(TEXAS SCORECARD) – After the Tarrant Appraisal District Board of Directors revised how the county handles property appraisals, the Texas Association of School Boards has criticized their efforts to save taxpayers money.
TASB criticized the changes in an email to members obtained by Texas Scorecard.
“These changes may create significant issues for local school districts that could reduce their funding by millions of dollars,” the organization asserted in an August 25 “Legislative Report.”
The Tarrant County plan—approved August 9—will allow the TAD to freeze residential market values in 2025, then switch to a two-year residential appraisal schedule, and establish a five percent threshold to raise residential values in the future.
Since property taxes fund school districts, a study of taxable property is conducted every two years to determine education funding distribution. A school district risks losing state funding if the appraisal district’s property value estimations are outside a 10 percent difference threshold from the state’s. However, schools between a 5-10 percent threshold are given a two-year grace period to fix the values.
“That’s the gamble you run,” TAD Board Chair Vince Puente told The Fort Worth Report. “You can lock (property values) in any given time, and the market can be going up and that benefits the taxpayer, or the market can be dropping dramatically because there’s a real estate drop, etc., and the taxpayer is going to stay there. And so it is a challenging issue, trying to help the taxpayer always and yet, trying to have the best school districts and the best cities.”
The president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility said taxpayers should take note that TASB, “a taxpayer-funded lobbying organization,” is opposing efforts to relieve Texans’ tax burdens.
“At a time when government spending and taxation is at an all-time high, and taxpayer’s wallets are being squeezed from every direction, elected officials and all taxpayer-funded entities should be actively looking for ways to tighten their belts and return taxpayer money to its rightful owners, not taking even more,” said McVeigh.