TAD could have helped school districts avoid losing funding. Here’s how the vote went
Update: This piece has been updated to include responses from board members sent after publication.
The Tarrant Appraisal District on March 12 was split down the middle on a vote to reconsider a pause on property reappraisals this year, and it could cost already cash-strapped school districts millions more in state funding.
Only eight were present to vote, as Matt Bryant, one of three publicly elected board members who took their seats in July, was on vacation. The vote was 4-4, so the motion to reconsider did not pass. A simple majority is required to approve a motion.
Among other sweeping changes approved last summer, TAD voted to pause reappraisals in 2025 and then do them every other year beginning in 2027. Several Tarrant County school districts have said the TAD board of directors “deliberately defunded” public schools with the move.
The vote came in response to resolutions passed by five Tarrant County school districts, including Fort Worth, requesting TAD reappraise this year as they face the possibility of losing state funding.
TAD’s valuation of property in a school district must fall within a margin of 5% above or below the valuation determined by the state comptroller’s biennial property value study. If a district’s values are not within this margin, it goes into a one-year grace period. If a district fails the property value study for a second year, it loses funding.
With TAD set to leave property values in the county at 2024 levels until 2027, that leaves ample time for school districts to fall well out of the comptroller’s margins, districts say.
In addition to Fort Worth, the Azle, Castleberry, Everman and Kennedale school districts recently passed resolutions asking TAD to reappraise.
Kennedale Superintendent Chad Gee said his district is not in imminent danger of failing its property value study, but it passed the resolution as a preemptive measure in an effort to proactively avoid that outcome.
“We knew this wasn’t going to be good,” he said in an interview. “I don’t understand what they’re trying to do other than make things difficult for school districts. They didn’t think this through.”
Carmen Arrieta-Candelaria, chief financial officer for Fort Worth ISD, said the district is evaluating how the vote will affect its revenues.
“We will continue to advocate for appraisals as the data indicates,” she said.
A spokesperson for Everman ISD said the district “will continue to do what we always do to ensure that our students are successful.”
On Monday, Northwest ISD also passed a resolution requesting TAD reappraise this year, but it was not listed on the TAD agenda item. A district spokesperson said “it is critically important to receive accurate property evaluations so taxpayers do not suffer in the future.”
The other school districts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt declined to comment on the vote, but referred the Star-Telegram to a presentation he gave during the meeting. It included funding loss estimates for four of the five aforementioned districts.
His calculations show that districts could lose millions of dollars:.
Fort Worth ISD: $17.1 million
Everman ISD: $4.3 million
Castleberry ISD: 3.1 million
Azle ISD: $1.5 million
The numbers for Fort Worth, Castleberry and Everman vary from the districts’ own estimates that were included in the open letter they sent to TAD in August. Fort Worth said it expects to lose $45 million, Castleberry $1.4 million, and Everman $1.8 million.
The chart included Kennedale and Northwest, which has been a vocal opponent of the changes ever since they were passed, but Bobbitt did not calculate losses for them, as they are estimated to be just within the margins of the property value study.
Still, as Gee noted, Kennedale and Northwest are at risk of falling out of those margins. They are estimated to come out 4% below the comptroller’s likely numbers.
In August, Gee told the Star-Telegram that he believes TAD’s actions are part of a deliberate process by Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare and the elected board members he endorsed to target school funding as part of a broader political agenda against public education.
The Star-Telegram in August found that O’Hare “scripted” the agenda items that resulted in the changes to the appraisal plan.
O’Hare’s office called Gee’s accusation “ridiculous.”
The votes to not reappraise this year came from Bryant, the other two publicly elected board members Callie Rigney and Eric Morris, and Michael Alfred, who was elected by taxing entities last year.
Fred Campos, also elected by taxing entities to the board last year, joined fellow board members Gloria Peña, Wendy Burgess and Fort Worth City council member Alan Blaylock in voting to reappraise this year.
Campos said he considers the effects to school funding to be an unwitting result of the board’s earnest attempts to give Tarrant County homeowners tax relief.
“I am disappointed that they are not willing to give any space to help what may be an unintended consequence,” he said in an interview. “And what makes this worse is it’s an unintended consequence at a time when school vouchers are in play.”
The Texas state legislature is debating bills to create education savings accounts, also known as school vouchers, which would allocate public funds directly to families to use for homeschooling or private schools, including religious schools.
But while taxpayers may get some breathing room in the immediate future, they will likely see some sticker shock three years down the road when TAD finally reappraises, Campos said.
“We may have held values down, but if they go up a little bit every year, in year three the taxpayers could wind up with a bill that’s been flat for two years and now it jumps up maybe two or three times,” he said.
He said that while he has no “crystal ball” to tell him that home values will rise over the next three years, “the reality” is that housing prices have steadily increased in recent decades.
The homestead cap would keep appraisal increases largely at 10% at the most, but this could be an unpleasant surprise for homeowners used to seeing smaller yearly increments to their appraised values.
In a statement sent after publication, Peña said that the vote will likely have negative financial consequences for school district, but highlighted Bobbitt’s work to keep districts informed of these effects.
His reviewing and monitoring of the data “will provide the districts with valuable information and also allow the districts with the ability to adjust as best they can,” she said.
After the motion to reconsider failed to pass with the split vote, elected board member Eric Morris immediately moved to permanently table the item, making it ineligible for a vote in the future. That motion passed 5-3, with Blaylock adding his yes vote to the four who voted not to reappraise.
Blaylock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Burgess, who was elected by taxing entities last year after losing her primary for county tax assessor-collector to Rick Barnes, called the votes “unfortunate.”
“The school districts will not see any action from the board on this item this month,” she said.
The Star-Telegram reached out to the other board members, but did not receive immediate responses.
Fort Worth real estate broker and tax consultant Chandler Crouch echoed that sentiment.
TAD “chose to not act to reappraise those areas, and so now those schools are going to lose a ton of money … unless the legislature or the comptroller rules differently,” he said.
In February, state Rep. Chris Turner, an Arlington Democrat, filed a bill that would undo TAD’s decision to reappraise every other year.
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 1:02 PM.
