Appraisal Standards Review
Williamson County Appraisal District Follow-Up Report
May 2007
Summary
In June 2004, the Granger Independent School District (Granger ISD), in Williamson County, Texas, was identified as one of 54 school districts in the state meeting the criteria that initiate an Appraisal Standards Review (ASR) of the county appraisal district that serves them. In December 2005, the Comptroller’s Property Tax Division (PTD) released the results of the ASR of Williamson County Appraisal District (Williamson CAD).
The report made two recommendations to improve Williamson CAD’s appraisal practices and operations. ASRs are intended to determine why the local values were deemed invalid and to recommend changes in operations and management that would improve appraisal practices. The Williamson CAD review evaluated five functional areas: board of directors (governance and management); appraisal district policies, procedures and operations (assessment administration); information processing systems (information processing and data collection); staffing, personnel qualifications and positions (resources and management); and generally accepted appraisal practices.
At the time of the review, the challenges facing Williamson CAD included expanding the contract monitoring process to include all contracts and balancing appraiser workloads by modifying the assignment process.
Texas Property Tax Code Section 5.102(d) requires that if the appraisal district fails to comply with the recommendations in the report and the Comptroller finds that the board of directors of the appraisal district failed to take remedial action before the first anniversary of the date the report was issued, the Comptroller shall notify the judge of each district court in the county for which the appraisal district is established. The judge shall appoint a five member board of conservators to implement the recommendations. The board of conservators shall exercise supervision and control over the operations of the appraisal district until the Comptroller determines under Section 403.302, Government Code, that in the same year the taxable value of each school district for which the appraisal district appraises property is the local value for the school district. The appraisal district shall bear the costs related to the supervision and control of the district by the board of conservators.
For the one-year follow-up report, an appraisal district is in compliance with the statute if it takes remedial action to implement the recommendations in the ASR. Remedial action means the CAD has or intends to correct, remedy or improve the deficiencies identified in the ASR. Remedial action is demonstrated by having implemented or nearly completed most of the recommendations by the one year anniversary of the reports release. In some instances, some of the recommendations require a strong commitment by the board to complete. The Comptroller recognizes that some recommendations included in ASRs will require more than a year to implement. Some ASRs include more recommendations than a CAD with limited resources can implement within a year. So long as the CAD is working at remediating of the findings, the Comptroller will continue to work with the CAD to achieve full compliance and will continue to monitor the CAD’s performance until all recommendations are implemented. CADs that have completed all recommendations by the one-year anniversary have met their statutory obligations and will not require additional monitoring.
PTD conducted a follow-up desk audit in December 2006 to assess Williamson CAD’s progress in implementing the report recommendations. The review team documented that the CAD has completed all of the recommendations.
PTD sent the CAD’s board members surveys soliciting their views and comments on the ASR. None of the board members responded.
PTD believes Williamson CAD’s efforts to date meet the state’s legal requirements in both of the recommendations.
History and Significant Events
PTD performed the ASR review of Williamson CAD because the 2003 Property Value Study (PVS) found that the values of rural properties in Granger ISD fell outside the study’s statistical margin of error. Rural properties include properties designated as Productivity Value of Qualifying Acres, which is primarily farm and ranch land that qualifies for the special productivity appraisal, and those classified as Non-Qualifying Acres and Farm and Ranch Improvements, which primarily includes rural homes and land that does not qualify as farming, ranching or timberlands. CADs appraise farm and ranch land qualifying for the special productivity appraisal using a special statutory method to determine the land’s productivity value.
Granger ISD was identified as eligible for the “grace period” provided for in Section 403.3011 of the Government Code. Within Granger ISD, the ratio for qualifying farm and ranch land was 0.9156, which was a contributing factor in the overall finding of invalid value.
Before the Comptroller published the ASR in December 2005, the chief appraiser implemented all recommendations in the ASR, including monitoring of all contracts and changes in the assignment of appraiser workloads.
The CAD’s continuing efforts to improve appraisals throughout 2004 and 2005 produced positive results as all 11 of the CAD’s school districts received local value in both the 2004 and 2005 final PVSs.
Appendix A
Williamson County Appraisal Standards Review Implementation Status Report
2.1 Board of Directors
| Rec. # | Recommendation | Implementation Status | If Not Complete, Projected Completion Date | Description of Actions Taken to Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expand the contract monitoring process to include all contracts. | Complete | Williamson CAD has a process in place for monitoring the CAD’s appraisal contract. The CAD assigns contract monitoring to the directors of three divisions, depending on the nature of the contracts. The director of appraisal is responsible for any contracts dealing with appraisal activities. The director of operations is responsible for contracts involving computer, equipment and mapping activities. The director of public services is responsible for contracts related to building, accounting and insurance. The CAD has 19 contracts. Assigned directors have reviewed each contract. The directors review all contracts annually and any time there is a performance problem. |
2.2 Appraisal District Policies, Procedures and Operations
2.3 Information Processing Systems
2.4 Staffing, Personnel Qualifications and Positions
2.5 Generally Accepted Appraisal Practices; Equality and Uniformity of Appraisal Standard
| Rec. # | Recommendation | Implementation Status | If Not Complete, Projected Completion Date | Description of Actions Taken to Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Adjust geographic area determination methods annually as needed to produce equitable appraiser workloads and meet reappraisal plan goals. | Complete | The CAD assigns appraisals according to property category. The CAD initially assigns residential properties by geographic area to 10 appraisers for fieldwork. If an appraiser has fewer new buildings or fewer field checks, the CAD directs the appraiser to help appraisers in other geographic areas. The CAD bases Residential Valuation completely on geographic area. The appraiser working the assigned area handles protests in that area. More experienced appraisers, a manager or a supervisor are usually assigned formal hearings and lawsuits. The CAD assigns agricultural properties to two appraisers, based on geographic area for fieldwork and rollbacks. Either appraiser handles protests and formal hearings. The manager generally handles lawsuits and valuation. The CAD assigns commercial properties to three appraisers by geographic area. Valuation is based on the real estate type and is divided into multifamily/office, retail/entertainment and automotive/industrial. Each commercial appraiser handles one real estate type and is cross-trained to handle all commercial properties. The director and assistant director of appraisal, with assistance from the commercial appraisers, handle lawsuits. The CAD assigns personal property to three appraisers by geographic area. The appraisers handle valuation by product types for larger properties and by geographical area for smaller properties. The appraiser who appraised the property handles hearings. The supervisor handles lawsuits. Land/analysis fieldwork is assigned by geographic area for residential and commercial properties to one of three appraisers. One appraiser handles rural and transitional land. Four appraisers in the unit, all with knowledge of all land issues, handle protests equally. The manager and supervisor primarily handle lawsuits. The CAD determines personnel requirements and reassignments by September of each year in conjunction with CAD planning sessions. The CAD makes adjustments at weekly department meetings. The director, in consultation with the manager and supervisor of each unit, reviews the status of work completed. If work is behind schedule in a specific area, they assign additional resources. |