Tarrant County school districts unite against TAD Board of Directors

Tarrant County school districts are accusing their appraisal board of "deliberately" defunding public schools with their new reappraisal plan.

The Tarrant Appraisal District's board of directors passed the plan on Aug. 9, with most members voting in support.

The plan changes two major things: The first is that it increases the burden on appraisers if they want to raise property values by more than 5%, said chief appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt.

“If we’re going to raise by more than 5%, we just have to be sure," he said.

He said the other part of the new plan is freezing property values until 2027, with reappraisals occurring every two years instead of annually after that.

That's the part that concerns school districts.

The state comptroller's next audit of home values happens in 2025, and if TAD's frozen values don't match up closely enough with the state's, it could cost schools funding.

In an open letter released on Friday, signed by Fort Worth ISD and eight other school districts, the districts said their combined loss would be more than $100 million.

"School district leaders met with TAD representatives in private to inform them of how the plan would result in an immediate funding loss from the state when property values fall outside a 10% difference from the state’s calculations. During this meeting, TAD officials displayed a shocking lack of understanding regarding school funding laws, despite school districts representing the largest taxing entities within an appraisal district. For an appraisal district to be unaware of how its operations affect its largest taxing entities is inexcusable," the letter reads.

A spokesperson for TAD said they believe they've heard concerns from every school district in Tarrant County. As chief appraiser, Bobbitt does not vote and acts on the board's direction.

He said while it's true that school districts could lose money, they hope to avoid that, pointing to a provision in the plan that allows them to look at property values and pivot if they see any school districts in danger.

“In March, the staff will basically bring the board initial ratio studies. Basically initial determination of where we think we’re going to fall on the study, and if it looks like one of the school districts will fall out of grace or out of tolerance with the property value study, then we will make a recommendation to the board of directors that we will reappraise that school district," Bobbitt explained.

NBC 5 contacted all board members who supported the new plan. Only Gary Losada responded to our request.

Losada said that while the three newly elected members—Eric Morris, Callie Rigney, and Matt Bryant—initiated the reappraisal plan, he supported it after looking into it.

“The basis, as I understand it, is to give tax relief to the taxpayer, specifically homeowners," Losada said.

He acknowledged that school districts might lose money.

“There could be some lost revenues. I’m not arguing that. I don’t think it’s going to be quite severe," he said.

But Losada said TAD will still reappraise homes annually, but they are just not sending out those notices to homeowners. That means school districts can still use those updated numbers to calculate their tax rates.

He hopes this new plan will help homeowners and that the state legislature will increase funding for schools.

“Right now, I’m persona non grata because of the fact that I voted for this. But the bottom line is that we’ve got to reign in the taxes for the state of Texas," he said. “I just pray that the state legislature will sense the urgency of all of this and increase the funding for schools.”

He and Bobbitt said the plan can always be amended. But Losada said he has no plans to do so unless he sees data that the new reappraisal plan isn't working, whether in March or next summer.

“It all depends on whether or not there is more information released that could convince me that it needs to be revisited again in the way of a vote," he said. “If I made a mistake, I will admit it. Publicly. You can get the first scoop.”