You can always tell us time for the meeting when everybody goes quiet. Welcome to the Tarrant Appraisal District Board of Directors meeting, our first meeting of, the New Year. So happy New Year to everybody. At this time, you have come yeah. Go ahead. Sure. At this time, we are going to, live stream the meeting for the sake of transparency to perform the swearing in and the oath of office for the newly, appointed members. And so, these members have already filled out a conflict disclosure statement from the Texas Ethics Commission.
And now, they are going to open disclosure statement from the Texas Ethics Commission. And now they are going to open your maroon folder, and fill out your anti bribery statement form two two zero one. That must happen before you take your oath of office. And then next, according to article 16 section one of the Texas constitution requires all appointed, local officers to take the oath of office, and to subscribe to the anti bribery statement before entering upon their duties.
These local documents are retained in the office of records, that's this office. And if you would, you three that are swearing in, would you stand and repeat after me? Raise your right hand. I, state your name. I, Wendy Burgess. Do solemnly swear or affirm Do solemnly swear or affirm. That I have not directly or indirectly That I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered, promised to pay Paid, offered, promised to pay. Contributed or promised to contribute Contributed or promised to contribute.
Any money or thing of value Any money or thing of value. Or promised any public office or employment. Promised any with the office or employment. For the giving or withholding of a vote. For the giving or withholding of a vote. For the giving or withholding of a vote. Election at which I was elected At the election for which I was elected or as a reward or as a reward to secure my appointment or confirmation To secure my appointment. Whichever the case may be Whichever the case case may be. So help me God. So help me God. Thank you. And the position which you have been elected or appointed is Tarrant Appraisal District Board
Member and I thank you so much. I will be passing around my notary book for you to sign and you may be seated. Congratulations to each of you. The anti bribery thing is always a humor to me because I all these people that say we get paid under the table, I always look, there's nothing ever there. And so, so welcome to the three of you. At this point, I'd like to call, reverend Dwayne Adams from the Saint Anne's Anglican Church in Lake Worth to lead us in invocation. Thank you very much. I a lot of times at this these things, you're I'm would say thank you
for the opportunity, but in this case, I don't wanna be opportunistic and, have anything approaching that violation of the oath that was just taken. But I do, appreciate the invitation and the honor and the joy of praying for you this day. Let us pray. Father, you have said in your word that we are to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you. And so my prayer for each of these board members is that, yes, in their
deliberations, may they do justly. But also, lord, may justice be tempered with mercy, and that each one may truly be touched by your spirit of grace in all of these deliberations, a spirit of knowledge and a spirit of wisdom that they may provide for the people of this county, that they may provide opportunities for the businesses of this county, and that we
all may prosper together, and that we may be glad that these people represent us, may be enabled to live our lives in the pursuit of happiness as your creation. And to that end, father, I pray for Rick, and for Gloria, and for Eric, and for Matt, and for Cali, and for Jodon, and for Kezia, for Fred, and
Eric, and Wendy. Lord, that they may all be recipients of your grace for the good of all of the residents and all of the businesses and people of Tarrant County. I pray these things through Jesus Christ, our lord. Amen. Amen. God bless you each and everyone. Thank you. Very much. At this point, I ask Wendy Burgess to lead us in the pledges. Please face the American flag and join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the
Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And the Texas pledge, honor and the justice flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. No real announcements for me, but a real quick agenda review. The agenda is what it is. We'll we'll we'll follow the agenda. There's two things two changes. One is on five c action items, resolution, appointed to chair and secretary of the
appraisal board. We're gonna pull that and do that next meeting. There's a some some, information out of that committee that we need to clear up before we make those appointments. And then we do not anticipate having a need to go to an executive session today. So those are the two changes that are on this agenda that you have before you. The next item on the agenda then, this is our annual meeting to do our appointments of new, board members. We've sworn them in and now to, elect a chair and a secretary of the TAB board of directors. And so I will open the, agenda open the board to, discussions of a of
a chair and seek nominations. I'd like to, nominate, Rick Barnes as chairman. Thank you. Is there any other nominations? Hearing none, that made that pretty easy. If I'd entertain a motion of acclamation, for regards to staying as chair. So moved. It's been moved seconded as a vote of acclamation. If you'll just raise your hands and she'll record. Okay. Thank you very much. And, for you make the motion? The motion is made by Thank you. Eric, second by Fred. Thank you. And then for secretary? I'd like to, I move that we appoint, Kelly Rigney as secretary.
Is there any other appointments for secretary? Make a motion for Fred Campos for secretary. Okay. Let me catch up now. Any other nominations? I'd like to move to nominate Kezia Ferrara for secretary. Okay. That's three out of nine. Any other nominations for secretary? So hold on a minute. Kezia, So I'll, at this point then, we just need to just deliberate and and
make a motion. So Well, okay. No. There is no comment. Somebody assigned for that. So we'll get Okay. Okay. Yeah. Discussion on this topic. I can wait I can wait it out. I'll speak first. Kazia, I know you served as president of Mansfield ISD school board and, one of the roles of the secretary in the absence of the chair is to run the meeting, and I think you do an excellent job at it. Any other discussion? Okay. Yes. Go ahead. I'll go since I made a motion. I believe that, that Fred has been an engaged member of this board.
I think that he would, he has, experience with HEB ISD, and I think that he would be a fantastic, secretary and representative of this board in the absence of a chair. Yes, ma'am. I just wanna make a comment. So I I definitely appreciate the nomination. However, yes, I have ran several meetings, but with me just being appointed today, I would not feel comfortable running a meeting in his absence. So I'm gonna ask that I be removed from the nomination, but I do appreciate
the nomination very much. Thank you. Any other you anything? Not much to say. Cali's doing well as our secretary. I see no reason to change it out, for this year. So I'd like to stick with Kelly. Let me consult somebody. Yeah. Like, my feet aren't even wet. Clearly, we need a majority of the board to, to appoint a secretary. At this point, then we'll we will just simply vote. We'll vote in order of the nominations. So all in favor of Kelly, please raise your hand. One, two, three, four, five.
That's five. All in favor of Fred. And that's He's surprised. He didn't know that. Congratulations, returning as secretary of the board. Now that we know who's in charge, that helps us move forward. Next thing on the and thank you for the support continuing as chair. I I said last time before we even had the election that I thought we had a board good board. We even if we don't always agree, we learned how to work together. Not always agreeing is actually a good thing.
If we all agree upon everything, we don't need a board. We just can make decision. A a person can make a decision. And so, I look forward to continue to work in particularly with the two new, Wendy, welcome back, and the two new, board members. Look forward to working with both of you. I, we did a training with them with, our attorney, and, I sat through that. First of all, I thought the training was a major step above what we went through. When I came on the board, I felt like that one was a whole lot of here's what you better not do or you might end up in jail. We need we still covered all that.
We also talked about lots of other things, and I look forward to working with these two new board members because I think we've got two great, board members coming in. So at this point, next thing on the agenda is, first our report from our Taxpayer Liaison Officer, doctor McElveen. Welcome. Good morning. I'm TLO Elizabeth, wishing you all a happy new year. One of my favorite sayings timing is everything. So, a, it's good to know who's in charge, isn't it? And b, we'll use our timing expediently, especially when I give these reports, but if
you have questions, certainly I I can entertain them. One preemptor to what your written information says, in December, there is a, cumulative report, due to the office of the comptroller. And as of December 2025, I submitted 237 detailed summaries of contacts made with my office, by by great majority, most were successfully resolved. As you know, sometimes it takes some digging to do some other kinds of resolutions and those do occur as well. So I don't want you to think that it was, just a, flip of the
switch to resolve some. That's not true. But, for most it was readily available. Moving into December, from December to January 2026, we, worked more closely as timing dictates with the taxpayer, tax collector, tax assessor office in, answering questions about, some of the the ways that the taxation is derived from the evaluations of property. And so that's always an area where that that commands some questions.
Nor in a normal month, the most kinds of questions we have, can be about exemptions. That's not true of December and January because of the taxation element that comes in, by by January 31. So by about 60% or little above, we had quite a few referrals to taxation offices, followed by exemption questions. And, many times exemptions can take, a little bit of time to process and so people are anxious about making sure those are finalized. So some of it is just answering to the status of what, a homestead or
a disability or an over 60 five application might be where those lie. And others are sometimes miscellaneous. You'll hear about some folks that have been paying taxes on a piece of property for years but haven't had the deed changed. And, oh my goodness, I, we had a couple of those. So, it does get down to some of those, very, evident quite, to me, quite urgent areas to, well, let's fix this. So, it runs a gamut. As you know, as always, some take some digging to fix but at this time
of year, usually that tax statement says a lot and bears a lot of weight and, gets people motivated to get their, obligation finalized by January 31. So, wish you well for a new year. 2026 presents some some new challenges as always, but, goodness, the energy in the room was wonderful. Good to see you again. There's a way around that, Rick, because I use it all the time. Okay. You don't put a stamp on it and you take it to them and they have to print the stamp. I hand stamp. Yeah. So that's what I do to get around that.
Rick, this is like a workshop. I like this. Yeah. So So So that brings us right back to it's good to know who's in charge and timing is everything. Thank you. Thank you very much. Joe Don Palmer report with you. Right? Yes, sir. Can you go to the next slide? Okay. We met with the, the while that comes up, we met with the, what we call the tax agent advisory group. So we pick, four or five of the larger, tax agents that we work with, because we deal with, you know, 250,000 protests a year, and roughly 180,000 of those are handled by tax agents.
And so to, work smoothly and keep everything, moving and certify on time, we usually have a meeting with the the bigger guys at first, and then we'll see what their concerns are. We'll try to address those concerns. Our topic this year was primarily, conversion related. So we wanted to know if they had any, any concerns or insights as to true prodigy we're that we're moving to, because that that is in at least 20 some odd counties across the state. So a lot of these bigger agencies, they've they've interacted with that that system. The feedback that we received, they do like our website and our our existing processes
a lot better than some of the other counties. So we're trying to take those topics and and have, TrueProgy incorporate that and and kinda development. That way, we kinda get the best of both worlds going forward. Joe Don, who are those four or five bigger outfits that you had in? We had mister Chandler Crouch. That That was one of them. I don't think we had Onwell there. I think they might have been invited, but they didn't attend. Ryan Ray, the Olinic. Olinic? Yes, sir. Nick Olinic. I forget those some of the other guys' names. Okay. Southland was there.
There's a guy on the left. I forget his name. Ryan. Raul Ryan tax. Brent? Ryan. It's the agency is Ryan Tax agents. I believe that was it. We'll have another meeting with with agents that have more than 200 properties, I believe, on March 31. And so as we get closer to conversion, we'll meet with the rest of them, just let them know how it's different, the the tax portals, where they can log in and file a protest. So as as we get closer and know more of how everything's gonna work, we'll we'll get with those guys. We met with the surrounding county tax offices, so most of what we deal with
is, the Tarrant County tax office. We've been meeting with them on a, basically, monthly basis. And then we meet with, Rick's staff on a weekly basis. On every Thursday, we have a meeting with them, I think, at 3PM to discuss conversion. So this was to give these other guys kinda update that we're moving to TrueProdigy. They're used to TrueProdigy from the other counties that they interact with. So it was, I think only Dallas was actually the only one that showed up, but they're actually busy this time of the year. So kinda don't really blame them. But we have an export of some files we're gonna send to the the other
tax offices this week, just kinda give them get them prepared. The school district property value study is expected to be released on July January 31. I think it's actually required by law to be released on January 31. They're usually not early. So that'll be posted on the thirty first. We'll review it on the first and we have an entity meeting on February 5 as planned. And so at that point, we'll go over with the mainly the school districts, the results of the property value study, and then we'll go over conversion and some other topics. And then we we are going through the comptroller's method and assistance program right now,
so they'll be on-site in February. And so the PBS looks at our numbers and compares them to what the state thinks they should be at. The method assistance program, they look at, are we following all the laws and regulations to make sure we're compliant with with the state, process and what state requires. General updates. So these are a list of our bigger contracts that are either multi year or that due to the vault the dollar amount we need approval from the board. And so these will these are basically the biggest ones that we just wanna kind of keep you all up to date on. These are our our primary vendors that we're dealing with.
On the next slide, conversion update. January 9, so last Friday was the last day that we entered, data into Almentum. So at this point going forward, we won't really be using Almentum. True project will be on-site for two weeks as we prepare for training and configuration of the system before we have final go live. The plan go live is March 3. We expect, that we'll be able to actually go live sooner than that, but that's what we expect the website and if we can do it sooner than that, we will, but we have a little bit of cushion kinda built in just in case
things happen. It's a very complex system that we're coming out of, and it's a very complex system we're going into and they don't always, line up exactly. So the staff have done an outstanding job, converting the data into an intermediate database that in TrueProdigy can then pull into, into their system. So I'm very pleased with where we are at the moment. The plan go live timeline. So January 29, we're originally planned to have 2025, converted, and then February 24 to have 2026. And then by March 3, we're trying to bring in all the prior years.
Right now, we have all the years, that we're able to export to the system. So right now, we're we're ahead of what the schedule is. We're already working on valuation pricing, models, web portals, appraisal notices. So we're we're kind of ahead on schedule on some things. But this, even though we go live, that doesn't mean conversion is complete. So we want people to realize that there are lot of things we will configure and we'll continue to learn and and set up, but we're not done until really September when we have everything completed and we we can certify the role and get
that to the tax offices. Right now, across all years, we're we're looking at 400 to $401, for the different tax years. So for 2025 and 2026, 2025 is we're off by $6 and that's taxable value. So an actual levy, that's rounds down to nothing. For 2026, we balance, for the prior years as we're off by a $100, for the different entities. So overall, and that stuff I think we'll have fixed this week. So we and if we can't get it fixed in the conversion, we can fix
it manually in TrueProdigy. So we're we're pleased with the the numbers. They've come come down a lot from what we were seeing two months ago. On the expectation slide, just kinda want to set some expectations for the public and for the board. There there have been discussion of parallel operations. The the vendor doesn't recommend like true parallel where you do data entry in both systems. There's a lot of risk for human error. And so what we've been doing is doing entry into Omentum and then we take that, we export the data, we convert it, and we put it into, True Prodigy,
and then we make sure it balances. Now, what we'll be doing, we've we're basically gonna be flip flopping. So now we'll be taking data, we'll be putting it directly into True Prodigy, making sure it still balances, and then making sure it's still the historical role still match what Augmentum had. So after we go live, we'll be exporting data from TrueProdigy. We'll be putting it into our legacy, property search. So when we go live, we'll have TrueProgy's property search and we'll have the existing property search that people in in Tarrant County are used to. We'll run those side by side so you'll have one year to kind of get
used to the different property searches and where data is and kind of how to find things. But that the old system will be, deprecated. So once we get into the new system by August, we hopefully the old system will go away, so we'll have to maintain that. Commercial values are are very complex, especially the income model and how we value, the income approach on commercial prodigy properties. So it's safer for us right now to continue valuing the commercial properties in Almentum and then exporting that data as we go through the ARB process and putting those into TrueProdigy. The it's not a direct import as far as how the our schedules work.
And so we do have to completely redesign our our cost schedules or income schedules for commercial, which would really be like a one year investment in time. And so as we've been doing, software and data conversion, we haven't had time. The the smart guys have been working on data conversion, not schedule conversion. So we think moving forward, this is the safest kind of hybrid path. So we'll be able to take those values that that we trust out of momentum. We don't like personally, I don't trust the complete roll up, but I trust individual property values for commercial. Market and equity grids, we can run those in both systems for residential.
And so we can as we come up with values, well, we're rolling the values, as the current plan. But we can run current sales out of both systems and see if that generates, the same market and equity grid. And so just to kinda double check that one the new system isn't coming up with weird off the wall reductions or showing that we're way overvalued way undervalued. And again, that's that should be safer for us as we we can kinda compare the two systems. For the website, our homepage will remain mostly unchanged, unchanged, so we're still gonna continue hosting that internally. The new TrueProdigy portals, will be embedded, so you will have property search, which will
come online in April, maybe March. The truth in taxation usually doesn't crank up until August. So that has all the the proposed tax rates and current values and then our appeal process. That will be new and it should be better in true Prodigy. Our existing TAB property search, like I mentioned earlier, that will continue to function in until the end of this year. Agents will have the TAB portal, our existing agent portal, and they'll have the TrueProdigy portal. The TrueProdigy offers some new things that we don't currently offer, but ours, existing website, does offer some other things that TrueProdigy doesn't offer.
So it depends on how they want to work the the the properties they can use either portal. And in taxpayers filing protests, we we normally try to resolve things ahead of time, so when people first file a protest, they can come in and and negotiate with us. And so if we can resolve that from the very beginning, then they'll be using our historical legacy system. And if they we can't come to an agreement, then it will push them over to the TrueProdigy system to actually create an actual protest and then continue the process through the TrueProdigy portal. I think that's all I have. Oh, one other random thing, I didn't have the slide, This kind of came up.
We are looking at, we've been interviewing different, CPA firms, auditors. We have an audit company, but they can only they're restricted on what they can talk to us about, So unless it's audit related, they can't help us with general financial advice. So we wanted to bring in another firm to help with, financial statements, just best practices. As we moved into Paylocity, there's some journal entries that that Paylocity is set up that doesn't quite make sense to us. So we want this other, firm to come in and look at it and make
sure everything is is straight and everything is good. There's some new income tax laws that we have to do with, overtime compensation. And so Paylocity doesn't have that quite handled, and so we wanna just get bring us some experts to help prevent us from making errors. So that that should be under a $100,000, but right now, we're just interviewing those companies. So if the price estimate goes high, then we'll bring it back for y'all's approval. Okay. One comment from me. January 9 was a great, great day that we got away from Alimentum. It's a very good thing to move away from.
So, and TrueProdigy just stops. It's a very good organization to go to. So, that was a good day for us. Our staff, in the tax office is also I talked to them just yesterday about all this, and they're all happy with where we are. So things are moving along very, very well. And thank you to Joe Don and his team for for helping us get there, which is there any other comments? Yes. Questions. Absolutely. So a little tad history lesson. Camera conversion initiated in 2011 and it didn't finish till 2014 and some would add
it really never finished. It was never a successful implementation. So, this is this looks like let's not you know, we're we're not across the goal line yet, but, man, we can't thank your staff enough, your rank and file that have been grinding away at this. I've been following since I'm on IT subcommittee. I'm very aware of the amount of stress that's been put on your organization. And I just want to say thank you to the rank and file and then thank you you to the leadership. You guys have been very transparent with us.
For a while back in the summer we had what we thought might be a hiccup and but we addressed it appropriately and I I just couldn't be more proud of you guys, the whole staff and and leadership. Again, job's not completed yet, but, I am very comfortable where we're at at this point. I'm just gonna add some echoes to what Matt and Rick have already said. This conversion is so important. The IT committee, has, as I've been told, may have been below the line. I've had Friday meetings with Brian every single week for the past six months.
And even sometimes Joe Don will show up. I am so proud of the work that they've done. I mean we were, there were some of those meetings that were very ugly, and I'm so happy I echo you Rick in getting off of Augmentum. It's 10 phases, we're through the first two phases which make up about 70% of it, but we're still not out of the woods. But we're we're definitely in a good place, and I just can't echo what these gentlemen have already said, Jodyne. You and your team and Brian's team and IT have done a great job on this. I have a question regarding the, property value study.
Do we have any expectations on school districts, passing it this year? Do you anticipate this? The last numbers that I had, the three that I were was worried about, Carol ISD, Fort Worth was on the fence, and Grapevine, Colleyville was on the fence. They're they're all recaptured. So in in theory, mathematically, they they should be impacted less than the other schools that have to that receive state funding. There still may be an impact, but it it should be much, much smaller financially. But those are the three that I'm that could fall out and not qualify for
grace. There's roughly half that may be in a grace period. And so we'd have until 2020 to correct those those values. If there is an unexpected failure from the comptroller's point of view, could you walk us through what would happen in that regard? Once we get the results back from the state on January 31, then the entities can file an appeal. They have to file an appeal even though they're my numbers. And then, I can assist, but the board of directors has to, authorize me. Their governing body has to authorize it, and then we could do the appeal for
them. Or a lot of times they'll have their their law firms that do their their annual audits. They'll have they'll have them be the lead and we'll just assist, and then it wouldn't require anybody's approval. It's just the audit firm is the the lead. Then we would try to appeal, any values, ratios that are, extremely low, we try to get those kicked. And anything that we could attack, try to get the ratio up, we we could, and and hopefully, they come back into grace. I just wanted to confirm something. It's my understanding that, recaptured districts, if they were to fill the property value study, they would just pay less back into the state.
So it's not, I guess, affecting their funding per se. They're just sending less back to the state. Yes, ma'am. And that that's primarily true. So what they would send back, it comes out like a collection loss, and so they're basically made whole for the most part. It's a very complicated formula. It could affect in other ways, what we had estimated when I I talked to Carol ISD was that it it we had estimated roughly around a $100,000 impact in in other aspects. So it's my understanding that they're capped at what they can keep no matter how
much they send to the state. And so, you're saying it go below that and they would lose funding? There's it gets really complicated beyond what I'm qualified to really discuss because it goes into MNO, INS, there's other interest rates and when they they do bonds and other kind of impacts, there there's other things that it could impact indirectly. But overall, compared to like, originally we were worried about Casselberry, it would have been 3 to $4,000,000 but it's still lost. Okay. For for Carol, it's maybe a $100,000 and that's our best estimate.
But I'm not on that side of the table, so I don't have all the fun math. I'll I'll elaborate on that a little bit. So whenever they do their formula, it's literally about a 35 page formula. Treatment tax issue. It's not it's not a one page. You fill out five things and you get an answer. It's a so every little bitty thing can affect in different kinds of ways, depending upon how what the issue was. The other side of it though too is that and this is where the comptroller's office gets involved is that if it if it let's just use Carol as an
example. They're always a they always pay into the system. But if they aren't paying into the system effectively, then the system's not correct either. So down the road, you got a new problem. And that's when they come back to us and say, you've gotta get them corrected to fix our our system. And so it's the the dominoes that are involved in what we refer to as education funding in the state of Texas are phenomenally large, which is why I have consistently said that the the issue is not appraisals.
The issue is not taxing. The issue is that we have a extremely messed up school funding model in the state of Texas. But we can say that all we want until they fix it, and we don't fix it. It's never something for us to fix. It's it's relying upon the legislature. I had a legislator ask tell me last year, when we were working with the legislation that we, quote, quote, we need to fix the education funding model. And I said, you're using the word we way too loose, talking to me about that, that they in Austin need to fix it.
And and a reminder to anybody everywhere in the entire school funding model conversation is that these the legislature didn't even write the current model. It ended up being written by the courts and by judges. And so we've got a we just got a mess and that until they figure out how to fix that mess, that mess will continue. So but to answer your question, that's why I think that's why Joe Don can't just flat out answer a question on that simply because it's a the the formula is extremely long, extremely convoluted, and extremely confusing.
There's a three year look back. And so, like, when you talk to other organizations, they tell you, well, let's go back and look at 2022 to find out what it actually does. Because there's so many numbers in t d TEA and PTAD that you don't know yet. Mhmm. That there's a lot of wild assumptions in there that so we're we're trying to calculate this. So I do have a quick question just to follow-up on the property value study. So it looks like you're meeting with entities on February 5. So kinda what can you walk me through what that is and what the intent of that meeting is? Mainly, it's to go over, conversion.
That way, they know the totals are changing. So, like the totals we get out of Momentum, the entity totals, that format is changing a lot. So we want them to know this is what we used to provide them, and this is how it's mapped to the new reports. That way, they can find all the numbers when they're doing the two TNT calculation, the treatment taxation calculations. That way, they they know how much, appraised value, how much is still under protest, how much may come on and added be added to the roll in November, December. But that way, they just know compared to historically what the new system is calculating.
We'll discuss the results of the property value study, so that way once we actually know how many schools were affected and how bad they are affected, then we can discuss like, do they want us to assist? Are they going to handle it on their own? What to what extent do they want us to assist? The numbers come from us. I mean, we have to assist in some extent. Okay. And then is that something that you would typically bring back, like, in February or our next meeting and kinda discuss that with us? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Perfect. We'll meet, I think, February 14 is the next scheduled meeting. Okay. Thank you. Jodhan, just real quick. You said something really fast.
I just wanna clarify and and Eric's question about asking about the PBS. You addressed the three that are currently potentially in trouble that deal with the comptroller's office. But you said there may be a bunch that go into grace? Yes sir. There were there were quite a few schools that our last ratio that we ran internally, that were below 95% but above 85 and a half. So they would fall into that grace period. That's if the state agrees with the numbers that we generated. Right. And then that'll be that'll comes out on January 31. Right? Yes, sir. Okay. Anything else for mister Bobbitt? The next thing on our agenda then is committee reports.
Let's just start with IT because it came out a little bit about that. Anybody from the IT committee want to elaborate further? Yeah. Okay. Next, appraisal review board committee. Matt? We're in good shape. We've put off till next month, the appointment process because we found a little glitch in the system that we need to address before we make this appointment. Okay. Any questions on that? Next committee, budget finance committee, Callie? Nothing new to report. Nothing new to report there. And board policies, nothing there.
So those are committee reports. Next thing on the agenda is public comments. First person on public comments, George Dodson. Hello, George. Good morning, board members. Thank you for the opportunity to, update you on my observation on the participate on the board's IT committee. As early as this past summer, as as Matt and, Fred already mentioned, the committee
was very concerned, about what we were told about the conversion process. In fact, we were told that at the current progress that you we had at that time, the conversion would not have happened. In fact, not only would it not have happened, but it would it would have cost, roughly another million dollars to operate, the old the automated system for another year. The, committee, pushed very hard to, make sure that, the the board was was aware
of what was happening. And what really, was at the center of all this is, was the structure of the databases. The databases were so different and especially because, momentum was based on California, appraisals, which really, Prop 13. Anyway, a big deal. But, basically, the board, funded, half $1,000,000 plus, to, get the, assistance, special assistance to
help not only, Tad, but also True Prodigy. This was really, really, essential, but, we're very, very I'm very, very pleased as a member and, as as the other two have already mentioned. And Alan, of course, was was our chairman. We knew that it would take significant effort, of the of the TAD team in general to jump in and do work over and above what they've done.
And we're so happy to see the results of that, significant work. It's just it's unbelievable, that they have pulled it off. The added consultants, did a lot on their part. The additional staffing, at True Prodigy also played a key role. And certainly, the the role that the tax office, provided, all that coordination was none of that was available back in 2011, 2014.
It was just an absolute mess back then. I was very concerned early on, but as I started to hear the numbers getting very close, as we looked at the Allman and True Prodigy base, I became more converged more, convinced that the conversion would happen. Again, I thank the TAD team for their outstanding work and, the conversion would not have moved forward like it did without all this. Of course, the leadership that Tad provided was was, key to that.
And and like Fred, I spent a lot of time with Brian, checking on, on, what was happening. And, again, I continue to look forward to the, to seeing the new system going live. The results are gonna prove, very, very critical, for better service for our for our citizens in Tarrant County. Thanks again to you, the board members, for joining in and providing the finances. You were also key in in making it happen.
And I appreciate, every one of you, and your involvement. So thank you for Thank you. For that very much. Thank you. Okay. Sayeda. Sayeda Sayeda, 6705 Sapphire Circle, North Collierville. Good morning and congratulations miss Farrar, miss Burgess, and mister Crile. For the last two years, I know this person. We go all the meetings. A lot of things we agreed to disagree and finally he is here. Congratulations. And on the lighter note, looks like our Tadboard or the TAD employees try to
balance two Eric's on each side. One Eric on each side. It's gonna be a challenge. Eric or Eric, which one? But but at least I appreciate mister Crayon. He's really hard worker and not only that, I'm one of the biggest critic of him when we were running together and I would say, at least, he is a property owner and a taxpayer of this, county. I have a question with mister, Bobbitt.
Well, last year on October 10, there was a plan to have a training program for entities employees to, how to use, the new software program. It's not done yet. The one you're talking about on Jan, February 5 is for finance people, not for the people who gave you the, permits and all those different information from the city.
And, let me ask one more question. Last year when we're talking about, you said in new system, we are going to, combine the all the your your account numbers. Combine the account number. If one property has six account numbers, it will show one account number. But if, if if the property is delinquent in taxes, in in any of the account number that is hiding under one account number, how can your office or the
chief of, Texas as our office, get that information? So, that's the explanation. If you include it when you have that presentation, that will be really appreciated because that helps not only Texas or collector office, but the entities as well on their side. So this means you are going to use old system and No, ma'am. No? Okay. Say at this time. Okay. So mister Crouch.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Congratulations to, Mr. Crowell, Ms. Farrar, and Ms. Burgess. And, just wanna say thank you to, Mr. Blaylock and mister Alford again for your service on the board. I I do wanna mention, we're talking about all sorts of upgrades and changes around here. There was an unbelievable amount of information and data on the TAD website about these different processes to to fill the seats. And that is a major change from what we've seen in previous years. It was it's a little hard to find because I I don't know.
There's I probably accessed those pages, a lot more than anybody else in the county, but, aside from maybe the people in the actual election. But, anyway, it's a a a huge, thing there. Just wanted to say that. I'm sad to see the firefighters walk out. It's cool. I hadn't seen that many, folks, that many firefighters in here. I was gonna say I don't, but, let's see here. Just wanted to comment for a second on a couple of comments that you made, mister Barnes. Two things. The stamp issue is just so huge.
It's little simple things like that that, really cause people a lot of trouble. I appreciate you bringing that up. And then the other thing that you mentioned, just a little comment. I was talking with my son after the last meeting with mister Bryant, explaining how, I appreciate mister Bryant just standing up for what he sees as truth. You do the same thing a lot of people do here. And, you were pointing out how disagreement is a good thing if if, we all have different perspectives. That's what the board is for. And I just, I just wanted to say thank you for saying that. I totally agree. The taxpayer liaison gave her a report.
I didn't do a great job putting together all my notes. And as she's talking, I'm like, dad, come. We've had a lot of interaction with, TAD staff over the past, month or so, and, wanna give credit where credit's due, of course, watching out which names I mentioned. But, the agent meeting was was a great thing just to be able to get ahead of some of the issues. I think a lot of the, commercial agents and and other guys that have experience in other counties have incredible insight that can help you guys. And so I think that that's great. And I also commend you for taking the good that's part of the old system
incorporating that. That was a lot of concerns. Let's see here. There one really cool thing is I got a stack of mail for, notices that we didn't always see. And I don't know for sure if it was part of the legislation that I helped get passed with, Representative Krauss at the time. But, notices to let people know that they might might qualify for a homestead exemption that wasn't on their property. In the past, they only sent out notices, that benefited seemingly the taxpayer or the
the taxing entity, so I just wanted to mention that. The big thing I don't wanna bury this. Half of the entities are failing the property value study. That's the big deal. There's I don't know for sure. I think that maybe the last time that happened was 2016. Just gonna say, probably gonna be some negative press. Probably should prepare for what's gonna happen beyond that, and that goes on his record. I I want to see he's he's been a soldier throughout this And and so I just wanna see him protected and all this or just given consideration. Thank you. Thank you. That's all the speakers who signed up for, public comment.
So we'll move to consent agenda. On the consent agenda, we pulled c, appointing chair and secretary of appraisal review board. I'm also gonna pull d. We'll do that one separately. So we have action items, approving the minutes from the last meeting, pass a resolution, designate chief appraiser regarding hearing notices, and and then, e is New Edge. Esri. Or Esri, all that desktop stuff. And then f is authorizing chief appraiser to renew lease with Quadient impress platform.
Is there any questions, comments, or a motion to, approve those? There is a public comment for five d. Oh, there is public comment on five d. Okay. Syed. Syed. Well, it's been pulled. Oh, it's been pulled. Let me come back to that one. Yeah. I'll I'll do that one. Motion to approve. So I do I do have a quick question. Do we need to abstain from a because we weren't part of the board at the time of those meetings? We get to Are you It's not required. It's preferential. So there's a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended. Is there a second? I would. Second. Okay. Second and now comments.
Yeah. Go ahead. I've already mentioned this but I wanted to mention it publicly. I've requested that the minutes to the meeting in the future, reflect who voted how and when be consistent in listing how we vote so the public has, information that shows who was in favor or not in favor of something. So, the meeting the minutes we have now I'm for but I would like in the future for them to reflect that information. So noted. So you're not saying we go back to this one and update this one. We're just saying moving forward.
That's what I'm saying, but mister Krill has some other Okay. Any other comments? If possible, I'd like to pull the minutes so I may abstain since I was a member. Okay. So abstaining from the motion. So all in favor is there any further discussion on the motion? Okay. All in favor it's on your computer. You can abstain there. Vote for, against, or abstain. Motion passed. Oh, there's that was for all. That was for all. The last the last one is f and so that's why it shows up. But that was for all except the pool and the pool.
Yeah. Alright. We'll deal with c at a later meeting. On d is a resolution to recognize, and appreciate Mike Alfred and Alan Blaylock. They're both here with us today, and I wanted to read the resolution into the record. Hold on now. Yeah. There we go. And then we will, present them that a lot of you come to the meetings, and that's great. I think the two of these are like, I don't know why in the world I would want to go to another meeting of the TAB board, but they're here, and so we'll recognize them in case they have other places they both need to
be, which was what led to them not continuing their term on the office, on the board in the first place. A resolution and recognition appreciation of service by Mac Alfred and Alan Blaylock. Whereas, section six point o three outlines the process in which populous counties appoint members to the board TAD governing body as directors, whereas Alfred Mac Alfred was appointed by the governing bodies of the entities elected by the taxpayers of Tarrant County to serve as a volunteer member of the board of directors, and his term began on 01/01/2025.
Whereas mister Alfred received votes from the cities of Arlington, Colleyville, Grand Prairie, Grapevine, Keller, Kennedale, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, Southlake, and Westlake. Whereas, mister Alfred received votes from the following ISDs, Arlington, Carroll, Eagle Mountain, Saginaw, Riverman, Fort Worth, Grapevine, Colleyville, Hurst, Euless Hurst Euless Bedford, Keller, Mansfield, and Northwest. Whereas, Alan Blaylock was appointed by the governing bodies of the entities elected by the taxpayers of Tarrant County to serve as a volunteer committee of the board of directors,
and his term began 01/01/2024, which he served in full. His he served another term that began on 01/01/2025. Whereas in his first term of service, mister Blaylock received votes from the cities of Arlington, the Fort Collins, Fort Collins, Forest Hill Wow. Fort Worth, North Richland Hills, and Richland Hills. In his second term, he received votes from the cities of Arlington, Bedford, Fort Worth, and Grand Prairie. And whereas in his first term of service, mister Blaylock received votes from the following ISDs, Arlington's, Lake Worth, Mansfield, White Settlement, and Tarrant County College District, in his second
term of service, he received votes from the following ISDs, Alito, Arlington, Eagle Mountain, Saginaw, Everman, Fort Worth, her Hershey Lewis Bedford, Mansfield, Northwest, White Settlement, and the Tarrant County College District. Therefore, be it resolved that this body formally acknowledges and extends in a its appreciation to mister Alfred and mister Blaylock for their outstanding contributions, exemplary service, and unwavering commitment to the people of Tarrant County. Further resolved that a copy of this resolution be presented to both mister Alfred and
mister Blaylock as a token of our gratitude and recognition passed and presented on 01/14/2026 by a vote, the regular board of directors of the Tarrant Appraisal District. And I move approval. Second. There's no second. Any all any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations to both of you. Thank you, and we have something for you. We gave each of them microphone time at the last meeting, but I'm gonna ask you both of them if they have, like, say one more thing. And, Three minutes. This is your one more thing.
You have three minutes. You know what? I'll let Chandler keep talking. Thank you. I I wasn't prepared to say anything today but I want to say thank you to the new board members Kezia and Eric. Good luck you're very well qualified and I'm sure the existing members of the board look forward to working with you. To the board members that I served with it was truly an honor. Joe Don, it was an honor to work with you too. Rick again, like I said at the last meeting your leadership is exemplary and the board is lucky to have you as its chair.
So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Mister Blaylock, this is your third round to say thank you, but go ahead. I'd like to yield my time to mister Crouch. In all serious note though, thank you all so much for this recognition that's really truly appreciated I wanna thank you all for your service and Eric and Kessy, I know that y'all will be great and Gloria, Matt, Cali, Rick, Brad, Eric, Wendy I
truly enjoyed working with all of you. I think we had some great times, some great conversations, and I think we've done a lot of wonderful things for the taxpayer in Tarrant County to make their lives a little less stressful, a little easier when they interact with Tad and we've gotten on a great path to ensure that we have good information and great data to share with them in the future through this conversion project. And, Joe Don, I wanna thank you and your team for that incredible effort that
y'all have put in. It's been a ton of hours, a ton of work, and it is very much appreciated, not just by me and the board, but by the public and they're going to really like, what they see when this is all said and done. So, thank you. Keep doing good work, keep working well as a board, and and keep keep on keeping on. Just thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you to both of you, and we wish you well. Okay. Thank you for that. The next item on the agenda is we're we're at number six, action items.
So the first one is discussion. Oh, I'm sorry. Syed. Oh, yeah. Comment. I just wanna say, for Mike, you did great when you were at, when you were here as a dad board. You did just such a great job. Although it's a very, short one year, but, he's very dedicated. I know him since, 2024 when he ran for school district. And around this time, I met him, in Grapevine area. And, mister for you, I would say congratulations.
People should learn how to run for House District. He is probably we'll see him on, November ballot. Right? Yeah. Yeah. He's he's approaching there. So and he does great with, for city council as well. So it's two jobs. Such such a wonderful people. Mister did great with, the IT committee. That's what I heard with, mister Dodson all the time and of course for Fred Campos but he's not leaving.
He's he's here. So, I wish you really good luck, and, please fix all those masses that we talk about here about Austin. You are going there to fix it. We'll thank you for your time. Thank you. And believe me, I've had those exact conversations with him, more than once. Alright. Next thing is action items. We're on number six a. Discussion of possible action to authorize the chief appraiser to negotiate an agreement with Enterprise Fleet for auto lease and management services, including notifying entities of budget amendment for additional
line item for leased vehicles. This came forward to this agenda from a past meeting, and I'll just lay it out there for discussion. Chairman, I have a statement. Sure. Okay. Go ahead. As a board, our responsibility is to evaluate policy decisions through a full cost, full impact lens that considers fiscal stewardship, operational effectiveness, workforce stability, and public service delivery. While the proposed fleet vehicle model presents projected savings in isolation, the materials before us
demonstrate that those savings rely on assumptions that do not align with the scale, geography, traffic conditions, or field operations of this appraisal district. The analysis shows that requiring centralized vehicle check-in and check out introduces non productive logistics time that directly reduces appraisal output without reducing payroll cost. Even under cons, conservative assumptions, this results in thousands of lost production hours annually translating
into meaningful operational and financial impact that offsets any projected savings. In addition, several material costs that are not fully captured in the fleet proposal, including mileage overages, fuel variability, increased commercial insurance, which our chairman should know about, registration, unscheduled maintenance, internal fleet administration, and audit oversight, all of which remain the district's responsibility and
materially change the cost equation. Equally important, this proposal represents a structural change of how field appraisal work is performed and compensated. This documentation indicates that replacing the car allowance would reduce total compensation for field appraisers, negatively affecting recruitment and retention, and re and increase liability exposure due to expanded district controlled travel. From a government standpoint, these are not incidental effects.
They go directly to the district's ability to maintain service levels, workforce stability, and statutory performance during a period when leadership attention and operational focus are already heavily committed to a system and work for workflow stabilizations. Excuse me. For these reasons, it is appropriate for the board to proceed cautiously, ensure that any decision reflects the district's operational realities rather than a vendor driven model, and consider whether
lower risk alternatives exist that address cost concerns without introducing productivity loss, workforce disruption, or added operational complexity. For this reason, I move that the board formally reject the proposal to replace the current car allowance program with a fleet vehicle model and direct that no further action be taken on this matter. So there's a motion at the end of that. Is there a second? Second. There's a second. Discussion now on that motion. When we say no further action, what I hear there is that we endorse how
we are managing our field time. And I I couldn't disagree more. I want data. I want to geolocate all of our field appraisers. That time in the field should it's very easy. Use Life three sixty. It's very easy to monitor where they go, how long it took, and what the expense is. And then we get into we need to keep salary salary and expenses expenses. This is outrageous that we are paying salary through commitments on, you know, field rides.
So, I think the no further action part, I couldn't I disagree. I think we need to take action. I need we need to start collecting data immediately. Immediately. And then as far as, we're in a situation where we believe that we're calling expense a salary and we owe it to them. Yes. Let's address that. Let's come up with a plan. We don't wanna lose employees. We wanna be very fair with what they signed up for, but we've made a mistake. And again, having a system where we're not where, you know, salary salary, expenses are
expenses. There's no negotiating on this. This is wrong. This is bad practice. Stinking fat government entity for doing things like that. This is common practice in appraisal districts across the state. And I will tell you of the 254 there's not a lot of them I would agree with. There's 253 appraisal districts across the state. Got me. And again, the fact that everyone's doing it is just not good data for me. Any other discussion or amendments? So just to add to the discussion.
So I I'm kind of in the middle here. First off, it it's an interesting idea. It uncovered a lot of things. Uncover the way we pay our employees. That salary is tied to Carlyle and some good points that you make, Matt. This as it stands probably is too disruptive for what we're doing. But the idea of being open to how we can save money and do things is something to consider. But as it stands right now, and and with the things that we're involved in right now, and it affecting salaries of people that are currently in CAMM, and space issues and other things.
I'm totally on board with the slow down issue. But I brought this item to the board and I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment that it's based on assumptions. We use this in Colleyville as George Dot Dodson knows. And we were able to add and update our fleet while saving taxpayers money. And, we're I'm just open to discussion on how how we can do best to I mean, we are taxpayer funded, we're not a private business. I've never seen someone so opposed to saving taxpayers money.
And so trying to silence us is not okay. But I mean, it's a great program. Keller uses it, Calcutta uses it, I'm sure many more. I wasn't here last time because I was sick, when this was originally discussed. But I I think that we just need to ask some questions on, ways that we can save money and and how we move forward with this. Respectfully ma'am, we didn't discuss it last time when you were sick out of respect for you. November 12. So we'll and We discussed it because you the entities that you We're very hateful
to the presenter. Cover 904 square miles. I'll bounce around. Okay. So I I I agree, a lot with with what mister Campo said. I think it's something that we definitely need to look at. Just when I was looking through the presentation, I was quite surprised how the pay structure was also lined up. So I would like a lot more data, as far as how many employees or even have a car allowance, data and how they're filled. I mean, it's very standard practice to track vehicles. We do it with our own vehicles, in our fleet, in our personal business.
So, I don't want to not continue to have this conversation. I think it's definitely something that we need to look at. The other thing that concerns me is how do we phase this out? I understand that employees have, you know, have made a commitment to make car payments. So if we can talk to other entities that have implemented this and see how they were able to phase out, I I don't I don't know. I don't have an answer for it, but I think it's definitely something that the conversation needs to continue. Mister Crowell. Yeah. I have a couple questions looking through the contract. And some of the math, I don't I don't quite understand. So under the current reimbursement, they're using the number 1200115.
Does anybody know where that number comes from or what that number is? Where are you at on the It was in the enterprise, synopsis. But I don't know. I guess the answer is no. No. Okay. And her total annual cost, in year one, she, the presenter has 248,130. But then in year two, that number drops by the $12,001.01 5. And so I'm wondering why the annual cost, the difference from year one to year two. Anybody? I don't recall.
Okay. I think saving taxpayers the money is a excellent idea. I do have some concerns, and I think some of the concerns that were brought up at the last meeting was one of the big things, I think, is the storage function. I think there's some ideas. I think it's a good idea, but I think we need to flesh it out a little bit better and maybe slow down with it. The other question I have is, this is a five year contract. Is there a is there an early opt out in it? We can I know we can sell the vehicles? Like, they'll advise us when we should sell them based on the depreciation of the
vehicles, how many miles we have on them. I don't know if the contract would opt out. Normally, we would require that, as a finding out clause. With being vehicles, I'm not sure I'd have to get Matthew to review it. So with it being a five year contract, my question to you would be, do you see the appraisal district doing business the same way five years from now that it is today specifically to infill appraisals? We would we would look to be more efficient going in the future, either through aerial photography, some other, software and technology that we could use.
Personal property, there's a lot of change that has happened to personal property. So right now, there's 60,000 properties that they have to go physically look at, but with the new exemption, a 125,000, dollar will be exempted from personal property. So it reduces the need for us to go out and look at as many of them, but we still have to see them and and put them on the roll because it's just an exemption. Like, they still have to be there, but it could reduce how much time we have to spend looking at them. So there's a lot of things that could change and that we want to make more efficient. Yes, ma'am. My thought is that perhaps we don't reject the idea but we reject this proposal.
That's what, it was rejecting this matter. And the and the reason is, I have multiple reasons. One is the way this was presented, to me had a lot of flaws in it. Why are we only looking at enterprise? Why weren't we looking at other places? You talked about the hostility. She was hostile to us. If you wanna come to somebody and ask for them to take your business, you don't talk to them that way. Then we scheduled a meeting so that we could get further information. I was not gonna be able to make it. There were there was enough people interested that were gonna make it and then at
the last minute they changed the time. So how bad did they want our business? We have to adjust to them? If that's the case then what are they gonna do to our employees with the fleet? Oh, sorry, we don't have time for you. That's what I'm getting from this company in particular. So I I think we should reject them because this is not a good presentation. This is not a good coming up first impression. Not the idea. Just this company. From a Not the idea. Just this company. From a government entity aspect. I'm just telling you this is my perspective.
Just one at a time. Go ahead. This is my perspective. I don't see any benefit in going with this company and and also I think we need to slow down. We're not a big entity. When you talk about a city there's a whole lot more employees there than there are here. There's only 200 employees here. So, we're not talking about a great big entity. The other thing that was alluded to but not mentioned other thing that was alluded to but not mentioned was these employees are using their personal vehicles. If they get in a wreck, the expectation is they're gonna be here tomorrow and still do their job, unless of course they're injured. But we don't have that unless, of course, they're injured.
But we don't have that expectation if they tell us, well, we don't have another vehicle for you or the vehicle's gonna be in repair for two weeks or whatever. We don't have that. The onus is on the employee right now to accomplish their job. And so I don't see any benefit in moving this quickly for anything of this nature. I don't think we're of the size. I don't think we've we've discussed any other efficiencies that we could address. This may have brought out things that, as Fred addressed but I think this company
is not the company I would like to go with. Let me interrupt the conversation just a minute. Restate your motion, just the motion part of it to because we have a motion on the floor and I think we're off. Okay. I move that the board formally reject the the proposal to replace the current car allowance program with a fleet vehicle model and direct that no further action be taken on this matter, this at this action item. So the question for me would be is that if if if there's any statement of that that's concerning, we would entertain amendments to that state that motion.
But there is that is the motion. So I was wanting to just realign us back on that motion versus So on this matter, it just pertains to the enterprise? Matter at hand, the matter that is on the agenda. Yes, sir. But she wants to stop discussion on the Would that would that mean that we can no longer further discuss leasing vehicles or is it just specific? No. But if you and if you wanna clean that up, just say that in the in the enterprise proposal, if you need to say it that way. What I don't wanna do though is limit enterprise from being able to present something
different to us. So I just wanna make sure if we're making a motion that we're not specifically shutting down, enterprise rental car. I didn't put Enterprise rental car in the motion. But I think they're the they're the vendor that they're the vendor that we're discussing right now. So I just wanna make sure that it's clear that they can still come back with a proposal to us. Does this require a vote? Yeah. It's an action item. We did or not vote on it all, just let it die. Yeah. That's what I I I was wondering too if this is even I mean, is can this be tabled and then come back once we have additional more? Before. We can table it indefinitely and not pull it back on the agenda as well
if somebody moves to remove it from the table. I'd like to make a motion to, table it. I'll second. So wait. We have a motion on the floor right now. Okay. So we gotta do something with that motion first. So Well, I just made a motion to amend her motion. Okay. So you're okay. Well, okay. You gotta say that. That's what I said. I didn't say that. So you're amending her motion to a table to instead of whatever you said at the end of yours. This man, could be so cool if we had this up on the screen to just ring. That instead of Instead of formally rejecting Instead of formally rejecting, we're gonna table this
motion that motion. Okay. Till till a further date. Okay. Is that what your motion was? Yes. Okay. Good. Is there a second? Second. There's a second. Discussion on the motion to amend. Yes. The little itty bitty piece of of discussion is, Joe Don, could you please prepare, the cost to geolocate all field rides for this calendar year? Can you come back? Yeah. We can we can just comment. I'm not I'm just I want you to hear it loud and clear though. And if anyone disagrees with that, I would love to hear it.
Yeah. I'm I'm I'm gonna say that that's not germane to the motions on the table, but we need to we need I think that's an after the effect. So I'm not I'm with you. Fair enough. Because I think the other thing that I'm would be with is some of this I don't wanna confuse this. I want us to finish this and then move on not move on, but move to the next level of Robert's Rules, but is that I think we need to have a con open conversation about how this affects employees who have been receiving a a car allowance, who go and get a car loan with that car allowance, and now we're also gonna suddenly tell them, hey.
We aren't gonna continue to give you that car allowance. That, to me, is an issue that's also come up and I think still a legitimate issue. Mister chair, so I have to decide whether I accept the motion, the the change to my motion. Is that correct? No. Per Rogers rules of order or In in Austin, Texas, that's how we operate, but that's not how we operate here. So for So there's a motion and a second to amend. So we just do that a lot. Yeah. Is there is there any further discussion on the amendment only right now?
Hearing none, all in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. And Julie, are you catching up with us? Yes, sir. Aye. Motion carries the one dissent vote was windy. Did. Okay. Excuse me. 72 passed. Now we're back to a main motion which says we're gonna table this indefinitely. Any discussion on that? Hearing no discussion on that, all in favor, say aye. Okay. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Now we have a really cool system that's supposed to do all that. If you can just fix the full system for a minute.
It's it's working. I just need you to give me a Okay. You want me to send it. Alright. Good. Good. Good. Alright. That was item number a. We got three more items, and I hope they're all that fun. Action item c b is request for waiver of penalty and interest from Arlington ISD, who's got the presentation on this. We do have speaker request or public comment. There is public comment on this one from is that the Norberto? Norberto. Norberto or, is that Rivas. From Arlington. Come on up. Good morning. Boater Barnes. I'm the board of directors and chief appraiser.
Towards the end of calendar year 2024, we had an update to our accounts payable email address. That was evidenced in some of the emails that are attached because the first two quarters in 2025, we were receiving invoices to the new email address. So this quarter, this this quarter in question is regarding the third the third quarter that won for the bill in September. So that one was sent to the outdated email address which had been turned off
in 2024. But by October 9, we received an email to both the new and the old email addresses, with penalties and fees. So we immediately collaborated with TAD leadership. We addressed it. We mailed in the payment. We did change an internal process to make sure this wouldn't happen again. I do understand that the allocation letter does say that invoices are sent as a courtesy, and I also understand that penalties and fees are assessed and that they're prescribed in code. There's also numerous ways of how our district can spend $32,000 in an educational setting.
Ultimately, these are taxpayer funds and they will remain for the benefit of taxpayers regardless of whose books they're ultimately on. But I am here to just respectfully ask that a consideration be made that the fees be waived. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. That was our one speaker request on this. This is Syed. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Alright. Good. I'm glad. I can see you now. Syed. So this is very common. I would say the most common mistake done by appraisal district using old email address,
new email address, old mailing address, new mailing address. And it's not only for TAD, but for other appraisal districts as well. I will give you several several example. Receive it with stamp and date and everything and still sending the notices to the old address. That's for the address. But for especially this penalty and interest, I would say, yes. I am very much against to waive the penalty and interest for the entities, but
every case stands alone. The board of directors, are here to look into the evidence before making any decisions and paint with one ink, one brush to all the cases. So please look into, it deep, dive in the case, and then make the decision. Sometimes, genuine mistake or, something missed by either by entity or by appraisal district or
any any other party. If if you use just one stroke for everything, that's not gonna work. Please look into it. Thank you. Thank you. Mister chairman. Yes, ma'am. For the sake of discussion, I'd like to move that we grant the waiver of penalty and interest from Arlington ISD. It's been moved that we grant, the request for PNI on, on item b to Arlington ISD. Is there a second? Very no second. Before I I would like to make one piece of explanation.
When I read their letter, so Where am I reading the part that it was sent to a different email than we will? Will you entertain discussion while you look for that? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. So I think this is the issue we've addressed in the past thirteen months that I've been on the board more than anything else. I unpleasant conversation with my CFO at HEB ISD when they fell into this category.
I think we've discussed this to no end. I believe efficiently run school districts know the rules pretty well. They're in a cycle. And I think we have to establish rules and set an example for our taxpayers. I, I feel like we've addressed this issue four or five times. And I I feel like we have to draw the line. So I appreciate, believe me, I appreciate, Arlington ISD situation. I would expect it. Like I said, I had a unbelievably heated conversation with Adobe and H E B
when they did this. I don't understand why this is continuing to happen. I think we we have to. We've we've we've established the rules for this. We've said it. I know notice is important. I know this is controversial but I I say that we stand by this. Well, I agree in general with what you're saying. Tad has acknowledged that they were in error in not sending, they They would have
waived it for him, but the fact of the matter is if they did pay it late because they received the bill late and automatically that created the penalties and our chief appraiser does not have the authority to waive those. So we had to bring it to the board for our approval. So I'm gonna give you my take on why this happened and it's because during this period of time that all these errors were made was when we were having glitches with our computer system and I believe this fell in that hole.
And so, we we are partially responsible for this problem as well as the school district. And that's why I'm I, have asked for this to be waived because we we have to acknowledge we made an error. And I think this fell in that hole when we found all those, errors before and they had to be fixed. That was what I was looking for. Can I come back to can I ask mister Bobby to elaborate on what happened with the email? So the first two quarterly payments, the invoices we did mail to the the new
email addresses For the third quarter, we somehow reverted back to the prior year's, contacts. And so we did send it to the wrong address or a no longer valid, address at Arnet ISD. I don't know why that email address got picked up and used, but but it did. Yes ma'am. So, Chief Appraiser, I know that I've asked you this question in past meetings, so I'll ask you again. So the the current viewing group can hear.
When you send at the beginning of the year, you send a notice to the entities, you tell them what is due in quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. If I receive that as a taxpayer, you know, and I paid something late, Rick's office is not going to say, okay, great, you know, no problem, Wendy. Because they gave notice, you gave notice saying this is due in quarter one, two, three, or '4.
I would put in my QuickBooks or whatever, you know, pay this by this date because it's a stagnant number and I know it in advance. And you don't have to send me an email to remind me that I owe this amount on this date. Is Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. I don't believe there's a requirement to send And that's equal to all of the entities, not just certain size. It's equal to all the entities that, are paying. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Yes. To that point, and the point's very well made, should we consider not sending this
quarterly reminder because it's not necessary per tax code. Correct? It's a burden on it takes our time, and it's, it's it's useless. Doesn't always work. So I would recommend if and I have some leadership here, that we stop sending to all the entities the reminder. We're gonna send per tax code, which Wendy what a perfect explanation of what goes out. And I will tell you the taxpayer throws up in their mouth when they hear just this one time because formerly miss Burgess office, now Rick's office, they don't wanna
hear it. They're not allowed to. We're not allowed to. Yeah. As Wendy Wells knows, we our office cannot do. The commissioner's court can. I don't remember. Could somebody remind me what the code says about what he can or cannot do? He can't provide the waivers. We actually did a reservation. To the board. Said he But we can. Yes. Right. It's identical to my office. I can't, but the commissioner's court can. He can't, but this body can. And so the question is still out there on how to best handle it. And we we had established for good cause in a past meeting.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just wanna lay it all out there. I the I think where I'm struggling a little bit, honestly, is that if it continue when you have a problem that continues to be a problem, you've got to eventually admit you've got a problem and you've got to fix the problem, not just say, well, you know, it's not our problem, because I don't know that it's not our problem. It's that we're all in this game together of of working cooperatively with our entities, in my case, working cooperatively with the taxpayers.
And if we if we had a constant problem with taxpayers not paying their stuff on time, I think I would hear from people like mister Crouch in my office to say you've got to figure out that you've got a problem that we can't cooperate with or is at least causing us headaches on our end. And we would have to say, well, I don't know. We can't do much about it, but you can certainly call Austin. In this case, he, our chief appraiser could say, we don't have a problem, but you can certainly call the board. And I think it's on the board's level right now to answer this. Either we're gonna say tough luck. We know we have a problem, but tough luck at y'alls to deal with, or
we're gonna acknowledge that we actually have an issue that we need to address on our end. Mister Crowell. Yeah. I question for chief Praeser. You and Eric will always be mister something the rest of our day. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. How many times has Arlington been late since you've been chief appraiser? I don't have that with me. It was in one of the past meetings. I I I had to look it up. Wow. I I know the appetite on this board. It appears to be be not to waive, but the statute does say for good cause. And I think at some point, this board needs to decide what good cause is.
So I think it would be, right for us to have a discussion in the future for us to set some policy, for what good cause is because we did make this mistake. And so there's a caveat. Right? If we amend the budget, then we would have to send a notice to the entity saying the, budget has been amended and you need to amend your payment. And so I think it's like anything. You you charge your credit card bill, and, we all know we have to pay
it, but, you know, people depend on that statement as a reminder. And the other thing I'd like to say is I I'd asked, the chief appraiser to reach out to surrounding counties and ask, how other counties handle it. And, we we see that some waive it, some don't waive it, and then some have a grace period. And so I think it's something that the board should content consider, going into the future because we do have a we do have a problem, or this is a
problem that continues to pop up. Can I have one more thing? Yes, ma'am. I understand what you said, Matt, and I agree with you on that. But if we're if our common practice has been to send the bill to them then it's still we've created the common practice. So we either remove the common practice, and not and and inform them when we send that initial, information or we need to make some adjustments to how we're doing this. And like I said, TAD acknowledges that they sent it to the wrong email address
and didn't discover it until, they finally realized and they actually sent it to both the wrong email address and the new email address to try and make up for that. So, I mean, we made an error as well and it has been common practice to all the entities to do. Now, if they had received the bill and failed to pay it, I would say deny them the failed to pay it, I would say deny them the the, waiver. But that's why I'm saying in this case, we also made the mistake. And if I'm I'm with you on going forward in that direction but we've already
sent out the bills now and then when we send out the initial ones for this coming year, we already sent out the bills now and then when we send out the initial ones for this coming year, we can put that on there. You will not be receiving quarterly reminders. So, Gloria, on, the looking at the second, third, and fourth quarter, emails, the additional staff that was put on there was different on every single quarter. So there, entities are always going to have a staff that changes. And, if I speak from my old job, you know, we we tell the taxpayer
it is your responsibility to keep a, current, address or name on file with the appraisal district? They did. They did. We failed to keep it going that way because their first few bills that they received, they they went to the correct address. And then all of a sudden and that's why I said we had that glitch with the computer then it seems timing wise it was at the same time then it reverted to the old email address. So they they have a new, some a new person in charge every single quarter?
No. Well, there's three different people. Some of them are their people, some are our people. I have copies of all the emails that we sent. Aisd.net. I've got even further back to that Okay. That shows they were sending it to the right. I too noticed that there were different a a I s d email addresses on there. So my my question was why did they not notify accounts payable? That would be my first question. And I honestly, I'm gonna be honest. I was really on the fence about this when I was kinda reading through everything because I'm like, if it was sent to the wrong email. But thank you for explaining that the bill is sent at the very beginning of
the year and as a courtesy. So, I mean, that kind of changes things for me. I mean, if they were not notified at all, then I could definitely see how this could be a a mistake. But with the additional email addresses on every single email, and I don't know who those people are within Arlington ISD, but I'm assuming those were given to the appraisal district by somebody. So, yeah, thank you very much for explaining that. I appreciate it. I would suggest, Joe Don, on your entity meeting on the fifth, I'd probably have some slides to address this so that they're the entities are heads up of where
we are going forward. Yes, sir. So we still have an action item on the table. We have no motion on the table. Is there I'd like to make a motion. Yes. I move that we reject the request for, PNI waiver for Arlington ISD. We move that we reject the PNI request for Arlington ISD. Is there a second? I'll second. So we move down second. Further discussion on that motion? I just think it's a responsibility of the entity, to make sure they know when everything's since it's originally sent out with the payment schedule. If I if I miss a credit card payment, they don't care if I didn't
get a reminder or something in the mail. I I I know when it when it's due every month. So, you know, we've talked about this a lot and we did grant waivers in the past because our common practice did change, and that's where we felt like we needed to notify them that things have changed. And so, I don't think people are gonna be on time unless there's any at most there's a penalty or any kind of consequence. And so, moving forward I think we'll find that there's a lot more payments that are made on time if if they take responsibility for when their payment schedule is
regardless if if we send a courtesy reminder or not. Mister Crowell. Mister Bravo, what happens with the money when they pay the penalty and interest? Any excess funds have to be committed by the Board to a particular purpose. Otherwise, typically any money we receive gets reallocated back to the the entities. And is there an enforcement mechanism in the law if they don't pay? Not that I'm aware of. Matthew could answer, but I don't think there's really a I think the enforcement mechanism is the is the penalty. But even if they don't pay, we we're still under a legal obligation to deliver
them in an appraisal role and and all of that kind of stuff. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So the credit card, example was given. I have great credit. If I miss a credit card payment once I call pick up the phone, I call them and I say I need you to grant me a waiver. I've been great. I've never paid late. This is the first time in twenty years or whatever and they grant it to me. So credit card companies also grant waivers if you're in good standing. So I've I've done it before and and continue to be in good standing so
I I don't accept that as a you didn't pay so therefore you have to pay this unless your credit's bad and you do it consistently. Gloria, would you recommend that the tax assessor collector office follow what you're describing? I don't know enough about that office to make a statement. He illegally can't. Yeah. That's a really cool down world. Yeah. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Real quick. Yes. I'm not really sure because we're talking about maybe bringing up this discussion again, which I'm just really unless we're gonna discuss, like, I I can't remember who mentioned it earlier, not even sending these notices anymore, I I just don't want even wanna entertain
that thought. Okay? I'm not sure what else we can do to get the point across. I thought the previous discussion settled the issue. That was my understanding. And now we wanna come back and have a discussion again. There's it's very clear to me, there's always going to be a reason. I don't really think it matters what we do. There's gonna be someone who's gonna be late. There's going to be a reason. To be quite honest, I don't even buy this reason. I don't. Like, at my job, for my department, we have an email group from my department. If I get removed from that department, leave to another employer, whatever, my department's still
gonna get those emails that was intended to come to me because it goes to the email group. I mean, there's easy fixes to this problem when employees change. And I could have sworn the last time somebody brought a waiver to us, a city, brought this to us couple meetings ago, they made a similar excuse a similar explanation, give or take. So, I'm just not okay with this still coming up. I don't really wanna entertain the discussion again. We've made it very clear. No more. It's been in the media. I mean, I I just can't think of anything we could possibly do to get
the point across no more. Okay? We heard all the excuses over the past year as to why varying different reasons, which there were some valid reasons. We fixed those. We forgave it. We rectified it, and we made it clear. No more. I don't know what else we can do to get this point across. The only thing we can do is just reject this and, again, tell all the entities no more. I don't care what the reason is. We've made it very clear. We've had this discussion to extreme lengths and we forgave it before and we made it clear no more. So no more. No more.
Any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we will vote on the motion to deny. So the motion is to reject. Yes. Motion carries seven to two. Thank you for that. I am going to encourage mister Bobbitt to come back to us with a plan of action moving forward. If we want to say this is our plan of action, that is okay. I think this I think we have recognized that there's a challenge in getting if it's happening every single time, there's something we need to talk about. And I don't know what that is right now.
And it may be very much that we go to old school. I tell you, the reason we're able to say it very bluntly in our office is that we do not send e mail bills to the taxpayers. We send paper bills to the taxpayers. If you choose to take paper e mail bills from your American Express, that's a choice you make. In this case, we're making the choice to use e mail, and e mail can be a mess. And, in one of my proposals, maybe we go back to doing paper mail, on bills, on bills only. But, well, I'm gonna ask Joe Don to come back to us with a plan
of action on that. That motion failed, so Renton will be expected to pay the PNI. Number six c, authorize chief appraisers to spend committed reserve funds for additional services related to appraisal software for 2005 tax year. Mister Butler. So, there's the next two are related, and they're both with XTR. Originally, the board authorized us to, contract with XTR up to a $100,000. They were helping us convert the data. They they are experts in Almentum.
And so they were helping us extract data out of Almentum, put it into a normal format that was used across the state. In December, we, I think we're around 60,000 to 80,000 that we had already been billed. So we asked them for an update on, like, how much have we spent, how much is still pending, and how much do you think to get through the end of the year. And their estimate was, like, 105,000 to get through December. And so that exceeds what the board had originally authorized us to, to spend. But given the, the nature of the conversion and the priority of it, we we
went ahead and, committed the hours. And so I think the last bill was actually 110,000 that we received through the December. When we broke this agenda item, I put in a 115 just to give us a cushion, but I think it's a 110. The next item, is related because it goes into 2026, fiscal year and so we're using a different fund source. But because it's basically the same item, the same function, with purchasing requirements, we didn't want it to look like we're splitting the cost of two different things across different fiscal years and exceeding the $100,000 purchasing limit.
So we wanted to bring that both at the same time to the board saying that, we will right now, we're estimating we'll need 45,000 for continued work with XTR, to help more so with configuration of TP, some letters, reporting that we have set to set up. I think, 45,000 is, more than what we'll actually need. I think it'll be less than that, but we didn't wanna have to come back the third or fourth time with this company. So we we think this will be enough to to get us across the hall. Motion on is there a motion on let's take a moment at a time, though.
C. I'll make motion. Motion. Move to approve. Second. Is there there's a motion, I made a motion. Miss Burgess seconded. Any discussion on seat? All in favor, we will vote on the screen. Miss Ruby, I'm not seeing your oh, there it goes. Motion carries. Motion carries unanimously and then I have a note to approve d as well. Second. There's a, there's a motion on approval I mean, and a second on approving of d. Who was the second on that? Fred. I heard two voices. Okay. Any discussion on d? Please vote.
And I'm sending that right now. And motion passes. Motion carries unanimously. That's the only other thing on our agenda for today. Is there any further items of interest? Our next meeting right now yes, ma'am? It's February 18. I just wanted to clarify that. I was hoping we didn't have to bring Valentine's to everybody. Yeah. The fourteenth is a Saturday. So romantic. So the next meeting, as of right now, is scheduled for February 18. We'll be making formal announcement about that within context of the law. Any further discussion? Hearing none, is there a motion to adjourn?
Motion to adjourn. It's been moved that we adjourn with a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much for being here today, and we will see you in February.