Fort Bend County property owners may not see their tax bills until mid-October or possibly much later because of a backlog of thousands of people whose property tax protests still haven’t been heard.
Fort Bend County Commissioners Court usually receives a certified property roll from the Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, including the total taxable value of all land in the county, by August, but county officials say they’ve received notice from the CAD that it will be unable to provide a certified land value before Sept. 1.
County officials familiar with the matter expressed skepticism the CAD will provide a certified land value even by then.
“What’s driving the delay is just thousands of home owners” appealing land appraisals done by CAD appraisers, said County Judge Bob Hebert. “I’m just a little distressed.”
CAD officials “should’ve staffed accordingly to handle the volume, but they didn’t,” he added.
CAD Chief Appraiser Glen Whitehead didn’t immediately return a call for comment. But County Budget Director Pamela Gubbels said an email she just received from the CAD shows that property still “under Appraisal Review Board review for the Fort Bend County general fund” is potentially valued at $9.7 billion. Gubbels said land for which final appraisals have been approved total $31.3 billion.
Commissioners Court members are charged with setting the county’s property tax rate, but by law can’t do so until they are presented with a certified number representing the value of all taxable property in Fort Bend County, Hebert said. And after a certified number is presented, state law then requires a certain number of public hearings a certain number of days apart, to give citizens the right to comment on a proposed rate.
Given those requirements, “we’re looking at mid-October” at best, Gubbels said, before an effective tax rate can be set, and the county tax office can begin preparing a mailing property tax bills.
In a normal year, Texas counties are required to send out tax statements by October first, Hebert said. That theoretically allows residents time to see how much they owe and set aside the money by Jan. 31, when property tax bills are due.
But 2009 has shaped up to be an extraordinary year.
In the midst of a severe national real estate crunch, a preliminary valuation of all Fort Bend County property, released in May by the CAD, totaled $42.2 billion – up 10.8% from last year.
In Simonton and Fulshear, some property appraisals jumped by more than 1,000%, angering residents and sparking formation of a protest group.
Now the volume of those protests is being cited as the main reason tax rates can’t be set and tax bills mailed on time.
In the end, Hebert said, that delay may hurt many of the property owners who protested their appraisal values in the first place. Even if their property tax bills arrive as late as Dec. 31, those bills still are due Jan. 31.
“Here we are in a recession…there are people that are tight for cash, and we’re not going to get our bills out on Oct. 1,” Hebert said. “We might not get them out until Nov. 1, and worst case it could be December.”
“There’s a saying in the Navy that you can only go as fast as the slowest ship in the convoy,” Hebert added. “Right now the slowest ship in our little tax convoy is the CAD.”
“Trying to get the budget together this year has been interesting, to say the least,” Gubbels said.
By: Bob Dunn on Tue, Aug 4, 2009
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