After a decade of problems from its computer-assisted mass appraisal system, the Tarrant Appraisal District is taking its first concrete steps to replace it with new and improved software.
At a Sept. 9 meeting, appraisal district board members unanimously authorized the chief appraiser to negotiate and enter a contract with technology company True Prodigy for a cost of no more than $10 million over five years.
That system will replace Aumentum Technologies, which officials blamed for millions of dollars being left off the tax rolls when it was rolled out in 2014. It has cost the district around $1.5 million annually to keep that software afloat. The technology has continued to frustrate the district and its taxing entities in the ensuing years, and Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt didn’t mince words when he first started working to find an alternative earlier this year.
“The software we have is pretty bad,” Bobbitt, who took over from Jeff Law early this year, told taxing entities at the April 18 meeting.
At the Sept. 9 meeting, Bobbitt expressed excitement about the change, and the experience True Prodigy brings to the table.
“What we’re worried about is repeating the past,” Bobbitt said. “We don’t want to be the only one on the system, and we don’t want to be a beta. So we feel that True Prodigy is the safest bet with the number of clients they have.”
At the beginning of the meeting, appraisal district staff had estimated a total cost of $10.9 million over five years for the software. Previously, the cost had been estimated at around $14 million, but was negotiated down. Board member Rich DeOtte raised the idea of limiting the contract cost to $10 million, a number which was ultimately approved by the rest of the board. Staff will again have to negotiate with True Prodigy to get to that cost.
“I was really uncomfortable with the $14 million number, and I was hoping for something around $9 (million),” DeOtte said.
Board member Alan Blaylock, who chairs the IT subcommittee, asked Bobbitt point blank if the reduced budget would kill the appraisal district’s chance of reaching a final contract with True Prodigy.
“I think we can get there, but we may have to look at some of the services (in the contract),” Bobbitt said. “There may be something we can pull out.”
Osvaldo Morales, president of True Prodigy, assured board members his company would reach an agreement with the appraisal district.
Blaylock said one of his primary goals when he first joined the appraisal district’s board of directors last year was to fix the mass appraisal system. He acknowledged that True Prodigy wasn’t the cheapest of the options the appraisal district considered, but said it is by far the most proven one across Texas.
“The portion of the work the board has to do is now done,” Blaylock, a Fort Worth City Council member, said. “We’ve given TAD staff a clear directive on moving forward to get a new (mass appraisal) system implemented, as we’ve done with firewall and website and every other challenging issue that we’ve faced from internal infrastructure needs. I’m expecting significant progress on all of that before the end of this year.”
In addition to appraisal software challenges, the district has faced other technological challenges in the wake of a ransomware attack that took its systems offline in March. Since then, board members have purchased new computers and created a new committee to study further improvements.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.