Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector and Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD) Board Chairman Rick Barnes is raising concerns about what he described as a “significant calculation error” during the 2024 vote-allocation process for the district’s Board of Directors election.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Mike Alfred, Alan Blaylock, Wendy Burgess, Fred Campos, and Gloria Peña were sworn in as board members in January following a December 2024 voting period.
While some board seats are filled by direct vote, state law assigns responsibility for calculating vote allocations for the seats representing local taxing entities to the chief appraiser. The formula is based on each entity’s share of the county’s total tax revenue. Barnes said the miscalculation likely affected the outcome of the election for one or more of those seats.
The error reportedly occurred under former Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Wendy Burgess, who was defeated by Barnes in last year’s county election. Burgess benefited from the miscalculation, having been subsequently elected to one of the TAD seats allocated through the flawed process — raising questions about the integrity of data produced by her office at the time.
“It has come to my attention that a significant calculation error occurred during the 2024 vote allocation process for the Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD) Board of Directors election. Under state law, these vote allocations are the legal responsibility of the Chief Appraiser and are determined by each taxing entity’s share of the county’s total tax revenue,” Barnes said in a statement.
“In this case, the vote allocation for Tarrant County College was overstated due to a calculation error. The delay in disclosing the 2024 error is deeply troubling,” Barnes wrote.
Barnes added that a member of the public first discovered the mistake — a lapse he called “deeply troubling.”
“A Special Meeting of the TAD Board has been called to review this matter in its entirety. This meeting will be conducted in accordance with open meetings laws and public notice requirements, allowing adequate time for staff to prepare and present all relevant documentation and data for Board review,” Barnes said.
“This failure of accountability and communication is unacceptable. The Chief Appraiser and senior staff had a clear obligation to immediately inform the Board’s Chairman and members upon discovering the error. Their failure to do so undermines public trust in both the election process and the integrity of the institution itself,” Barnes said.
Barnes urged the TAD Board to review how the mistake occurred and to create safeguards that prevent future issues.
“The public deserves full transparency and assurance that such a lapse will not happen again,” Barnes said.
The Dallas Express reached out to Barnes for additional comment but did not receive a response.