A few days have passed since the Denton Central Appraisal District shared employee emails in support of Chief Appraiser Hope McClure. Ten out of about 80 employees sent responses in support of McClure.

In a file of letters sent Friday to the Denton Record-Chronicle, current employees shared stories about why McClure has been a good leader and what their experience has been like working at DCAD. Some were new employees, and others were long-term ones.

“Chief Appraiser Hope McClure continues to go above and beyond for her people. At this point, she seems to be the only one,” wrote a DCAD appraiser whose name wasn’t included with the original document. “Those engaged in the odd and extremely obvious public effort to stymie her and DCAD need to be reminded that there are more people with a stake here than just the Chief Appraiser. Hope is a capable and determined leader. She is not the problem. Understaffing and outside interference are the problems.”

Several of the 60 taxing entities served by the district disagree. As of Wednesday, a majority of them — 31 — have disapproved DCAD’s 2022-23 budget, which is seeking nearly $3 million in additional funding to hire 18 new employees to handle the growth in tax rolls in the county.

“I do feel a vote of no confidence is needed at this point because, quite honestly, this has been going on for several years,” Denton school board President Mia Price said Tuesday night. “They’ve had ample opportunity to remedy this. And I think things are in place where remedies are trying to be up on that. But it’s a great financial peril to our district. I just feel like a message needs to be sent.”

Now, McClure has demanded employees sign a nondisclosure agreement nearly a week after someone took a screenshot of an email from DCAD spokesperson Emer Sanabria requesting emails from employees in support of McClure to share with the media.

Employees are being asked to sign the Electronic Information and Confidentiality Agreement, dated Aug. 22, which says in part: “I further agree not to reproduce, remove, copy, forward, take a picture, etc. of any such material for any unauthorized District use. Any materials (emails, applications, documents, spreadsheets, etc.) sent outside the organization to cause harm to the District as a whole, an employee of the District, or a property owner will be grounds for termination.”

It’s unclear what would happen to employees who refuse to sign it. The anonymous person who alerted the Record-Chronicle to this issue claimed, “All employees are being forced to sign a document that they understand they’ll be terminated immediately. … Doesn’t sound like she [McClure] believes in transparency after all.”

In an email Tuesday to all DCAD employees, Misty Baptiste, McClure’s executive assistant, told employees: “Please read over the attached form and sign and return to me by Friday, August 25 at 5:00. You are welcome to return the hard copy to the folder on my desk or you can scan it in and shoot it back to me in an email.”

McClure continues to refuse to discuss this issue and other issues related to the appraisal district.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Sanabria sent a prepared statement that read, in part: “Having a policy that protects our software, data, records, employees and property owners is a responsible business decision and improves our organization.”

In a follow-up email, the Record-Chronicle asked him if McClure had written the statement, why this NDA was occurring a week after someone had shared Sanabria’s email and if employees were forced to sign it, as the person had claimed. Sanabria responded: “It is a statement from the Denton Central Appraisal District.”

Sanabria sent another follow-up email and said the statement came from him.

Roy Atwood, chair of DCAD’s Board of Directors, said the board will address the NDA and the disapproval of the budget during its Sept. 13 board meeting. He said he couldn’t comment on the agreement until the board had “considered and investigated the issue.”

“The Chief Appraiser is certainly integral to the performance and success of the Appraisal District,” Attwood wrote in an email late Tuesday afternoon. “The Board intends to look into the leadership issues raised along with other concerns raised, including concerns raised by current employees.”

Freedom of Information Foundation board member Joseph Larsen, a First Amendment attorney from Houston, said that while it is not unusual, creating a nondisclosure agreement doesn’t make anything confidential since confidentiality is covered by the Freedom of Information Act and any effort otherwise to establish confidentiality would conflict with the act.

“It looks like it might be illegal,” Larsen said. “It’s not surprising that an employee was alarmed and thought the wider community needs to know. The community does need to know. The action here seems to be an attempt to cover illegal activity or unethical activity. That’s clearly what is at issue here.”

A line of cases, Larsen said, draws a distinction between the First Amendment rights of governmental employees as opposed to elected officials. He pointed to the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, which went to the Supreme Court, involving a Michigan district attorney who blew the whistle on some illegal activity. He was fired, and the Supreme Court ruled that because he was an employee, he could be fired. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 5-4 opinion: “The fact that his duties sometimes required him to speak or write does not mean his supervisors were prohibited from evaluating his performance.”

Larsen also mentioned that Texas has a whistleblower statute, but he said it doesn’t protect people who go to the media first because they’re supposed to take their concerns to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

“Another solution to not looking bad is not to do stuff that makes them look bad,” Larsen said.