Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD) board members sharply questioned Chief Appraiser Jeffrey “Joe Don” Bobbitt after discovering major vote-allocation errors in the district’s 2024 Board of Directors election.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector and TAD Board Chairman Rick Barnes raised concerns about a “significant calculation error” that gave Tarrant County College (TCC) an inflated vote total.
Corrected data showed TCC received 505 votes instead of roughly 310, giving the college more influence than intended during the election. Other taxing entities recorded smaller inconsistencies, according to the Fort Worth Report.
During the 2023 board election, TCC distributed its votes as follows: 75 for Gloria Pena, 141 for Alan Blaylock, and 289 for Wendy Burgess, who lost her Republican primary against Barnes in March 2024.
The controversy increased scrutiny of Burgess, who has faced criticism for her performance as Tax Assessor-Collector. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a December 2020 audio recording obtained by the publication captured Burgess slurring her words and making mostly unintelligible remarks during a meeting with TAD officials about billing and county contracts.
Bobbitt admitted oversight in response to the election error. “I didn’t check that as closely as I should have,” he said, according to the Fort Worth Report.
“To me, there were more important things that I needed to deal with at the time. Granted, looking back, this is a very important issue,” he added.
Board members voiced frustration about poor communication. “You’re having discussions with others, and you’re leaving us in the dark,” board member Callie Rigney said. “We’re the ones with our necks out there, and we’re trying to make this a transparent process.”
When reached for comment, Rigney told The Dallas Express, “I ran for this seat to restore transparency and public trust in the appraisal district. There needs to be accountability, and doing nothing only reinforces the lack of trust taxpayers have historically had in TAD. We need to know how this happened, and I personally have serious questions about the integrity of the information we’re receiving.”
Chairman Barnes echoed Rigney’s concerns, saying the issue reflected deeper problems within the district. “We still have more questions than answers about what happened and why and how,” Barnes said.
“Bobbitt has a staff out here — 250 people — and we don’t know who was involved in the process,” he added. “My biggest concern here is that we have yet another situation where the TAD is not forthcoming with the public. We have another situation where we have an integrity issue and a dramatic lack of transparency.”
Rigney later made a motion to immediately terminate Bobbitt, but the motion failed to receive a second. The board instead voted to hire a third-party investigator to determine how the miscalculation occurred, as questions persist about oversight, accountability, and public trust in the Tarrant Appraisal District.