TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD) board members Monday responded to a letter accusing them of deliberately defunding public schools.
Board presidents from nine Tarrant County school districts signed the letter, which said the board chose to "intentionally harm the funding of public schools in Tarrant County" when it approved a new appraisal plan.
In August, the TAD board approved a plan to freeze residential property values until 2027, then conduct appraisals every other year. Currently, properties are appraised annually.
The board also approved a measure that would make it harder to increase a home's value by more than 5%. Under the proposal, the district would have to provide more evidence to justify such an increase.
Public schools rely heavily on property tax revenues, especially as state contributions lag. Despite a massive budget surplus, state lawmakers have not increased funding per pupil since 2019.
School districts have told appraisal district board members that under the new plan, state funding to schools would be further reduced. The change also makes it more difficult for the districts to plan ahead.
"It's going to be really tough for school districts to receive all the funding that, in my opinion, the state constitution allows us to receive," Northwest ISD chief financial officer Jonathan Pastusek said.
School leaders fear appraising properties every other year will lead to year-long cycles of disproportionate revenue growth, followed by cycles of flat revenue. Pastusek described the model as a "staircase," where the district must find ways to balance its books during the years when home values are not increased.
In a worst-case scenario, schools could lose funding if the property values in their districts do not align with the state comptroller's assessment. The letter indicates school districts anticipate property values will be off more than 10% from the state’s calculations, triggering an immediate state funding reduction.
There is a two-year grace period to remedy such a discrepancy, but districts fear there will not be enough time to correct potential problems since properties will be appraised biennially.
The change also affects schools' ability to pay off debt. Most bond packages have a structured payment plan that assumes property values will steadily grow, year-to-year.
Pastusek and other districts have warned the district's might have to raise the tax rate on bond projects to account for years when property tax revenue is flat.
"My goal is to not do that," he said. "We're going to do everything we can to not do that, but if it came to paying our debt versus not - I would have to do something along those lines."
In a one-time challenge, the appraisal freeze to 2027 also means Tarrant County school districts will spend three years without capturing the increased tax revenue they'd planned to spend.
"If the defunding of public schools were truly unintentional, then the TAD board had ample opportunity to correct its mistake," the letter states. "Instead, they chose to intentionally harm the funding of public schools in Tarrant County."
The letter's tone prompted strong reactions from board members.
"When a teenager is mad at you and they slam the door yelling, 'I hate you' - that's the way I read that letter," Rich DeOtte said.
The concerns raised by the school district are based on a worst-case scenario, Vince Puente, chairman of the board, said.
"I don't make all decisions based on the worst-case, we would never get anywhere if we did that," Puente said.
School board presidents representing Fort Worth ISD, Castleberry ISD, Kennedale ISD, Crowley ISD, Lake Worth ISD, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD, Northwest ISD, Everman ISD and White Settlement ISD signed the letter. The new rules were approved after Tarrant County voters elected three new Tarrant Appraisal District board members at large.
Along with the letter, nine school district boards passed a resolution opposing the appraisal district's budget and nine districts opposed the reappraisal plan. The Tarrant Appraisal District Board met at 8 a.m. Monday, Sept. 9 to discuss school districts' opposition to the district's budget and reappraisal plan.
At the meeting, appraisal district board members said the change is aimed at making it easier for property owners to appeal their valuation, it is not intended to unilaterally lower taxes.
DeOtte accused some districts of short-sighted fiscal policy.
"Most school districts have borrowed a lot of money and they keep borrowing money," he said. "They're concerned with our reappraisal because they're kind of counting on an increase every year."
"They're anticipating the growth of the tax base by a certain amount every year," he added later. "They've borrowed so much money - some of them - that they're looking toward a train wreck."
The newly-elected board members pushing the proposed changes, Eric Morris, Callie Rigney, and Matt Bryant campaigned on providing property tax relief. They were endorsed by several Republican elected officials, including Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare. The Tarrant Appraisal District is a non-partisan entity. O'Hare allegedly authored the changes to the appraisal plan, according to reporting from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"There is a lot of embellishing, there is a lot of emotion," Gary Losada, a board member, said at the meeting. "Some people have called me a puppet of Tim O'Hare... I can tell you personally that I have had no discussions at any time relating to County Judge Tim O'Hare on defunding schools."
Losada added that the school district's assertion that the board sought to intentionally harm public schools is false.
When school district leaders met with appraisal district leaders, they displayed "a shocking lack of understanding regarding school funding laws," the letter states.
"At the end of the day, it’s children who suffer," the letter states. "It’s the elementary student struggling with reading who will no longer receive intervention assistance because a support position had to be eliminated. It’s the secondary student who will no longer be able to take part in their favorite extracurricular program because the program was cut. These are not probabilities – they are very harsh and forthcoming realities, the consequences of which have an exponential negative impact on children."
The letter also casts doubt on the claim that the change in appraisals will amount to savings for taxpayers, who the letter claims will eventually be hit with higher tax bills and more uncertain valuations when going to sell their home.
Vince Puente, chairman of the board, acknowledged that when reappraisals restart in three years, homeowners may be surprised by how high their appraised home value increased after the pause.
Public commenters spoke against and in favor of the new reappraisal plan. Several commentators accused both the school districts and appraisal board of becoming expressly political.
"This whole thing has just turned political, this has gotten outside of people trying to solve a problem and now it's just one side lobbing a bomb at the other," Chandler Crouch, who's helped thousands of Tarrant County residents protest their property valuations, said.
The discussion that took place Monday, Sept. 9 did not come with an action item. The reappraisal plan is set for now, but could be reconsidered next year, Losada said.
"None of this has to happen," the letter reads. "Public schools serve as the foundation of a thriving community, and sacrificing public schools sacrifices the community. We call on the Tarrant Appraisal District Board of Directors to reverse course and engage in good-faith dialogue with school districts so children can receive the education they deserve."
The board promised to work with school districts to prevent the worst-case scenario where county appraisals do not match the comptroller's assessment.