Tarrant County Officials Vote “No Confidence” in Chief Appraiser

Officials in Fort Worth want the Tarrant Appraisal District’s chief appraiser out.

Tarrant County commissioners voted “no confidence” in the chief appraiser, Jeff Law, during a Tuesday meeting. The move comes a week after Cal Wood was suspended as TAD’s director of information systems due to a leaked recording of him advocating a “false narrative” regarding a TAD tech failure, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The commissioners also sent a letter to the board of directors, recommending that Law be replaced.

“We never had the authority to make them do anything, but this will be an historic act that perhaps, if they ignore it, they will ignore it at their own peril,” Brooks told the outlet.

In April, TAD launched a new website that malfunctioned for many users. And for those who could access the site, the automated market review tool wouldn’t work, which is required to be accessible by law.

Thus, Tarrant County was forced to extend multiple times the deadline taxpayers are given to protest their appraisals. A letter of repair required Law to fix the tech issues, or else the appraisals would be in jeopardy of being dismissed. Tarrant County includes Fort Worth and Arlington.

A whistleblower caught Wood saying “I’m OK with creating a false narrative that distances the truth from the media … The further you create the truth from what’s being reported, the better you are. Because what do we need? Time, patience and money.”

Law then notified the board and “launched a full investigation of the circumstances.”

The recent events prolong a series of public scandals surrounding TAD, which is tasked with appraising properties to determine their taxable values. The agency’s website encountered problems as far back as October, when it was taken offline for planned security updates, the outlet said. In March, Wood and Law had assured the TAD board and the public that the website would be fully operational in time for the property tax season.

—Quinn Donoghue