Tarrant Appraisal District’s website crashes just before the launch of a new one
The Tarrant Appraisal District’s website crashed Wednesday morning because of a database failure.
New Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt said it will be easier to roll out a new version of the website instead of trying to get the old one back online.
“To troubleshoot, It may take longer than it will actually would to get up the new website,” Bobbitt said. “We’ve already started making progress towards just converting over to the website.”
Bobbitt said the website should be functional Thursday morning but there is “no guarantee.”
The new website was available for property owners to test this week, and the district planned to make the transition over next week based on user feedback.
Bobbitt said he doesn’t believe the database failure is a sign that taxpayer information data was compromised .
“We don’t have reason to suspect that, but out of an abundance of caution, we’re going to hire a third party to come in, just verify there was nothing more than a database issue,” Bobbitt said.
Last year, the website crashed when it was overwhelmed by property owners attempting to protest their property values.
Bobbitt said he’s relieved the website failure didn’t happen during protest season.
“We intended to switch over anyways in the next week and a half we just wanted more time to hear feedback from people before we made this the only site,” Bobbitt said. “But, you know, no time like the present.”
