In its first meeting of the new year, the Tarrant Appraisal District’s board of directors swore in four newly elected members and quickly got to work changing its policy manual.
Members Mike Alfred, Alan Blaylock, Wendy Burgess, Fred Campos and Gloria Peña were sworn in after being selected for their positions by taxing entities in December. Blaylock, Burgess and Peña were already on the board; Alfred and Campos are newcomers to the positions. They join Matt Bryant, Eric Morris and Callie Rigney, all of whom were elected to the board in a countywide election in May 2024.
A sheriff’s deputy at the meeting drew ping pong balls to determine the term lengths of taxing entity appointees. Blaylock, Campos and Peña will serve three-year terms, while Alfred and Burgess will serve one-year terms. Beginning in 2026, all future taxing entity appointees will serve four-year terms.
The board also selected a new chair and secretary. In 6-3 votes, board members selected newly elected tax assessor-collector Rick Barnes as board chair, and Rigney as board secretary.
Barnes, a former Tarrant County GOP chair, replaces Burgess as tax-assessor collector after narrowly winning the Republican primary last spring. During the meeting, Barnes announced Andy Nguyen, a former county commissioner and most recently chief of staff to County Judge Tim O’Hare, as his new chief of staff.
Both Barnes and Rigney made changes to property tax appraisals a core tenant of their respective campaigns for office. Barnes has pledged to push for further changes to the district’s controversial reappraisal plan.
“As your new tax assessor-collector, this body was a huge part of what I ran on for the past 18 months,” he said at the meeting.
Once Barnes and Rigney secured leadership positions, the board approved several changes to its standing board policy, including moving future meetings to 9 a.m. on Wednesdays and limiting public comment to three minutes per speaker. Traditionally, meetings have been on Fridays at 8 a.m., and residents have had five minutes each to comment.
Bryant emphasized the need for the new board to prioritize efficiency, and he said the new speaking limits will help achieve that goal. Barnes also supported the measure, which was unanimously approved by the board.
“I’ve never seen anything as long as five minutes in a public meeting,” Barnes said.
Board will assess school district appraisals in February
The board’s next meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 26. That meeting could be among the more consequential of the year; board members will be tasked with determining whether they need to amend the reappraisal plan.
Since board members approved a series of changes to the plan last summer, including freezing residential market values in 2025 and switching to a two-year residential appraisal schedule, area school districts have expressed concern that their state funding could be put in jeopardy.
If the appraisal district’s property value estimates within a school district’s boundaries are too far off from the state’s, they could lose millions of dollars. School leaders worry that the reappraisal changes make that scenario more likely.
Board members said previously that if a school district looks close to failing the state’s property value study, they will take action to amend the plan and allow the chief appraiser to reappraise properties in the district’s boundaries. The February meeting will put that promise to the test.
Property value notices are traditionally mailed out in April, making February the time to take action. The appraisal district wouldn’t know until January 2026 — more than five months after 2025 tax rolls are certified — if any school district failed the state property value study.
Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt has previously flagged up to six school districts — Azle, Carroll, Castleberry, Everman, Grapevine-Colleyville and Fort Worth ISDs — that could suffer funding cuts under the current reappraisal plan.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.