Sexist software? Tarrant property appraisal notices change names of women

Katie Sherrod grimaced when she received her property appraisal notice from the Tarrant Appraisal District.

It wasn’t that her home’s value had shot up. Her concern was that TAD had made an error and replaced her legal surname, which is the same as her maiden name, with her husband’s.

For the first time in more than 20 years of marriage, TAD’s records listed her as “Colice K Pool,” to match up with her husband, the Rev. Gayland Pool, a retired Episcopal priest. His name is listed as “Mart G Pool.”

“Complete and utter sexist BS,” said Sherrod, a former Star-Telegram editor and columnist. “Why didn’t they list him as Gayland Sherrod?”

Sherrod said she was told by a TAD official that the error occurred because software problems, one of many that TAD has been dealing with since switching to a new computer system in October 2014. TAD has hired an outside accounting firm to conduct a verification audit of the software.

Addresses have been wrong, appraised values have been off the mark and the appraisal process has at times slowed to a crawl.

TAD Chief Appraiser Jeff Law said last month that he expected no more problems with the new appraisal software. On Wednesday, speaking to a panel of state lawmakers at a hearing in Arlington, Law apologized for the software-related problems, saying “I’m very sorry for the issue we had to go through.”

Law said that after looking in to the source of the name changes, he noticed at least one clerical error. He said that problem was not widespread.

‘I’ve never changed my name’

That input error had occurred on the Notice of Value for the property of former Fort Worth state representative Lon M. Burnam and his wife, Carol E. Roark.

Roark said she was incorrectly referred to as “Burnam.” She said she knew “personally” of at least two other property owners who encountered the same problem.

“Roark is a name that is not going to be going on in our family and I’m kind of attached to it after all these years of having had it,” she said. “None of my documents have ever used Burnam. I’ve never changed my name.

“When we bought our house, we bought it in each of our names. I was little bit aghast … It’s amazing that this would happen in this day and time.”

Roark said she sent an email to TAD asking for a correction.

“I indicated in respectful language that I really was not too happy that my name had been changed and asked them to please correct it,’’ she said. “Please change my name and let me know if this would happen.”

A week later, Roark had not heard back from TAD, so she made a phone call and was told her that the problem had been fixed but that “probably it would take over the weekend [to show] because they did a batch update on the computer.”

Plagued by problems

TAD has become a target of recent criticism by some public school districts and property owner representatives and tax agents.

Some area school districts say they were shorted millions of dollars in property tax revenue in 2015 because of a computer problem. The Fort Worth school district said it lost $12 million in property tax revenue for the 2015-16 school year’s budget. Eagle Mountain-Saginaw said it was shorted $5 million; Grapevine-Colleyville, up to $8 million.

For Tarrant school districts, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts reported a $5 billion difference in property value estimates when compared with TAD for 2015.

That represents more than $140 million in local revenue based on each school district’s tax rate, records show.

Last week, TAD’s governing board voted unanimously to spend $195,000 on an audit of the appraisal software. The audit is to be conducted by Weaver, a large Texas public accounting firm.

Appraisal district officials have acknowledged that there were delays in the appraisal process in 2015 but have been adamant that the appraisers are now caught up on the assessments and everything is in place for 2016. The appraisal district has projected a 14 percent increase in property values for the current year.

TAD is also the subject of a pending lawsuit by the software licensing vendors it hired to provide it with cost data that is used by appraisers to set values for real property. The software licensing companies filed suit in September against TAD and the Texas Attorney General’s Office, stating objections that the data release would disclose their proprietary interests.

TAD has taken no formal position in the suit and says it will meet its obligations to the public under law. The suit is being heard in a Travis County District Court.

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This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Sexist software? Tarrant property appraisal notices change names of women."