Independent audit of appraisal district just makes sense to ease taxpayers' concerns

Did your property assessment go up earlier this year? If you answered yes, as many in Victoria County surely can, you probably would like to know with certainty the change is correct. Even if your assessment didn’t rise, you’d most likely want to know proper assessments based on the latest methods and technology are being used to determine your tax bill.

If for no other reason, that’s why the Victoria County Central Appraisal District ought to hire an outside firm to conduct an audit of its practices.

The district’s leadership discussed an audit in July and approached county commissioners last month about supporting such an audit from the International Association of Assessing Officers, an independent nonprofit. The district came under fire from vocal property owners who complained their tax assessments were shooting up at exponential rates.

Commissioners decided in a split vote they weren’t going to help fund the audit and would leave the appraisal district to its own means.

The district most definitely should hire the IAAO to audit its practices and results to give taxpayers and voters peace of mind.

But this week, the appraisal district sent out a cryptic statement that the agency will instead rely on audits conducted by the Texas comptroller’s office every two years.

The audit is somewhat comprehensive, giving mostly positive grades to the Central Appraisal District. But it lacks depth and specificity that an IAAO report would contain. Whereas the comptroller’s audit provides results in a “pass/fail” format that gobbles up all of 12 pages, including the cover, the IAAO audit of a Kansas county, for instance, is written in narratives that go into great detail over 112 pages, including the cover.

Basically, the old adage holds true: You get what you pay for.

Earlier this year, some 43,000 Victoria County residents were notified by the district their property values had gone up by at least $1,000 since the previous appraisal. Some had gone up quite substantially. This angered property owners, who held town hall meetings with elected officials to vent and explain why sky-high appraisals are inappropriate. Some claimed their assessments had increased by 50%.

While it’s notable these property owners were angered at this sticker shock, the truth is tax assessments in Texas cannot keep up with real estate values. Rather, the taxable value used in determining property taxes can only go up 10% a year. So taxable values will take a while to catch up to steep assessed values.

Still, taxpayers — and we — wonder if these assessments are accurate.

Of the four mandatory requirements of the comptroller’s audit, the Victoria district got a “fail” in one of them. As any parent of a student in school knows, that’s a 75% grade. Would you be happy with “C” on the report card? Further, regarding appraisal district activities, three of four categories were rated as “meets all.” One, the district’s governance, was rated “meets.” “Meets all” is a score of 100, while “meets” ranges from 90 to 99.

The district actually scored a 94 in governance, which certainly is not a failing grade, scoring a “no” in the question of whether the board of directors posted a notice of a public hearing for its 2019-2020 reappraisal plan by a 2018 deadline or for its 2021-2022 reappraisal plan by its deadline in September 2020, both as required by the state’s tax code.

Perhaps this failing has led to some distrust.

We’re attaching the state’s audit and the audit by the IAAO of Sedgwick County, Kansas, to this editorial so our readers can see what they could get with a full and complete audit.

In any event, a thorough, independent review of the Victoria County Central Appraisal District is in order. If for no other reason than to allay valid and legitimate concerns raised by taxpayers. We urge the district to follow through and hire the independent IAAO to audit its work. Victoria County taxpayers deserve no less.