Chief Appraiser Marya Crigler has submitted her notice of intent to retire effective in early 2024. She will be ending a career spanning 33 years with Travis Central Appraisal District that began right after graduating from the University of Texas. She currently earns $270,000 a year. Consultants and a committee of TCAD’s board have started working to find Crigler’s successor.
Crigler’s departure isn’t the only big change that will impact the agency’s management next year.
Senate Bill 2 mandates election of three members of its nine-member board of directors in the general election of May 2024.
For the first time since appraisal districts were created by legislation passed in 1979, the citizens of Travis County will be able to directly elect some of the voting members who oversee the appraisal district. The five voting members appointed by taxing entities will constitute a majority.
TCAD’s 10-member board currently consists of nine members appointed by the taxing entities the agency serves. By law the ninth member is the Travis County tax assessor-collector, who serves as a permanent ex-officio non-voting member, and that will continue under SB 2.
The election mandate is just one tiny aspect of the far-reaching legislation authored by Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) and signed into law July 22nd by Governor Greg Abbott.
The bill calls for major changes aimed at providing property tax relief through the school finance system, property tax exemptions, limitations on appraisals and taxes, and much more. The fiscal note for the bill states it will cost $12.7 billion for the biennium ending August 31, 2025.
TCAD was scheduled to hold a webinar today addressing the senate bill’s impact for the benefit of the taxing entities the agency serves. The Bulldog’s request to watch and cover the webinar was rebuffed because it is “not open to the public.”
TCAD Board Member Deborah Cartwright, who was appointed by the Austin Independent School District, said, “This webinar is important for all of us to participate in, to be aware of how operate next year.” She said the change in the board’s composition “is pretty significant. We know it impacts all jurisdictions.”
Election timing
To be eligible to run for one of those three elected positions, a person must be a resident of the district for at least two years immediately preceding the date the person takes office, which is July 1, 2024.
Applications for a place on the ballot must be filed with the Travis County judge, accompanied by a filing fee of $400 or a petition containing 500 signatures in lieu of the filing fee.
“The secretary of state shall adopt rules as necessary to implement this election,” SB 2 states.
The five non-elected board members will be appointed by the incorporated cities and town, school districts, and junior college districts. “Voting will be determined by the percent of (TCAD’s) budget each entity contributes,” Communications Director Cynthia Martinez, said in an email to answer the Bulldog‘s question. “I can’t tell you for sure how that will impact our smaller entities contrasted with our larger entities. Those specifics will become clearer as the Board determines the process over the next few months.”
The five members of the board to be appointed by the governing bodies of the incorporated cities and towns, school districts, and junior college districts will serve staggered four-year terms beginning January 1 of every other even-numbered year.
The three elected members of the board will serve staggered terms beginning January 1 of every other odd-numbered year.
Chief Appraiser Crigler told the Board of Directors at the August 24th meeting that TCAD has increased its 2024 budget by the $1.7 million estimated cost of conducting the May 2024 election and possible runoff. That bumped the 2024 budget to $29,884,516, an increase of $4,200,065 over the 2023 budget. The new budget includes funding for 158 employees, up from 153 in 2023.
If the elections ultimately cost less than estimated, then TCAD plans to reduce the taxing entities’ fourth-quarter payments in 2024, Crigler said.
Appraisal district budgets are supported solely by payments from local taxing units served by the district. After approval by the TCAD board, the 2024 budget takes effect January 1stautomatically unless disapproved by the governing bodies of the county, school districts, cities and towns it serves.
Alternate certification made by estimate
TCAD has now missed the statutory deadline for certifying the appraisal rolls in five of the last 10 years: 2014, 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2023.
TCAD’s Communications Director Martinez responded to say, “We did not miss the statutory deadline. The Chief Appraiser certified using an estimate, which is allowed by law.”
A chart published in the Bulldog’s story of December 12, 2013, provided a detailed analysis of certification performance from 2010 through 2021.
Tax rolls are certified based on the settled values of a threshold percentage of the total value of all properties that TCAD appraises. The rolls can be certified if 90 percent of values have been settled by July 20th, or if 95 percent of values have been settled by August 30th.
“We think we will hit 95 percent by August 30th,” Crigler told the board. “We dealt with most commercial properties and agents upfront and individual property owners on the back end. We’ve scheduled hearings through the month of September. We’ll take a week off for Labor Day and should completely finish by the end of September or the first week in October.”
The certified roll is critical for the taxing entities. The governing boards of those entities use the certified value to calculate tax rates when approving budgets for the next fiscal year. When the appraisal rolls cannot be certified on time, as happened again this year, TCAD provides an estimate that can be used for calculating the tax rates.
Some of the factors that may have contributed to the missed deadline are:
Record number of protests—A record-high 166,757 valuation protests were filed in 2023—a 20 percent increase over the 141,360 protests filed in 2022.
ARB strength reduced—As the Bulldog reported December 22nd, TCAD budgeted for 74 members to be appointed to the ARB in 2023. That’s just 37 percent of the 200 budgeted for the 2022 protest season. So the number of people available to conduct formal hearings with property owners and agents has been greatly reduced.
ARB attendance sub-par—Although 73 people have been appointed to serve on the ARB, in actual practice the ARB is operating with 49 full-time equivalents, Travis ARB Chair Craig Phifer told the board. “We’re coping, we’re using single-member panels when people agree to it (instead of the usual three-member panels that conduct hearings) and a lot do.
Later, by email, Phifer told the Bulldog, “The limited number of board members really hasn’t played a role in this (late certification). The TARB has been meeting the needs so far to do our part, and our efficiency has improved over the past three years. We have several panel chairs that have heard over 100 hearings in a day. Although that is not routine it has happened on several occasions with several different panel chairs.
“The ability to schedule enough hearings was the largest (factor). So not having enough members to serve daily was a consideration while scheduling.”
Hearing no-shows—“We have an 85 percent no-show rate,” Phifer told the board members.
Crigler added, “We always get a lot of no-shows. They want to get the evidence and don’t intend to show up, but then they don’t cancel (their hearing appointments).” The evidence is confidential and an owner or agent can get it only if they protest. “They can withdraw their protest online or ask to reschedule online.”
Via email, Phifer added, “TCAD is working the front door (when people come in for their hearings) reminding property owners of their informal settlement offer and asking one last time if they would like to accept the offer to settle informally. And the same is happening prior to the virtual hearing as well. This contributes to the no-show rate as well.”
2024 reappraisal plan amended
Deputy Chief Appraiser Leana Mann briefed the board concerning the plan to reappraise the value of properties within Travis County in the coming year.
The plan anticipates having 485,290 property accounts, of which 444,625 are real estate and the rest are business personal property. That projection equates to adding 7,667 accounts for an increase of 1.58 percent.
The plan states that the law only requires reappraisal of all property within its boundaries every three years. But TCAD but will undertake a targeted reappraisal approach to better achieve the goal of appraising all property at fair market value as of January 1st. Complete details are available in the agenda and meeting materials PDF (pages 105-114).
Crigler said, “In light of the decline in residential market trending down, we recommend doing a full reappraisal in 2024. We want to be sure values are reflective of the downturn in the market.”
The plan was approved by the board’s unanimous vote.
New personnel policy with longevity pay
The board approved a new personnel policy that includes a dress code permitting employees to wear jeans with their agency-provided wash-and-wear knit shirts that have the TCAD logo.
The policy updates per-diem rates, rules for remote work via telecommunications, breastfeeding, and standardizing timeframes for employee evaluations, which will be done more frequently than the year-end reviews previously conducted.
Crigler said the policy adds longevity pay like other appraisal districts offer. Employees will be paid annually on the anniversary date of their employment, the equivalent of an additional $5 per month after three years of service. That equates to a bonus of $180 on the third anniversary and an additional $60 per year for every year thereafter.
Board Chair James Valadez, appointed to the board by Travis County, said he liked the longevity pay proposal “because we’re struggling to retain employees.”
Board member Cartwright stipulated that the chief appraiser, who works under an annual contract, will not be eligible for longevity pay.
Crigler said managers also will get the longevity pay “to recognize and retain them, because they’re important.”
This story was updated at 4:21pm August 31, 2023, to correct the nature of Criger’s letter of intention to retire (not resign), that TCAD’s board consists of 10 members (not nine as originally stated), and that the chief appraiser certified using an estimate as allowed by law.
Trust indicators: Ken Martin has been covering local government and politics in the Austin area since 1981 and investigating and reporting on Travis Central Appraisal District since 2011. Email [email protected].
Related documents:
Agendas for TCAD Board of Director’s meeting, including all meeting materials, including Senate Bill 2 and overview by attorneys Perdue Brandon (PDF pages 141-204) August 24, 2023 (204 pages)
Marya Crigler’s notice of intent to retire, August 3, 2023 (1 page)
Press release concerning Crigler’s retirement, August 4, 2023 (2 pages)
Senate Bill 2 Analysis by Senate Research Center, July 17, 2023 (18 pages)
Senate Bill 2 Fiscal Note by Legislative Budget Board, July 12, 2023 (2 pages)
Related Bulldog coverage:
Appraisal district proposes 2024 budget bump, June 1, 2023
Good news: No big jump in 2023 property values, February 21, 2023
Travis Appraisal Review Board members pared, December 22, 2022
Property value protests set new records, June 9, 2022
Appraised home values jump more than 50 percent, April 19, 2022
They are a bunch of criminals!!!
Everyone is entitled to an opinion and all, but there is no basis in this story that would lead anyone to believe something criminal is going on.
TCAD completely did the appraisal wrong for 2023. Market was trending down significantly, but appraisal value went up. This is a trashy appraisal district. I am so happy that lady left forever. I will suggest the chief appraiser in Williamson county can be transferred to Travis County. Williamson county did a much better job on having appraisal value tracking the true market value.