Candidate filing opened Saturday for three elected seats on the Tarrant Appraisal District board, putting a two-year residential appraisal freeze that left an estimated 190,000 county homes overvalued in front of voters on Nov. 3.
The three at-large positions are among the first appraisal board seats in Texas filled by countywide vote, created by a 2023 constitutional amendment that expanded boards in counties of 75,000 or more to nine members. Tarrant’s 2024 winners used them to rewrite how one of the state’s largest counties is appraised. Other appraisal districts are watching the result.
Matt Bryant, Eric Morris and Callie Rigney won in 2024 on a platform of capping residential appraisal increases at 5% and appraising homes once every three years. Shortly after they took office, TAD adopted a two-year schedule and the 5% cap. Residential values were frozen at 2024 levels for the 2025 and 2026 tax years. The next reappraisal is set for 2027.
The Tarrant housing market then cooled. Tax consultant Chandler Crouch obtained district data showing more than 190,000 single-family homes would have received lower appraisals had they been reappraised, The Texan reported in April. Crouch estimated the average affected owner overpaid about $300. Owners of higher-value homes, whose market values kept rising, saved considerably more.
At a June 10 board meeting, chief appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt confirmed the residential tax roll had become “less uniform and more regressive” since the freeze. He said homestead caps absorbed about 60,000 of the overvalued bills. The board took no action.
“The board needs to focus less on whether the freeze was popular, and more on whether it produced accurate, equal and uniform values for all our taxpayers,” board member Wendy Burgess said.
Bryant said he had received 18 constituent emails on the issue. “I had 35,000 people vote for me, and it was on this platform — to make change,” he said. Morris noted that any owner may protest; that deadline passed May 15. “What’s the issue? Their problem’s solved,” he said.
District attorney Matthew Tepper told the board he would review whether the plan complies with Article VIII, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, which requires taxation to be equal and uniform. Reappraisal plans are adopted under Section 6.05 of the Tax Code.
The 2023 amendment created the elections but no money to run them. TAD paid the county nearly $700,000 for the 2024 races and has budgeted $800,000 for this November, Bobbitt said. A runoff would raise the cost.
Filing runs through Aug. 17. The board plans to formally order the election at its Aug. 12 meeting. Winners take office Jan. 1, 2027 — as the county’s first reappraisal in three years begins.