It didn’t take long for new Tarrant Appraisal District board members to make their mark on how the district handles property appraisals.
On Monday, during the first official meeting since the historic May election of three new members by taxpayers, the board voted to drastically change the district’s appraisal process. The trio of new members — Matt Bryant, Eric Morris and Callie Rigney — ran on a platform of capping residential appraisal increases at 5% and limiting appraisals to once every three years.
“The reforms mandated by the voters, they start today,” Bryant said.
The slate did not have a complete victory, however. After a lengthy executive session, the board voted to go from a once-a-year appraisal system to a once-every-two-years system for residential properties, differing from the three-year proposal. The trio were the lone votes in favor of a three-year schedule.
They also voted to roll over current residential property values to 2025 and require a greater level of proof to raise residential market appraisals more than 5%, falling short of passing a formal appraisal cap. During the election cycle, the district’s chief appraiser, Joe Don Bobbitt, said limiting appraisals is not allowed by law.
Several residents, including Fort Worth tax consultant Chandler Crouch, expressed concern about the pace and scale of changes proposed by board members.
“You made a lot of campaign promises, and they’re already on the agenda,” Crouch said. “... One thing that concerns me a little bit is how fast these decisions are going to be made and how the conversation is going to be made ... I’m curious what kind of homework has been done to flesh these things out.”
It will be some time before all residents feel the impact of these policies. Bobbitt said the appraisal district only has control over changing the market value; appraised values are determined through a formula. Appraised values are also the numbers used to determine a resident’s property tax bill. Because of that, Bobbitt said, most residents won’t see immediate property tax relief.
“Even though the market may be flat, that appraised value will go up until the appraised value equals market value,” he said. Once appraised value meets market value, it can’t go any further — and that’s when homeowners will see relief.
Bobbitt and his staff will now shape the board’s decisions into a written policy, which will be presented for approval at the August board meeting.
Some school district officials fear the changes could have a negative impact on their financial stability. Representatives from Azle ISD, Birdville ISD, Crowley ISD and White Settlement ISD urged board members to vote against the changes, citing negative impacts to their bond capacity and debt rating.
What the changes mean
The changes to the appraisal system passed by board members are multipronged.
One change requires the chief appraiser and their staff to have “clear and convincing evidence” in order to justify increasing a residential home’s value by more than 5% compared with the year prior.
“Essentially, if the market value doesn't move enough by 2026, if it only moves 3% or 4%, then we just will kind of basically roll the values again,” the district’s chief appraiser, Joe Don Bobbitt, said. “So, basically, if we're going to increase the values in 2026, there has to be a whole lot of data to back it up, clear and convincing data to support raising the values.”
Board members settled on establishing that threshold, rather than instituting a hard 5% cap on appraisals, after questions arose about whether such a cap would be legal without legislative action.
House Speaker Dade Phelan proposed the same change during the 2023 legislative session, though lawmakers ultimately opted to increase homestead exemptions and limit school taxes instead.
Another prong of the changes freezes residential property tax values for 2025. That means a property’s value would remain the same until 2026. New construction is not subject to the freeze. Some speakers expressed concerns this would punish homeowners whose property values would have gone down.
The final prong moves appraisals to once every two years. The Tarrant Appraisal District has traditionally appraised properties annually, like the majority of appraisal districts in the state. Texas tax code requires property to be reappraised at least once every three years.
School districts anticipate financial bind
Early Monday morning, school district officials from across Tarrant County filed into the appraisal district board meeting to take issue with proposed changes they said would endanger local school systems.
Initially, board members seemed primed to switch from a one-year to a three-year appraisal cycle. Leon Fischer, chief financial officer of Crowley ISD, read a letter from the district’s board president and superintendent expressing concerns about that switch.
“This will reduce our capacity to issue the bonds already authorized by our community,” Fischer said. Voters approved a more than $1 billion bond package in 2023.
He asked for information on which other counties have a three-year system and how it has panned out. Fischer also wondered whether the change would result in one year of high growth, and two years of no growth.
“What has changed that has led the board consider ing this change in the appraisal process?” Fischer asked board members.
Kim Alexander, director of business for White Settlement ISD, said if the board members were insistent on changing the timing of appraisals, they should at least move to every two years instead of every three. That would put the appraisal district in line with the state’s property value study, which is used to determine education funding distribution.
In order to pass the study, an appraisal district’s values have to be within 5% margin of error from the values determined by the state comptroller. If the appraisal district fails to fall within the margin of error two years in a row, Bobbitt said, local school districts might receive less state funding.
Ultimately, board members agreed with Fischer and Alexander and opted to move from one-year to two-year appraisals. Board chair Vince Puente also noted that under a three-year system, residents whose property values go down could be stuck with higher bills for multiple years without recourse.
Property value rollover prompts questions of fairness
Another concern raised by school officials was disregarded by the appraisal district board. Katie Bowman, the associate superintendent of finance for Birdville ISD, said her district has dropped its property tax rate over the last several years. If the board rolls over property values, she said, the district wouldn’t receive enough property tax revenue to continue dropping its tax rate. Multiple other school representatives echoed her sentiment.
Board members ultimately passed the property value rollover, which Bobbitt said means existing residential properties will see their 2024 values roll over, unless they’ve done new improvements. Board member Gary Losada took issue with how school districts described their tax relief efforts.
“I’ve heard comments over and over and over again, that we haven’t raised taxes in 10 years, 20 years,” Losada said. “That is disingenuous. Those entities don't have to do that if the appraised values keep going up... To say that you haven’t raised taxes is not true, at all.”
School officials weren’t the only ones who had concerns about rolling values over into 2025. Area tax consultant Ryan Ray, who previously served on the Crowley ISD school board, pushed appraisal district board members to be cautious about making such large changes so quickly.
Ray, who represents about 10,000 property owners in appraisal protest proceedings, said rolling over property values for 2025 could actually hurt homeowners whose properties are gradually decreasing in value. Similar to Puente’s concern about a three-year appraisal schedule, Ray is concerned residents would be on the hook for higher property taxes next year despite decreases in their home’s value.
Because there would not be a reappraisal, the appraisal district would have no way of knowing whether a property’s value had decreased that year, Bobbitt told board members. As such, the district would not send out appraisal notice slips. The onus would fall on property owners who feel their home value might have dropped.
“They could go out and get their own appraisal done,” Bobbitt said of property owners. “Or if they see that everything in their neighborhood is dropping, like all the other sales, and they're not selling for as much as they thought, then that would be an indicator. And so, they could still come in and protest.”
Political will pushes appraisal changes
This year is the first time residents had a direct say in who sits on the appraisal district’s board of directors. Previously, board members were exclusively elected by taxing entities such as school boards and city councils. A constitutional amendment approved by voters in November changed that by creating three new at-large positions in Texas’ 50 largest counties. Bryant, Morris and Rigney were elected to those seats in May.
The positions are ostensibly nonpartisan under the law. However, the newly elected members making waves at their first official board meeting were endorsed as a slate by multiple Republican leaders, including County Judge Tim O’Hare. Their campaign promises to lower property taxes by any means necessary echoed Republican talking points statewide.
Less than a month after being sworn in, the trio’s proposals to change the appraisal process were on the agenda for a special called board meeting.
For residents like Jessica Mang, the changes represent a sorely needed fix. Mang, who lives in Forest Hill, said she lives in a low-income, high-tax city. As her property appraisal went up, so did her insurance, she said. Those combined costs mean at some point she won’t be able to keep her home, she said.
“No tax should have the power to leave us homeless,” Mang said.
Of the 13 speakers who addressed the board about the proposed appraisal changes, six represented a taxing entity. Rigney, one of the three members elected in May, was frank with speakers about her purpose on the board.
“I feel it’s my responsibility to represent the taxpayers of Tarrant County, not the taxing entities,” she said.
Not everyone is convinced the changes are in the best interest of either.
“Instead of the appraisal district doing it based on evidence, it’s the board doing it based on politics,” Ray said.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
