Atascosa County Judge’s ReportFree Access


Atascosa County Judge’s Report

      A few days ago, a lady asked me why the county was raising valuations so much and I told her that was not the county that controlled that but the Appraisal District.  She said that someone at the Appraisal District told her the opposite. I told her that no one from the appraisal district could have said such a thing but she insisted.  Well, I just told her that was just not accurate.

     The way it works is that the state, through a very complicated set of rules, essentially controls the operating guidelines for the appraisal district that sets YOUR property value. That is what is going on right now. The appraisal district is sending out new valuations to the entire county. My valuations have gone up more than a $100,000. The only involvement the county has is that we have one member on the appraisal district executive board. They have no power over valuations except that they appoint the members of the review board. The district revises the proposed tax valuations (which you are notified of), and you have a right to appeal to the review board.  

     The county does depend on the OVERALL property inventory value prepared by the district for setting our tax rate but we do not get involved in the calculations of valuation on any individual piece of property. The fact that your taxable value goes up is strictly out of our purview. We have no legal basis to ever get involved in that. Your taxable value is strictly between you and the appraisal district. Take me for example, regardless of what the city, school district or county does with their tax rates I am expecting my taxes to rise substantially because of the district’s valuation.  Not necessarily because of anything the county, city or school district does.

     Now, the state does get involved heavily with law governing the appraisal district in how it sets valuations. The governmental entities are at the mercy of the legislature and how they make these changes.  We call these “unfunded mandates”. This is too much for one column so I will continue this next week and talk about how unhappy I am with the entire process and would like to see it changed.

Thanks for listening.

We want you to be proud of your County Government.

Bob Hurley is the Atascosa County Judge. You may E-mail him at countyjudge@atascosacounty.texas.gov.

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