A week after launching, the Tarrant Appraisal District’s new website crashed March 21.
The site was assembled to replace the appraisal district’s previous website, which drew resident ire for multiple problems, including glitches and slow pages during the property appraisal protest period. The old site crashed last week because of a database failure, prompting district officials to launch the new site earlier than anticipated.
Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt told the Fort Worth Report that the crash was caused by a network disruption. Staff noticed odd behavior in the network around 3 a.m., he said, and proactively took one of the appraisal district’s systems offline. Taking that system down subsequently caused the website to crash.
“We’ve taken prompt action to secure the network and we’re still working with some experts to determine what’s going on and to restore our work products,” he said. “But it could take a minute to resolve.”
Website problems have followed the appraisal district for years. The site was subject to a security breach in October 2022, though an investigation concluded no taxpayer information had been compromised.
Board members said the key difference between the previous website problems and this issue is transparency.
“For the first time in four years, the first thing I heard was from TAD and not from constituents,” board member Rich DeOtte said. “The board, I think, is fully aware and is monitoring the situation, and I’m very pleased with the way things are progressing.”
Longtime chief appraiser Jeff Law resigned in September after multiple taxing entities took votes of no confidence in him. Under Law’s tenure, the appraisal district faced criticism for its lack of transparency, accusations of targeting and comments made by its IT executive aboutcreating a “false narrative” on website issues.
Bobbitt took over as chief appraiser in February and has already earned praise from board members. He has worked on launching the new website in response to resident concerns about the previous site. Site functionality is essential during the protest period, as residents can use it to view and protest their appraisal values online.
“This is a hangover from the previous regime that we’re trying to get our arms around,” board member Gary Losada said.
Losada said he is confident in the appraisal district staff’s ability to come up with a quick solution to the problem.
“I don’t feel like I’m chasing information and being lied to anymore,” DeOtte said. “So that’s good. And the situation is well in-hand.”
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here. Emily Wolf is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at emily.wolf@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.