Travis County Commissioners Court
July 21, 2009,
Item 25
Number 25 is posted as an executive session and before the end of today's meeting we will chat with legal counsel but there is an open court part.
25, consider and take appropriate action regarding a request to file a challenge to commercial appraisals performed by travis central appraisal district or request a performance audit of the district.
and this item is worded this way because we did get from a Travis County resident a request to do one or the other.
and mr.
brian roger is that resident's name and he is in court and if he would come forward.
we also have with us today mr.
patrick brown, the chief appraiser of the central travis appraisal district, and I think we have others who have come down on the same item.
we have our mr.
knight from the tax assess other's office.
i thought the best way to proceed would be for him to lay out his contentions and data and to give mr.
brown an opportunity to respond.
then there would be questions from the court probably.
and if the two of them wanted to do a back and forth briefly, we would entertain that, and then there are residents who would come down and we would give them an opportunity to give comments today also.
so if you would give us just your full name for the record.
>> brian rogers.
may I pass this out, sir?
>> yes, sir.
>> I'm ready.
my name is brian rogers.
i've been in the real estate business 26 years as an in investors.
while I've never been an appraiser, valuing properties is what I do on a daily basis.
i understand the process very well, but I'm not under degrees playing the daunting task that the appraiser has and the appraisal district to value correctly over hundreds of thousands of properties every year I realize is very difficult and it's probably a thankless task and wrongly reviled by many.
what I'm here to do is say there are serious problems in the way that the appraisal district is valuing a commercial land and property.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> so through some detective work of my own, I conducted my own ratio study and have been able to find over $120 million of property missing from the tax rolls on just 30 properties.
and here's how I did it.
since 2006 the city of Austin has ordered over 600 appraisals in order to purchase property.
what I have in my hand here is the appraisal done by pale hornsowe paul horns
>> [bleep] by and company to purchase land.
included in the appraisal are sales comp that the appraiser had to arrive at an impervious cover dollars per square foot in order to recommend a price to the city.
i noticed within these there were some glaring dispasties, such -- disparities, such as on the list of my 30 comps there was the property on comanche trail that sold of April of '06 for 5.05 million and has been on the tax rolz for $840,000 every year.
the one I mentioned previously at the corner of 620 and 71 has been on the tax rolz for 3.7 every year since.
there's 43-million-dollar, 9 10-acre ranch that's sitting on the tax rolls for 10 million.
i realize that has an agricultural appraisal, but it is a high end residential development that when the time comes for the county to get their five-year roll back they'll be looking back at only 10 million rather than looking back at $43 million per year to recapture.
you could think of that maybe as cherry picking these out of these appraisals, but when I went downtown and -- when I looked -- when the appraisals came in on property that were downtown, the sales comps, out of probably the 15 I was able to track, I could only find two that weren't grossly undervalued.
one of them was where the safeway rental is on bowie street that.
one sold for 3.6 and I think it was on the tax rolls for 3.3.
the other was the 11th street where the old safe way where the democratic party had their headquarters briefly.
that was a gsa sale, Texas, it was a public sale.
the rest of them are grossly undervalued.
i bring up the Austinian.
now it's down to a million dollars.
there are it's rampart.
what I just handed you is something that I haven't shown mr.
-- one I just found the other day is on south fifth street.
it's two acres.
it's a condominium complex that sold for -- the land sold in '07 for 1.6 million, but it on the tax rolls for only 174,000.
now, that's bad, but that's not the entire story because there's a condominium complex built on it.
and they're just now putting in the landscaping, but I went down to the appraisal district and they have no record of even any building permit.
and so this is a lot of evaluation that hasn't even been triggered yet.
i'm sure when they sell the first condo it will all be picked up, but these are some of the serious problems that I'm finding.
i don't think out of the 30 sales comps I picked up that the appraisal district found one of them.
you know, I'm not here to pick on these particular owners of property.
what it tells me, though, is if these sales comps are so hard to found, and I found them, and the underlying values are so low, imagine the tip of the iceberg of the ones that we don't know the value of.
and that's -- with over $42 billion of commercial property on Travis County rolls, there's -- there could be some tremendous missing value.
so I've been told that through the paper that mr.
brown said that the appraisal district is audited every year.
well, I looked into that and I guess there is some sort of audit.
it's a review.
and they do get good marks, but I think what they're doing on this ratio study is information that they provide to the comptroller and the comptroller feeds back the mathematics.
i don't think the comptroller goes out and finds their own comps clandestinely and says okay, let's see how you're really doing.
that's what my ratio study did is it compared some unknown comps to the trail district to the actual values.
what I'm asking for is -- and my group is that the challenge of the appraisal district and also have the state comptroller do what's called a performance audit.
that's different from the annual audit.
it's a performance audit.
and I don't know exactly how it goes together.
>> can you tell me what --
>> well, the challenge is done at a local level.
so you challenge the levels of the appraisals on the roll before the appraisal review board.
and the appraisal review board is local.
and that's sort of all takes place over in the appraisal district building on cross park drive.
it seems to me that the state comptroller audit would be a more third party impartial way to do it.
but that's maybe more for y'all's decision to make.
and I think that I'll probably --
>> what I was trying to determine, in other words -- what I'm trying to determine is the state comptroller audit, performance audit versus the regular audit, there's variation between -- that's what I'm trying to distinguish, chas the variation between the two if the state of Texas actually audits the travis appraisal district and just -- what's the difference?
that's what I'm trying to lay out.
>> and I think I'll defer to somebody else who knows a little better than I do.
i know one of them is like annual -- they all get audit review, every district does.
>> by whom?
>> by the comptroller.
a normal review, an annual review, I believe.
>> annual review.
>> this is something different this is a performance audit that hey, the taxing entities can say we think there's a problem.
where there's smoke there may be fire and we would like for the comptroller to do a performance audit and see.
>> okay.
i see what you're saying.
all right.
i guess this is the difference right there.
>> yeah.
i knew more about it.
i haven't had time to sit down with anyone at the comptroller's office to ask them the distinctions.
>> we'll have further legal questions for legal later today.
any questions for mr.
rogers?
any other questions?
>> when I looked at this list that you provided these 30 properties, I looked at it and I saw it was actually four properties, I feel that in precinct 1.
and I went through them pretty thoroughly.
and you have them listed, you know, from one through 30.
>> yes, sir.
>> and of course, 14, 21, 24 and 27 are the properties that I saw that were in precinct 1 that -- it's kind of amazing some of the appraised value and then what the property sold at.
kind of remarkable.
but anyway, I just want to let you know that I did look at this when I received it.
and then looked at that particular distinction.
but anyway, that was my comment on that, that I did get a chance to review it thoroughly.
>> thank you.
>> see a difference.
>> I have a question.
>> okay.
>> since sales prices are not necessarily required to be published and you certainly appear -- seem to be a sophisticated researcher, how difficult is it to ascertain sales prices for good, culpable comparison or for specific property valuation?
>> well, it is difficult, and -- homeowners -- I think the home prices, and maybe I'm wrong, but the mls records, I believe, are -- the appraisal district has access to those.
this is disclosure I believe for homeowners.
so it becomes -- what is it for commercial and how difficult?
and I did it through open records with the city and also with Travis County.
but there's other ways to go at it.
the Texas a&m has some public records, and I realize they distill a lot of the real estate articles down and you may found some of the larger property sales there.
a more sleuthful way to do it is how I did it for that property I was mentioning on comanche trail.
that one that's down from the oasis.
it's number 18.
it sold for 5.5 million, on the tax rolz for 840.
i sells there must be a loan against this property, right?
so I looked at the deed records and yeah, there's a four and a half-million-dollar loan against this property.
so it's got a four and a half-million-dollar loan, it's not a construction loan, only -- the collateral is only lot 1, block 8, comanche trail business park.
yet it's on the tcad for 840,000.
if a bank thought it was worth lending four and a half million, we could assume that that would be at least a starting point.
and I think that there's a lot of different ways to back into some of these prices rather than having the buyer admit it.
i get that piece of paper that -- when I buy a piece of property, I get that piece of paper and I throw it away, as do most people.
but if I got a phone call -- this is a suggestion.
if I got a phone call from somebody and I happened to be the seller and they come up -- someone said this is how we fund our schools, can you tell me?
i think there's other ways that maybe the public can be sort of cajoled into giving up some values.
it is difficult.
>> you know, Travis County depending a lot on property taxes to operate its government, to provide the necessary services that are required for us to do by law.
some are mandated and some are not mandated.
but we provide services through property tax generated revenue and more so probably than any other governmental entity.
i really don't know the others and what they do, but I know we're around about 80% as far as our operational end of the revenue that we bring into the county, about 80% of that comes from property taxes.
so it's a big deal for me and I think this court and everybody on the tax bills.
my question, though, is it equates almost to a similar situation where we just discussed here extensively a few -- for several months and it's taken property off the tax rolls, either putting money into a situation where you won't be able to recapture that money as far as it going into the general fund.
so that's quite significant.
but again, property being taken off the tax roll where we won't be able to collect the revenue that's generated off that particular property is a real big deal also.
this is a big deal also.
it's all big when you come to tax pairsz' dollars -- taxpayers' dollars and how we can maybe get better use out of dollars that we are actually able to collect.
so it's a big deal.
i don't really know what anyone else has to say on this, but we've been basically struggling with this, I know I have, as far as property being taken off the tax rolls, which I am totally opposed.
because of the lack of revenue that we won't have to operate the county at a level of where I think we should be at.
so it's -- this is also probably running a parallel track as far as what I'm looking at also.
thank you.
>> so what's your response to the fact that I guess about half of these are 2006, which makes them about three years old.
a handful, I guess, 2005.
quite a few more 2007.
so how do you respond to that?
>> I think there's maybe two of them that are 2007.
most of them are '06 and '07.
the appraisal business is a backyard looking business, backyard in the fact that it's all based on sales comps.
sales comps are the gold of appraisals.
so it is my nature a backward looking function.
so if it's January 1 of '08, then a may '07 and a may '06 are very relevant, especially with these larger properties.
the city made a 32-million-dollar purchase of property based on appraisals that are two and three years old.
so they did this appraisal in December of '07, which is about January of '08.
they had an '06 appraisal for 125 eakers, an '05 appraisal.
these are sales comps that the appraiser used in order to justify -- to come up with a price.
so the city and county are spending large amounts of money based on the authority of these comps and the fact that they're older, what appraisers tend to do is add an inflation kicker or some sort of market bump instead of '03.
so both appraisals sales comps are meaty and worthwhile.
>> to what extent do you factor in the current market?
>> well, if you look at the fact that subdivision hand is -- it depends on what -- this is more theoretical.
as an investor, if I was sitting on a bunch of residential development land, I would be looking ahead and saying, I have to hold it for another year before the housing prices kick up again.
it doesn't mean it went to $10 million.
your holding costs are going to take you out another year.
so we're a growing city and all these gaps and all these holes will be plugged in.
it's just a little bit of a waiting game.
>> okay.
sit right there for us.
let's get mr.
brown up, get his comments.
we may have a few more questions after we hear from mr.
brown, right?
welcome, mr.
brown.
this is our second opportunity to see you in this courtroom.
>> thanks for having me here today.
>> I think last time you had been on the job a few days.
>> yes.
i think there was a --
>> welcome back.
>> thank you.
thank you very much.
sendoff for art corey, my predecessor.
i wanted to I guess kind of start with the appraisal process and give the Commissioners an idea of what goes in to the process of putting out a tax roll.
we start in generally about September probably -- or October we're doing our field work.
our field work is done between -- primarily between October and February of each year.
we then bring our appraisers into the office and start the valuation process.
the valuation process takes about six or eight weeks.
we're generally done in towards the end of April.
the tax law states that you have 30 days from receipt of your property tax bill -- property tax notice in order to protest your property.
it's 30 days from receipt or before June 1, whichever occurs first.
in order to get that June 1 date operative, because we have such a large amount of protests to set through the system, we mail our notices how in late April so that the June 1 date becomes operative.
we then turn over the appraisal roll to the arb, the appraisal review board.
it's an independent body which is appointed by the board of directors of the Travis County central appraisal district.
they basically sit in judgment of whether our values are correct.
this year we are looking at about 88,000 properties, basically 88,000 people out there that think my values are too high.
from that system we have until June 1 until July 20th.
yesterday the roll was turned back over to me to certify.
i go through 140 taxing jurisdictions and basically give them an estimate of what their roll is going to be in order to help them set their tax rates.
those budget hearings are going on as we speak.
generally in July and August and some September, the tax rate is usually set in September.
we turned the appraisal roll over to the assessor collector.
the assessor clebter turns it into a tax roll and the notices are generally sent out in October or November.
they're payable madely, but they are -- they are payable immediately, but are not considered late until January 30th.
>> so the field work is what?
>> the field work is when we go out and we look at new properties.
we generally measure properties, primarily new properties.
we look at building permits to see about remodeling issues.
we will come up with a classification for those properties based on a quality rating which will set it in a cost table, which we use to do our mass updates or our modeling.
>> years ago, years ago, going back to probably the early 1990's, and I recall very distinctly -- in fact, art corey, who was the former appraiser with Travis County central appraisal district, attended meetings with us when we were dealing with the notorious gasoline storage tank farm off of springdale and airport boulevard.
now, what happened in that situation -- you maybe wonder why is Commissioner Davis mentioning this?
i tell you why is because that there was migration from spilled gasoline over a number of years that got into the water table and it had actually migrated through a lot of area there of folks that lived in that area were affected by it.
and over the years it did a lot of environmental damage under ground.
now, my point is that the property values around that tank farm in a certain radius plummeted.
as far as the appraisal on those properties.
and the question at the time was why and how was the property appraised so low?
and one thing I remembered -- I will never forget it is that occurs is that perception, perception.
he kept saying peption.
he said per peption becomes reality -- perception becomes reality, even though in this area maybe there are some areas that haven't been touched, but because of the perception that it has been contamination underground this and underground that, that drove the property down.
even though a person's home will appraise at, my goodness, pretty high, but the appraisals just went -- it plummeted.
so I'm just wondering how much perception is demonstrated in some of these appraisals or is that factual or is it just myth?
and I don't believe art corey would tell me anything that was amiss.
>> I guess I don't quite understand your question.
what are you asking me to comment on?
>> I'm just asking -- in other words, we've seen a lot of appraisals that -- a good example, right across i-35, right past 11th street, between 11th and airport boulevard and points close.
the appraised value of those properties are just -- have skyrocketed.
and of course, my point is when folks ask me why is the appraisal so high, I have to ask them to ask you why it's so high.
some folks say it's because it's close to downtown.
some are saying -- there's a lot of different reasons why the appraisals in there are so high.
you see a lot in this area of the sales, over $100,000, and that's amazing.
and these folks that are living in that area you suffering big time because of the fact that the appraisals are so high and it's actually appeared to force people out of their property.
that's been brought across to me and I have complaints all the time about how appraisals in certain areas.
now, what -- I'm just asking what is the perception that's driving these costs?
that's my question.
>> well, I guess the first thing I should mention is that an appraisal is based on what the marketplace tells us.
and the appraiser interprets the data, but it's what the market tells us.
austin in the early '70's was 200,000.
the county was maybe 300,000.
now we're over a million.
all those people in town caused demands.
the more people that you have looking at a property, the more it's demanded.
people have increased the values on properties because they're willing to pay that amount.
i remember in the early '90's when hyde park hit $100 a foot, and then I remember when places like travis heights and tarrytown hit $100 a foot.
i remember when it hits $200 a foot.
there are new homes now that are 15, 20 miles from the city center that are $100 a foot these days.
i think people historically have ignored east Austin and its value, but they are now looking at it and realizing that you can be three minutes or five minutes from the capitol, you can be four or five minutes from the university of Texas and still get a somewhat reasonably priced house.
so those houses that may have been selling for 30, 40, $50,000 eight or 10 years ago are now selling for 150 or 200,000.
it's my understanding that the mueller development is for those builders that are involved in it one of the most successful developments in the state.
and again, it an old, overused adage, but location, location, location is what drives real estate value.
when people are paying these larger enormous prices on south congress and travis heights and some of these other areas, they find east Austin to be a relatively competitive -- and again as mr.
rogers pointed out, sometimes the appraisal process, we are -- we're looking back at what's happened over the past six months or a year.
as those sales prices go up, we are required by law to match those values and put market values on them.
>> again, I'm not the appraiser, nor do I protest to be an appraiser of property per se, but we kind of rely on the experts that we consider being the experts and to provide answers.
normally what happens when folks call me and ask me, hey, my property taxes are through the ceiling.
what is going on?
someone just put -- just located one of these mcmansions right up -- right across the street from me, and that has -- my property taxes have just soared since the mcmansion, the big deals that have -- that now are just throughout the community on the east side.
my property taxes have soared because of that.
they asked me to ask you.
and I guess I have to point to you because I have to make sure they get the correct answer.
so you probably have been getting some calls on that as far as property that have just jumped out the chart as far as the big mcmansions that are being constructed over there on the east side now.
>> yes.
again, it has to do with linkages.
proximity to employers, proximity to schools, proximity to the airport, proximity to i-35.
and those are all reasons why with a million people now in this county, east Austin is -- has become competitive in those areas and that's driving up the land and the house prices there in those areas.
our values are based on sales that occur in those areas.
>> well, he brought up some points, mr.
rogers brought up some points through this 1 through 30 listing of his personal research that he has done.
have you had a chance to review this output that he supplied to the court?
>> I haven't reviewed it in detail.
mr.
rogers has not met with me.
most of my exposure has been through the media and I did have some contact with Commissioner Eckhardt about two or three weeks ago and we have reviewed some of these.
>> I guess my point is the accuracy.
in other words, you're the appraiser.
he is the person that is a real estate person that has actually done his research.
and the research indicates a disparity in some degree on some situations here.
and I don't really know, but I would like the experts to look at it.
and once you look at it, then you give me a determination on what's been presented to the court.
>> well, I think --
>> I haven't looked at it in great detail.
>> there are 1 through 30 items and each particular property is a snapshot, a random snapshot of what's actually out there in Travis County.
>> I haven't looked at it in great detail.
i have some of my staff looking at it.
i think there are several points to be aware of.
and the first one, and I think the most important one is the appraisal district's in the state of Texas does not have mandatory sales disclosure.
that has been an issue that has been presented to the legislature for the last three sessions and all three times is went down in flames.
i was a fee appraiser before I was a mass appraiser and I had -- and I appraised properties in new hampshire.
and all you do up there is walk in the courthouse and it's either printed on the deed or in terms of tax stamps you can get exactly what a property sold for.
of these 30 some-odd properties that were on the list, and I think maria has that information for me, but how many were the appraisal district aware of before this report came out?
>> I just wondered if you had an opportunity to review it because I think it's pretty significant as far as what's being laid out before us, in my opinion anyway.
>> there are several points that I would make and one of the points is that a lot of these sales have occurred over a time period, five -- '02, '06, twoifn.
as mr.
biscoe noted I've only been the chief appraiser since 2008 and 2009.
i started January 1 of 2008.
so the first point I'd like to make is that most of these sales occurred previous to my getting to the appraisal district.
the only two that have occurred since I've gotten there, one of them has occurred -- I believe it was on burleson road.
it sold in June.
a minute ago I wanted to tell you about the tax calendar to let you know that it's very difficult, if not impossible, for us to change values once the roll has gone out.
you can protest in two ways, on market value and on equity.
market value basically states that my property wouldn't sell for this if I put it on the open market.
equity is a challenge which you can do individually.
basically saying that my property is very similar to these other three or four properties.
and they are appraised at a lower level than mine.
were I to at this point in time after we've already certified, it's really an impossibility, but if I were to go back and adjust these values, most of these property owners would still have the ability to challenge them on an equity basis.
and because of that either in the courts arrest the arb would be probably able to get them lower than what they already are.
many of these properties have been improved with condominiums and have improvements on them at this point in time.
the Austinian is one that I've seen in the paper and on some of the news channels and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we actually have about $26 million on that property at this point in time with the condos partially complete.
back to the two that have occurred since I've been there.
the two that have occurred were one on burleson road.
it happened after we sent out notices.
the next year the value we put on it I believe was about 93 percent of what it sold for.
there's a warehouse going up on it at this point.
the other sold in June of this year and I believe it was block 87 down at the -- that I believe the episcopal seminary of the southwest has purchased for some headquarters and some museums.
are there problems out there?
yes.
are there possibilities that the properties are undervalued?
based on their sales prices that might be true, but again you have to also keep in mind that the economy is in a recession at this point in time and what they may have sold for three or four years ago may or may not be what they're worth now when we have condos that are going on out for auction and people that are unable to sell their properties.
all this would have been very useful information for me had I had it before the roll went out in April.
and I would gladly look at all this information and would like to see the write-ups that support all of these in order to do a better job in the future.
we have since I've been at the district increased the land ag division from -- it wasn't even a division.
my predecessor did not primarily focus on land.
i guess one of the reasons that was true is that land only comprises three and a half percent of our total roll.
and when I say didn't concentrate on it, it means he didn't have a separate division.
that doesn't mean we didn't value land, it just means that we didn't concentrate on it.
i specifically have created a land valuation division and beverly mccamp mabry is the director of that.
she just walked in.
and we are intent on getting the values correct for all of our land.
when I served in lubbock as to the director of appraisal, one of the first things I did was I reorganized that division because they needed to focus on land as well up there.
we've gone from two people to six people in just a year and a half in that division.
we've also gone from eight people in the commercial people to 12 in order to better concentrate on those areas.
i want to point out that there's a lot of allegations about commercial property in this, and virtually all of these comparables are land comparables.
some of them have been I am proved since then.
maria has a copy of -- can I get those copies?
>> you've said you have brought on things that were not in existence before that you've brought on board, like the land valuation division and the other team to do with commercial.
my question, though, is since those new components -- departments I guess within your operation have been brought on board, have they had any influence or have they had any say in plart certified role that will -- that you just looked at and as far as their input, the land valuation and the other things you brought on board for this particular year?
>> the one and only that occur odd my watch the value was raised to approximately what the sales price was.
and when we look at properties each year, keep in mind I have 45 appraisers and 345,000 properties to look at.
it's very difficult for us to do back -- mr.
rogers, I believe, mentioned something like 600 appraisals.
i could see that easily taking two or three staff members a month to look at.
so generally when we look at properties, we look at the sales that occurred when I go forward to do my 2010 roll, I will look at all my 2009 sales and probably all of some 2010 sales as well.
we don't typically go back a number of years also there's a scarcity of data.
one of the things I want to present to you, if I might --
>> if you would give them all to Commissioner Davis, we'll pass them down.
>> thank you, sir.
>> we need one for the clerk also.
>> I may be running out of copies or if you want me mandatory evacuation to get copies before we continue.
these are the -- the state comptroller comes in each year and audits us.
they basically do a look at a number of ratios.
they hook primarily at -- they look primarily at sales.
we see the first year that we have is 2003.
there are 1633 ratios that the controller looked at that year.
predominantly the controller uses sales, but they also will do -- when there's a scarcity of data -- their own appraisals as well.
that year the median level appraisal, if you look over in the fourth column, is 94% for a single-family residence.
for multi-family 94%.
>> what does that mean now?
>> it means in the opinion of the controller our values were at 94% of market value in that year.
>> okay.
>> vacant lots, which all of these would occur in, primarily in the c category, there was 311 ratios and/or sales examined and we were found in that year to be at 100%.
f-1, which is commercial real estate property, was 100% in that year also.
i tried to give you an historical perspective, but if you will turn to '04, you will see that the ratios for single-family, multi-family, vacant lots and commercial real estate were 98, 98 and 99 percent.
the following year in 2005 they ran 94, 94.
100% and 96%.
and again if you look at the number of ratios, they look at literally thousands of properties.
2006 we had 98%, 97%, one percent, and 98%.
2007, 97, 98, 100% and 99%.
and finally, 2008, 98 and 97, 95 and 97 for those four categories.
>> mr.
rogers said earlier that the comptroller looks at information provided by the central appraisal district.
>> maria is the expert on that.
we have a large database.
we are required two or three times a year to do downloads to the comptroller.
we don't withhold any information.
they've got everything that we've got.
being located near in Austin, I think they have a lot of sources that are very similar to ours.
maria, can you tell them approximately how many sales we have in our system each year?
>> it ranges.
it varies from year to year.
this past year we've had approximately 16,000 sales on our system.
we're required when we do our submission to the comptrollers, we provide them not only all sales, but all deed transactions.
they will select a sample set.
it is independent of the appraisal district.
we do not tell them what properties to select in their sample set.
they will do some independent research on the deed transactions to discover additional sales as well as if they feel that there's not a sufficient sample set, do independent appraisals of the properties when they conduct their instead.
-- when they conduct their study.
i think we need to note that the appraisal district does not have access to mls.
we depend quite a bit on the sales letters we submit to people who have sold their properties to give us feedback on what has sold and if we could get higher response rate from those requests, that would actually assist us in doing a better job.
>> so on properties we would send to the commercial property owner a request for the sales price?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
is there agreement, mr.
rogers, that this is unimproved land, I guess, is what you're saying?
>> it was unimproved when the sales occurred.
i think a number of them have been improved since then.
so some of them are --
>> do you have a copy of that?
>> is there agreement on that?
>> yes.
the nature of the appraisals that come from the city and the county and when there's been a road widening or something at wall ek creek that they do like property and it was typically lots of ag appraisal land and nonqualified land.
>> okay.
two or three more questions, mr.
brown.
if we look at this, this is 30 properties.
these were sales before you became the chief appraiser.
>> yes, sir.
>> these would seem to show a problem, though.
>> yes, sir.
>> a problem between the tcad value and what these values sold for in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.
so if we believe this data is credible, it paints a picture that says there's a problem.
so if we assume that's a problem, what's the fix?
>> here's what I -- well, what I recommend.
first of all, I would love for any and all of you to come down to the legislature when they're in session to continue to try to get the mandatory sales disclosure, which would make our business much easier.
i would invite mr.
rogers and his organization to do that as well.
it's usually just the appraisal districts down there doing that.
>> I was at the legislature for the sales disclosure and all I remember is the mayor of dallas and me in favor of the disclosure.
and in the back of the room was the Texas department association.
billing owners and managers association, reca.
i don't remember seeing any Travis County appraisal officials or city of Austin officials asking for disclosure.
so I think it was a pretty slim crew down there asking for it.
were you there?
>> we just went through a legislative process here.
in fact, I cannot recall -- it may have.
maybe it got by me.
i can't recall -- hold on.
i can't recall this coming before the Commissioners court as far as looking for disclosure or legislation.
now, and maybe it came up and maybe it didn't, but since I've been here I just cannot recall -- not a bill.
>> we supported the bill this last session.
we formally supported it.
>> there was a house bill 2250 something or other.
>> and we was --
>> you stood a better chance of getting that passed without us being present, I believe.
>> [ laughter ] but we did support the bill.
>> okay.
the judge corrected me then.
>> well, at any rate, it has been at the legislature for the last three sessions and again, as I said, it's gone down in flames all three times.
so we'd like to see that in the future.
mr.
rogers has given me an idea to how to get more appraisals.
we will ask all our jurisdictions to provide us those appraisals in the future.
if we do not receive them, we're going to issue public information requests to ensure that we get them.
we will continue to add staff in the residential, commercial and land ag departments, adding in my 2010 perspective budget, I've asked for one more commercial and two more residential.
we will review the properties on this list and again I would ask mr.
rogers if I could have the supporting information, the actual comp write-ups on all of these, that would be much appreciated in doing our 2010 roll.
going forward in terms of the two things that were on the agenda item today, it's been asked for a performance review on the appraisal district and also a challenge.
unfortunately challenge is something that all the jurisdictions are able to do.
unfortunately the due date for that is June 15th.
perhaps a little late for that.
as far as the performance review, the controller is and will be doing a review on the appraisal district starting in September.
they do that each time the appraisal district does not make local value.
and in this last year the one school district out of 14 we didn't make volume value in was marble falls.
we actually were low on our residential ratios out there.
there's also new legislation that requires the state controller on -- and they haven't made up their minds yet on whether it would be an even or odd year, but every other year it would be doing a performance audit on the appraisal district.
and so I can assure you that that we will be getting two performance audits from the state comptroller.
>> I guess my position would be that I'm not that interested in doing a challenge or performance audit, but I am interested in fixing this problem.
>> I am committed to directing our efforts to doing a better job.
>> mr.
brown, did you share this information that you shared with the court here a little bit ago.
do you sare that with on -- share that with mr.
rogers.
>> yes.
>> I think we need to be on the same page as far as the information is concerned.
>> I think the more recent reports are available on the website.
the controller's website.
>> I'd be more interested in seeing the 12 comps that you say that the appraisal district was already aware of.
the 12 sales.
i believe that is that piece of paper there.
>> seeing what?
>> I said out of the 30 sales comps that I provided, which are online at cost of growth.com, all the supporting documents, that 12 of them you were previously a wear of that the sales were part of the tcad's records.
>> do you want to tell him which 12 we were aware of.
i'm sorry, my eyes aren't that good.
>> the properties that we were aware of the sales are the Davis-rainy water plant.
>> can you get the number on that?
>> we have it listed as comp number five.
>> hold on.
>>
>> we can recon sigh siel it to your list.
davis-rainy was one that we were aware of.
east ninth and neches.
>> number 7.
>> could you just state the number?
>> the one she was that I sent to her or mr.
brown a few weeks ago.
>> the one at corner of ninth and neches is on yours.
it's on the tax rolls for 706.
>> the other one we have is 219 south congress.
3512 through 3610 south lamar.
2600 san pedro.
2222 pearl.
2510 leon street.
8501 dessau.
8115 springdale.
>> that's another one.
and 8503 across from colton road.
and the last I have is 6517 burleson road.
>> that's the one that I believe that's been to improve the warehouse.
>> and we talked about improving the customer service for the homeowners who sometimes need to have just a little bit more written information about how to protest.
what do you need to bring down with you.
and then to understand all of the terminology and the process, and kind of in layman's terms and not to be totally overwhelmed in jargon and in words they don't understand.
the whole purpose is for people to walk away feeling like, okay, I understood what they said.
i may not agree, but I understand where they got that and what it was that I needed to bring with me.
pictures, I guess, and any data that the person has collected by walking through the neighborhood as well.
>> generally what they can bring to the table and what helps us is anything individually on their house if they've got a cracked foundation, if they've had mold damage.
if they did -- had insurance loss.
smoke damage or fire damage.
sometimes people do an inspection of their property.
that's interesting.
pictures of their property.
we've had videos of property.
certainly any sales information.
i know a lot of the sales that we get are during the protest season.
and homeowners will get their realtors to print out, you know, here's the 22 sales that we have in wells branch and so we very happily take that information and put that into our database as well for using valuation in the next year.
>> what about measurements of the property?
>> sometimes if our measurements are incorrect, we will either do a field check or if they can bring in a recent appraisal with those measurements we will correct them right there on the spot.
>> I just have one.
the judge's question of how do we improve the process and cure the problem, you answered most of the questions I h but it sounds like you're working through that.
is a change of property trigger a field review.
what in-depth review of a property valuation, what triggers that in your process?
>> generally what we tried to do in our field season, there's -- we try to go out on properties where there's a building permit that shows there's not been substantial renovation.
we do -- if we have reason and a chance to, I don't think we do it on all of our properties, but if we had sale information, based on a deed, we will go out on some of these properties and then we also had what we call seefers, which are quality class or information that we have learned during the protest season.
we will go out and do those sort of field checks as well.
>> any other questions from the court?
now, we have residents who have come down to give comments.
we have three seats available.
if you come forth at this time and give us your full name we will be happy to get your comments.
mr.
rogers.
>> a couple of things there.
out of these 30 only two really count because I got here in January of '08.
when a sales comp happens in December of '07, 30 days before or six months before, they are very relevant.
so he does not get a pass on that.
sales comps are a backward looking history.
it's a history of the sales of property.
you can't say that they don't count, not on my watch.
he certifies the roll every year and he's certifying these values knowing that they're incorrect.
it's like an open book test.
you provide the sales test and then you provide that you post it had on your rolls and you get 100%.
that's not a true test of whether or not it's -- you're getting good performance or not.
that game seems to be a little cooked.
and -- will I get a chance to say anything else or is this a chance of my -- is this the end of my chance to speak?
>> it depends on how it goes.
>> my name is bill okey and I am a consumer advocate and I was more active in the 1980's with the electric utility rates and tax issues and other consumer issues.
and I want to thank the Commissioners court profoundly, profusely, whatever the correct word is for taking the time to entertain this issue because it's an ongoing issue.
i think I heard the phrase dirty little secret used to describe the fact that commercial property owners have been getting away with murder for years.
today, July 21st, 2009, ladies and gentlemen, the chickens have come home to roost.
and it's time for us to take action, it is time for us to work with all of our officials at the county, the city and the state to get this problem solved and then move forward to a broad-based comprehensive set of reforms to get the proper tax situation under control for the residents of Travis County.
the thing that I listened very carefully to both sides of the presentation and my conclusion is that we need to take the historical basis for this problem and use that as a foundation to solving it for the future.
so in other words, instead of just saying we know there was something wrong that happened in the past and therefore we promise to do better, well, the way to really drive this problem home.
is to define it more clearly and broadly from the git-go.
so what I would recommend is that mr.
bryan -- what's your last name?
i've heard about this in san antonio where I grew up, I've heard about it in other places in Austin.
it is a dirty secret and something going on a long time.
what we need to do is take the methodology that he used to get this information and then come up with a much broader study that shows these dpis parities -- dispairs.
in the past all the way up until this year we need to go back, you know, two or three years, get a much broader spectrum of these properties and then we need to use those as a foundation to go forward with a reforms.
if we find these disparities two or three years ago, we know the idea that the appraisals are not that high now because we're in a recession.
that's not going to work.
if we -- if we use his methodology and if we get people from the county, from the appraisal district, from the city to cooperate, get the -- enough staff hours available to compile this information.
i don't think we need a use sample, but I think we need one bigger than 30 to use to convince the rest of the affected entities that some reform is necessary.
then I think it takes some cooperation.
i think if the county will work with the city and the appraisal district, the next thick I want to -- the next thing I want to suggest is that you seek a legislative sponsor.
i have a legislative sponsor right now on the house side and the senate side for a proposal for property tax reform at the school district level.
and I think if you do that I think if you seek out a house sponsor and a senate sponsor for the type of reform that you want and you meet with them well in advance of the next legislative session, then you can try to get a bandwagon going and get other co-sponsors to the legislation and other people to help you go forward.
i was the author of a piece of legislation in 1987 that was signed into law that provided truth in taxation to where whenever a taxing jurisdiction publishes a public hearing notice on a proposed tax increase, whether it be a city, county, hospital contradict dis, whatever, they have to disclose in plain english what the appraised value of the home is this year under the current tax rate and then in the next column they have to show what their proposed tax rate would be and the average appraised value for the current year.
and it has to show in actual dollars and cents how much the average homeowner would pay in increased taxes.
and it has to show what that percentage is for that average price homeowner between last year and the proposed year.
and so it's all a matter of very carefully and methodically developing a plan to attack the problem.
and so that's what I would recommend is that --
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
we will need that chair also in case there are other residents who would like to come give comments.
>> you bet.
>> yes, sir.
>> my name is (indiscernible).
i'm chair of the cesar chavez planning -- contact team.
we're one of the neighborhoods that are -- we frontage i-35, town lake and sixth street on the south.
and we're the ones that are getting the most hit right now.
we're affected by this gentrification that's going on in our neighborhood.
we have speculators coming in and they thought they were going to be able to make a killing off of this little area there.
and building these big old condos.
they're coming in and just tearing down the house that's there and building these huge complexes that are driving our property rates up high.
our land values almost -- we went up almost 50% from 100 to 145,000.
just the land value itself.
and we have smaller lots than some of the large lots.
i have a friend that he's a renter that rents to low income there on the pedernales street between pleasant valley that his land value went up 169,000.
not even a house.
we're having people that are getting thrown out of their house because the owners cannot afford to slow income people and are selling their houses instead because it cannot afford their property taxes.
they're having people out there that I've known that have rented houses for 40 years.
our social services are taking a big hit right now because we're having so many people that are out there that are losing their homes.
and are losing their support.
they're having to move out of town, out into the cheaper area where the services are not there.
we're going to have to end up spending huge amount of money to take the service out there.
so those guys that are coming in, they're find outing that they're not really able to sell these properties at that huge rate.
i know for a fact that the developer from california that builds just down half a block from my house from the complex had to take a big hit because he could not sell it.
he can't even lease it now.
and for the appraisal to keep on coming in to our area and saying this works, it's nice because someone invest this had much money is not fair, it's not right.
and it's destroying our neighborhood.
thank you.
>> how many others plan to give comments?
raise your hand.
>> my name is (indiscernible) and I have had three comments basically.
one --
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> when I protested my taxes because I live near 51st and manor in a fairly inexpensive area I received a massive amount of information and I started to study it.
i was so overwhelmed that I sat it aside for another day, but then when-- I thought I better tackle this.
i opened it up and I really went into it and discovered that of all the massive amount of information there was really only one sheet that was -- that mattered because all of the comps that I had received were just fictional.
they were based on somebody's appraisal.
i realize this had when there was a house down the steet that was included in the -- down the street that was included in the comps that had not been sold in forever.
so this was a fictional appraisal there.
fictional in the sense that it's termed market value.
it is not the market value.
but there was one sheet that was included in my big packet that did have 20 properties that had actually been sold in the area and that were of comparable size and age, etcetera.
when I add up those figures and divided them and figured out what the average amount was, I learned on an average we were paying -- the taxes were over $13,000 of equity more than what the actual sales were.
in other words, I and other people that are in my neighborhood that are being -- that have these same actual comps of actual sales are paying taxes on over $13,000 of equity that we do not have.
i have that data with me.
i brought it.
i checked another house in another area in east Austin and they were paying over $6,000 -- they were paying taxes on over $6,000 of equity they did not have in their properties.
it a systemic probe with how appraisals are -- it's a systemic problem with how appraisals are being made.
this was addressed when mr.
brown, is that your name?
when mr.
brown was saying that they do their own appraisals when there's a scarcity of appraisals available, but it seems to me that then what Commissioner Davis mentioned about perception comes in.
and perception, if people are going to be doing appraisals, especially of a neighborhood that is an older neighborhood, has people of fewer resources, those people are going to have a different perception than the people that live there.
and so I think that the perceptions are incorrect about how much the property is really worth to the people that live there in east Austin and much of east Austin, let's say, and in poorer neighborhoods.
i think that's a problem because we in this county and in the city of Austin also need to -- this is a national.
i suppose an international problem too.
here we are overtaxing problems by who knows how much, but across the board just about, overtaxing properties and as a result people having to -- as the gentleman that was here just mentioned, had to move out.
and way far out, lose their jobs.
go to schools that their children are unfamiliar with.
and just a great upheaval.
in 19 cases these are properties held for generations among people and they pass them on to their children.
these are houses with good stories.
and good bones.
they've had to be abandoned by peement that deserve them.
-- by people that deserve them because of the lack of affordable housing.
and here we are, the appraisals are contributing by their slanted market value and affordable housing.
why are there no boundary figures on the plat maps anymore?
i was interested in a property that came up for sale, actually among the Travis County sales tax foreclosures and I wanted to pace off this property because it was in the middle of several other unundeveloped properties.
i looked on the web and I couldn't find any figures as to the boundaries, the number of feet.
so I went to -- over to the tcad office and I looked and I've done this before and so I knew there was a big table with plat charts spread out by different sections of the county.
and lo and behold none of them had any figures on them of the boundaries.
well, why would so much money be spent as I'm sure had to be spent to completely redo the plat mats and take away information from the citizens that we can use for many things, but also except for taxes.
i cannot figure any reason why that money would be spent, why that change would be made.
it seems like a regressive step.
>>
>> your final point?
>> I'm a link gis tick anthropologist.
i have to agree with Commissioner Gomez that the paperwork, that massive pack that I didn't even want to face, is a classical -- I guess you could say an example of inclarity.
>> you would like to see that simplified?
>> yes.
actually, I would.
>> shortened and simplified.
>> and understood because it is full of all kinds of things -- even the one page that I mentioned that I found was very misleading because the title -- they used terms, median and mean, which we don't -- we use in maybe in algebra or stuff like that, but most of us don't use that in our regular lives and we don't remember that median is average.
they could have used average.
what happens is they put the median as the market value, which is a very deceptive use of market value because it's their own fictional market value.
they used the median of the actual sales -- they do not use the median of the actual sales, they use the median of the market value to show for people in the bottom line.
they've put it under the sales prices column so that it looks like it's the median of the sales, the average the sales.
and I find that very discouraging and disturbing.
and I also wanted to address the thing about this attitude about mueller.
mueller was supposed to be -- you're labeling it -- you're from another town, but it was supposed to be an area where there was going to be affordable housing.
well, I would like to know affordable by whom.
that's the big question because it's not affordable by the people that really need more housing.
mueller has become like --
>> okay.
anything else regarding commercial appraisals?
>> not regarding commercial appraisals.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> yes, sir.
>> my name is cesar ramirez.
i want to speak to a problem that I have.
i own a piece of property in east Austin that has been in our family for over 50 years.
my taxes from gone from 2007 at $1,400 to '08 $3,600, which was 2,200-dollar increase.
they are now proposing a 4,800-dollar property tax.
let me tell but this land.
it's 6,000 square feet.
it's a very small home on it.
there's no way that we could rent this house to be able to support our requirement.
my wife and I are both retired.
and we're having really tough problems making it.
we're talking about putting it up for sale.
i really don't want to do that.
it's a beautiful piece of property.
huge trees.
i don't think I could get the 220 some-odd thousand dollars that it's valued at.
i looked on the internet to find out what was going on with some of the surrounding properties.
i find out that most of the properties between chavez and east fifth street all the way out to pleasant valley, all of those properties have risen up.
our property there was at I think 69 and it went up to 129.
and now it's going up again.
this is the kind of problems that I think many of us in the community in east Austin are facing.
a lot of people there are living there and have all types of exemptions where disabilities or homeowners of course.
but I see a lot of for sale signs.
there's going to be major changes because of this tax thing.
and again, I feel that it is certainly unfair because in doing my little study on tcad, I find that properties on chavez, properties, commercial properties on east fifth and on pleasant valley, their taxes just did not go up as much as ours.
and this is what brings me here.
normally I support taxes.
we've got the -- you've got to pay for what you get.
and -- but I think this is becoming more and more and more outrageous.
i filed a protest last year and I guess I should have hired professional people to go after my complaint.
i didn't.
of course, I lost.
and that was 2,200-dollar loss for me that I really cannot afford because we're -- both wife and I are retired and we're counting on this -- we were counting on this income to continue our retirement.
so I don't know.
it's -- my plea is I guess the same and everyone's, the property taxes are not equal whereas the commercial end are not paying their fair share.
thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> that's a good point.
i would like to say this to you.
we have -- I know I have.
i have asked the city of Austin to look at this property with the high increases in taxes to allow for a homestead exemptions of 20% as Travis County does to allow for 65 exemption.
i'm saying also appraised value for persons 65 years and older.
to allow for persons who are disabled $65,000 off the appraised value.
i've asked the city of Austin to join forces with the county because Travis County we do that here as far as knocking those things off the appraised value before you pay taxes on the -- after the appraised value and then the taxes are assessed against that.
of course, that's part of what I'm hearing also is the big increase in your property appraisal; however, you're not getting the same relief as other governmental entities may be offering.
thank you.
>> right.
>> mr.
pena?
>> judge, good morning.
gus pena.
i grew up for the record on east fifth street.
i would like to correctly pronounce pedernales.
i grew up between pedernales and what was canadian is now robert t.
martinez.
i attended zavala when it was at junior high and graduated from johnston high school.
i've heard a lot of things.
you're right, judge.
we need to improve the system, but traditionally having worked for the i.r.s., I think a performance audit is called for.
i think that would be a good good idea to assess and reassessment and look at the checks and balances of the system itself.
now, I will agree with what some of the other speakers said, but my concern is this.
everybody is talking about bringing high property values -- who allowed the so-called apartments and condominiums to be built on cesar chavez, on chicon street?
that's what I would like to hear from the other teams.
they talk about gentrification.
sometimes we're our own worst enemies.
we're our own worst enemies.
we have a situation in east Austin whereby property values and appraisals has skyrocketed.
my old house was originally assessed a couple of years ago at 60,000.
now it's well over two hub hundred thousand.
do you know why?
mr.
brown -- I appreciate you being here because you've been hammered, but it's the process.
we're taxpayers.
i don't believe in hammering, I believe in talking professionally.
you mentioned linkages, proximity to schools, businesses and airport.
well, we've had that before, the high appraisals came about.
we had schools, zavala, brook, etcetera.
we had also businesses, small businesses also.
we didn't have the airport.
we had bergstrom air force base, recently about seven years ago we have now abia.
but nonetheless, I believe strongly that we need to look at the system and look at the systemic problems that are causing all these issues to crop up.
i do believe honestly there are some properties that are not being appraised at the fair market value.
i think they're being left out of the rolls.
i don't think that's acceptable to all the taxpayers of the city of Austin and Travis County.
and so I guess what everybody is saying is accountability, transparency, accountability, transparency, fair and equitable process for everybody.
you know, lucio, my boy, he's 17.
he wants to live in east Austin.
he was born in east Austin.
but do you know what?
unless he wins the lottery, he won't be able to afford to buy there, my god help him.
god help awful us that want to go back over there.
i think a lot of the speakers, I don't want to be redundant, but it's -- the system needs to be improved.
and I called your office this morning and spoke to a lady about the process.
one of the things that I think Commissioner Margaret Gomez forgot to add is the time frame and the deadline to file a protest.
and make it more simple.
simple lafication of the process.
because a lot of the people -- I have never been accused of being intelligent, but do you know what?
i can look at some documents.
i'm a former federal investigator.
and what y'all have talked about, what we have to go through in order to go through the protest process and look at our values is astounding.
and I would hope some simplification would come about.
we just -- all these tod's, tif's and everything else is really raising up the property values and the rates.
it's not fair.
i'll keep it at that.
i do believe the system can be improved.
i think it will take everybody, the city, the county and the state.
i worked for all the city, county, federal governments and I think teamwork will be called for, include the community, the people in it.
and east Austin is being taxed out like no tomorrow.
everybody needs relief.
thank you very much.
>> mr.
reeferseed?
>> thank you, judge.
from what I understand or what I just learned is this is really only supposed to be about commercial property.
is that what we're talking about here?
>> the posting goes to a request to file a challenge to commercial appraisals performed by the travis central appraisal district or request a performance audit.
>> okay.
>> that's why we're here.
>> I don't have anything commercial, commercial property, so I was just going to speak to my own residential property.
so if that's not really relevant here at this time?
>> it's not relevant.
>> okay.
thank you, sir.
>> yes, sir.
>> good morning.
my name is daniel yanez and I'm a property owner on a side street just south of cesar chavez between springdale and 183.
and I'm actually here in support of mr.
rogers' initiative and to say two things.
one,, as an east Austin resident, my property is homesteaded.
and every year that home -- they go right up to that 10% cap, every single year.
of course I have been protesting my taxes like all citizens I think should.
and I say that because I'm not sure yet.
i haven't gone to my hearing yet and I haven't done the -- all the statistics, the homework and all that for the comparables and stuff, but I dare say that when I look around, particularly in my area, and it's interesting that there's so many east Austin speakers here, people speaking about east Austin.
because what's happening there is just casting people out.
and so then that leads me to the appraisals.
the reason I mentioned that I have a homestead and it goes up 10 percent is because I perceive that this year and since the collapse of the finance system, there's been very little investment.
and most of the housing that has been built, particularly in my area over the last 10 years, has been the highest in housing.
it has not been for the people that actually -- actually for the actual demographics of that area.
and also as a property owner I want to say that I challenge the very way that my property taxes are assessed.
my property taxes are assessed on fictitious numbers, on somebody's opinion of what that's worth.
whereas when I place sales tax or when I pay income tax, it's based on actual numbers.
so I just want to say that because this is -- this is the basis that when I became a property owner this is why I started protesting my taxes.
of course I was told that if I had $10 million I could go to the legislature and change that.
well, I don't have that.
so now, relating to this issue that mr.
rogers brings up, as a residential property owner, I am forced to pay as much tax as you guys, the taxing district will get away with saying I need to pay.
and I can say that each year that I protested my taxes it has been to my benefit.
so as a residential property owner, I don't like the fact that there are commercial properties that are getting away with not paying their fair share of the taxes.
but I'm here to speak about a system.
and this is an opportunity.
people have talked about systemic problems.
i think that there's a bias towards -- it's not only in commercial properties.
i mean, mr.
rogers brings 30 examples of pretty big properties, but this is also the same thing in residential property.
there are some -- was it a two, three, four years ago, there was an expo say of all these very, very expensive properties in the western part of the county that the same thing, they were on the tax rolls for much, much less than they sold for or what they were valued for.
so what I'm pointing out to you is that there is a bias in our systems, in all of our systems.
our system of government, our system of appraisal, our -- the way that our political system works.
it is -- only the -- it is a bias towards the wealthy and the elite and the powerful.
and that is about five percent of the population, I have to say.
and the rest of the population is just like going back to housing --
>> anything else regarding commercial appraisal?
>> well, that's -- that's sort of -- I'll wrap up by saying that I think that we do need an audit and we need to look at all high end property to make sure that all that high end property is paying it's fair share because what I mentioned -- I'm sorry I'm taking so long.
what I'm getting at is there is a systemic problem and I hope that you are aware of that and use that as you go forward in solving this problem and problems like this.
and there is a bias towards the very wealthy and the very powerful.
and those are the places that need to be scrutinized just as much as my individual middle income property.
thank you.
>> thank you.
our final speaker today.
>> I'm vice-president of the real estate council of Austin.
today's meeting was to figure out whether or not you were going to push for an audit of the county tax rolls.
we wanted to point out that as mr.
brown mentioned that new legislation was passed this past session that is going to require this performance audit to be taking place in every county across the state, every two years.
so by default that question really has been answered.
we don't have to push upon the Commissioners court to ask for that.
so this is something that is new that's coming around instead of just the annual review, instead of in-depth it will be a look at the county tax rolls, every two years now as you mentioned they're deciding right now it will be even or odd years.
so I think that answers that question for today.
just as a side note, keep in mind that my day job is a banker in the real estate world, and I deal with appraisals everyday.
appraisals are an inexact science.
appraisers do their best to nail down today's market value of those properties.
the class of property that is the most difficult to qualify our value happens to be land.
land values range all over the place for the same piece of property based on the intended use.
so as mr.
rogers pointed out, he's picked 30 properties, primarily most of which are dirt values.
and they can range -- just depending upon individuals' planned use of that purchase, one guy may pay x and the next guy might pay x plus based on his intended use of that property.
so that's all I had to say.
>> thank you.
what's your response to the request for information regarding boundaries?
mr.
brown?
>> I need to know specifically what they're doing, what their concerns are.
i know every time we put a new parcel on the roll we have to have the field notes.
and I would be somewhat surprised if we didn't have the boundaries on most all of our parcels.
>> okay.
all right.
i tell you what, can one of you chat with her after?
>> I'll speak to her.
>> now, is there anything new and different that we haven't heard already?
>> yes, sir.
let me just close by saying, you said it was not -- this is not -- we're not going to do a challenge and not a performance audit?
>> I'm just one of five votes.
>> are you going to vote on those today?
>> I'm one of four today.
>> all we've heard from the chief appraiser is I promise to do better.
he will hire someone else.
i know he's only going to do a one percent budget increase.
i presented $120 million of missing property from the rent rolls.
i can bring you another 120.
you just have to tell me what your breaking point is.
>> okay.
we will chat with our lawyers this afternoon.
>> all right.
thank you.
and there will be three or four legal questions, especially the ones that we got legal advice from non-lawyers on today.
right?
move that we se re assess until 1:30.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 2:31 PM