, and by September 2024 as Assistant Assessor. In that role, she managed a staff of 250 people and oversaw day-to-day operations.

That timeline matters. Her tenure as Assistant Assessor was less than a year before she ran for the top job. Critics framed this as a thin experience. Supporters argued the opposite: she didn’t need years as an assistant assessor because she arrived with 18 years of legal and management experience that covered every function the office requires. The Certified Property Tax Appraiser credential from the California State Board of Equalization — legally required to serve as assessor in California — put her ahead of most candidates before the campaign began.

Larry Stone, who held the assessor role for 30 years and endorsed her campaign, described her as having “a unique combination of management experience, leadership acumen, people skills, assessor knowledge and political moxie.”

2025 Election Results

The race unfolded in two stages.

The November field included Fligor, tech executive Rishi Kumar, Saratoga City Council member Yan Zhao, and East Side Union High School District board member Bryan Do. No candidate cleared 50%, triggering a runoff. In the December 30 runoff, Fligor picked up 66% of the vote, and Kumar conceded late Tuesday night.

Voter turnout in the runoff, held during the holiday season, was roughly 15.4%. The low turnout drew criticism, but it did not change the result. Fligor’s margin was nearly two to one.

What the Santa Clara County Assessor Actually Does

This is where most profiles lose the reader — or mislead them.

If you’ve ever wondered why your assessment changed after a kitchen remodel or sale, here’s exactly how the process works—and where Fligor’s team intervenes. The Assessor does not collect your taxes. Those functions belong to the Board of Supervisors (which sets the tax rate) and the County Tax Collector-Treasurer (which bills and collects). The Assessor’s Office does one specific and consequential thing: it determines the assessed value of every taxable property in the county. That value is then used by other offices as the basis for calculating what you owe.

Santa Clara County’s assessment roll includes more than 500,000 assessments, which form the basis for levying property taxes. Those assessments make up the county’s more than $700 billion real estate rolls, with profound implications for residents and for the schools and social safety net programs that depend on property tax revenue.

In California, Proposition 13 limits how fast assessed values can rise — no more than 2% per year unless there’s a sale or new construction. The Assessor’s Office handles change-of-ownership assessments, new construction, decline-in-value reviews, exemptions (like those for homeowners and veterans), and the appeals process when property owners challenge their assessed value. Each of these functions requires legal accuracy, not just administrative volume.

That’s precisely where Fligor’s combination of a law degree, property appraisal certification, and direct experience handling assessment appeals becomes operationally relevant — not just visually impressive on a ballot.

Policy Priorities and Technology Modernization

Fligor’s stated priorities include ensuring assessments are conducted fairly, legally, and accurately; protecting revenues; improving processes to better serve taxpayers; and increasing community engagement across the county.

The clearest immediate challenge is a technology overhaul already in progress. Her campaign centered on shepherding the office’s ongoing tech modernization effort — a project she helped initiate before she was elected. The county’s assessment system had gone without a major technology update for roughly 40 years. Fligor managed the vendor acquisition process and will now oversee implementation. According to Fligor, the new system “will result in faster service, higher data quality, improved access, enhanced security, and ultimately improved service delivery to the public.”

This is one of the more concrete and verifiable priorities. Property owners who file appeals often wait extended periods for resolution. Faster processing directly affects residents, not just the office’s internal metrics.

The appeal process backlog is a real pressure point. Fligor has committed to publishing quarterly progress updates on appeal resolution times—subscribe to office newsletters for real-time updates.

Historic Milestones

Fligor’s election carries three distinct historic distinctions, each at a different level:

• City level: First Black person elected to the Los Altos City Council (2019)
• City level: First Black mayor in Los Altos’ 68-year history (2021)
• County level: First woman ever elected Santa Clara County Assessor
• State level: First Black woman to hold a county assessor position anywhere in California

Los Altos has a Black population that is a fraction of 1%. Winning a council seat there — twice, and as the top vote-getter both times — required building broad coalition support, not relying on demographic alignment.

The California statewide first is significant on its own, but it carries more weight when tied to a specific credential: the Certified Property Tax Appraiser designation makes her not just a historic figure but a technically qualified one. The title means something because the certification is required. She wasn’t elected despite a qualification gap — she was elected with the qualifications the role legally demands.

2026 Election Outlook

Fligor won the special election to fill the remainder of Larry Stone’s term, which means she will need to run again in 2026 to secure a full four-year term. The June 2026 primary is her first test as an incumbent.

Several factors shape how that race could develop:

• Incumbency advantage is real, but not automatic. Assessor races are low-profile by nature. The November 2025 race drew less than 40% participation in round one; the December runoff drew about 15%. Fligor won her first race decisively, but her opponent had far less funding and name recognition in the runoff.
• Rishi Kumar has signaled he will remain active in county politics. After his December loss, Kumar said he would continue campaigning for a ballot initiative to exempt seniors from property taxes. Whether he re-enters the assessor’s race directly is unclear, but his earlier presence shaped the debate around modernization and reform.
• The technology implementation will be her most visible performance metric. If the new assessment system improves turnaround times and reduces the appeals backlog by June 2026, that’s a concrete argument for continuity. If it stalls, challengers will use it.
• She enters the race as the only candidate with the required state certification already in place. That’s a structural advantage that narrows the credible field.

FAQs

What does the Santa Clara County Assessor do?

The Assessor determines the assessed value of all taxable properties in the county — more than 500,000 in Santa Clara County. That value forms the basis for property taxes. The Assessor does not set tax rates (that’s the Board of Supervisors) or collect taxes (that’s the Tax Collector-Treasurer). The office also handles exemptions, change-of-ownership reviews, new construction assessments, and the formal appeals process.

When was Neysa Fligor elected, and when is her next election?

She won the special general election on November 4, 2025 (first round), and the runoff on December 30, 2025. She was sworn in on January 26, 2026. Because she won a special election to fill the remainder of the previous assessor’s term, her current term ends January 4, 2027. She must run in the June 2026 primary to win a full four-year term.

What are her key priorities as an assessor?

Her four stated priorities are: fair, legal, and accurate assessments; protecting county revenues; improving processes (including reducing the time it takes to complete assessments and resolve appeals); and increasing community engagement. Her most concrete near-term challenge is overseeing the full implementation of the office’s new property assessment technology system.

What makes her election historic?

She is the first woman ever elected Santa Clara County Assessor and the first Black woman to hold a county assessor position in California’s history. At the city level, she was also the first Black Los Altos City Council member (2019) and the first Black mayor in Los Altos’ 68-year history (2021).

What professional qualifications does she hold?

She holds a B.S. cum laude from Florida International University, a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and the California State Board of Equalization Certified Property Tax Appraiser designation — which California law requires of county assessors. She also served as an attorney for the Assessor’s Office, handling complex assessment appeals, and as Assistant Assessor, managing the office’s 250-member staff.

What Comes Next

Neysa Fligor enters 2026 with a clear mandate and a defined agenda. The technology modernization project she helped launch is now hers to deliver. The appeals process she has promised to improve will be tested against actual caseload data. And a June primary will determine whether her short but credential-heavy tenure translates into a full four-year term.

For Santa Clara County residents, the more practical question is less about the politics and more about the function: the Assessor’s Office touches every property owner and every tenant in the county, through a chain of valuations that determines how much money flows to local schools, libraries, and public services. The person leading that office and the accuracy with which it operates matters in ways most people don’t notice — until it doesn’t work.