Tarrant Appraisal District board members are split on whether to consider changing the property appraisal process after acknowledging that the current plan delivered less equitable tax bills to homeowners.
The board discussed the possibility of undoing the reappraisal plan they voted to continue using in 2025 that switched residential property appraisals to a two-year schedule instead of the typical annual plan while capping tax increases at 5% per cycle.
The June 10 discussion came nearly a month after it became public that 190,000 to 200,000 homeowners potentially received overvalued property tax bills. No action was taken during the meeting to change the reappraisal plan.
“Everybody’s talking about the reappraisal plan, and I felt that if we didn’t get this on the agenda to have an open discussion based on the information that we’ve received, that it would be a slap in the face to the public,” TAD board member Gloria Pena said. “I felt like the attention needed to be given.”
Pena and fellow board member Wendy Burgess initiated the discussion after local tax consultant Chandler Crouch published TAD data showing more than 195,000 homeowners would have received lower property tax bills this year if their homes had been reappraised in 2025. But because of the reappraisal plan, homes remain frozen at their 2024 value and won’t be reappraised until 2027.
Chief appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt confirmed Wednesday that the county’s residential tax roll has become “less uniform and more regressive” since TAD froze reappraisals. However, he argued that about 60,000 of the overvalued tax bills were capped by homestead exemptions, effectively meaning only a ballpark of 130,000 homes were overvalued.
The board “should seriously consider” returning to annual reappraisals for residential properties, Burgess said. At a minimum, TAD should require annual “corrective reappraisals” when studies show inequitable taxation, she added.
“The board needs to focus less on whether the freeze was popular, and more on whether it produced accurate, equal and uniform values for all our taxpayers,” Burgess said.
Board member Eric Morris argued the “supermajority” of Tarrant homeowners benefited from the freeze on reappraisals because their home values were frozen at a lower rate than their current market value. Everyone, including the minority who didn’t benefit, may appeal their taxes, he noted. The deadline to protest was May 15.
“What’s the issue? Their problem’s solved,” Morris said.
Burgess’ response was that 200,000 tax protests generate a demanding workload for TAD staff who have to process the claims.
Morris and board members Matt Bryant and Callie Rigney took office in 2024 after running on a platform of capping residential appraisal increases at 5% and limiting appraisals to once every three years. They were the first TAD board members elected by voters rather than taxing entities.
Bryant pushed back against a claim by Pena and Burgess that the public was concerned about the reappraisal plan, saying he received only 18 emails from constituents about the overvalued homes. He noted only 14 attendees watching Wednesday’s TAD meeting online, arguing that he couldn’t support such a broad change to the reappraisal plan “over that type of response.”
“I had 35,000 people vote for me, and it was on this platform — to make change,” Bryant said.
Last month at a Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting, a handful of residents urged commissioners to push for a new reappraisal plan, calling the current one unfair.
Board member Eric Crile asked if Bryant would be open to supporting a change if TAD attorneys said the current plan violated the Constitution’s Uniformity Clause, which requires equal and uniform taxation. Bryant said the board had legal advice before implementing the reappraisal freeze in 2024, adding that he would “go with what we did.”
TAD attorney Matthew Tepper plans to work with appraisal staff to review appraisal data and determine whether the district is compliant with the constitution, he told the board.
In a “fast-moving, heavily populated” county such as Tarrant, reappraisals should be annual to maintain equity, Crile said. Smaller, less dense counties could be better suited to a less frequent plan, he said.
TAD chairman Rick Barnes, the county’s elected tax assessor-collector, suggested board members only wanted to revert to annual appraisals because state legislators proposed that standard.
Last year, state lawmakers passed a bill requiring that county appraisal districts complete property reappraisals by Jan. 1 annually. On Wednesday, Barnes insisted that the new law does not mandate annual reappraisals but rather requires counties who are reappraising to be finished by the start of the year.
Barnes took office in 2025, unseating Burgess, after promising in his campaign to limit property appraisals to every three years and cap annual tax increases at 5%.
Barnes said he’s spoken directly with acting state comptroller Kelly Hancock, who he said was surprised Tarrant’s reappraisal plan “went really well” — so much so that the comptroller is advising the governor’s office to require all county appraisals to reappraise residential properties once every five years. A spokesperson for the comptroller’s office did not return a request for confirmation of that plan.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
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