Montgomery County commissioners rejected the proposed $15.5 million 2024 budget for the Montgomery Central Appraisal District, which handled nearly 100,000 property tax appraisal protests in 2023.
Chief Appraiser Janet Jennings-Doyle spoke to commissioners Tuesday and presented the proposed budget, a 17 percent increase from 2023.
She said the district has operated below budget for several years.
The county has historically rejected the district’s proposed budgets. The court rejected the district’s 2023 proposed budget which included a $2.9 million increase from 2022.
Commissioners asked Jennings-Doyle to find cost saving and bring it back at a future meeting.
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The district is funded by about 155 taxing jurisdictions in the county. Montgomery County’s portion would be just more than $2.6 million.
“We have had a very challenging year in terms of our budget,” Jennings-Doyle said. “We have kicked the can down the road as long as we can.”
Jennings-Doyle, who took the role of chief appraiser in December, said the increases are not in her operations but in the costs for the district’s appraisal review board and legal fees.
According to information presented by Jennings-Doyle, Montgomery County has grown 31.4 percent in the past five years. The county ranks 10 out of the 254 counties in Texas with the number of parcels at just over 370,000.
In 2021, the appraisal review board handled about 52,000 property tax appraisal protests. For 2023 that number was just under 100,000 protests.
The increased protests, she said, increase the cost of the review board and the legal costs associated with it.
Jennings-Doyle said a special amendment to the budget is a plan to update the district’s antiquated software and said the district planned to finance the $4.8 million for the software over five years.
With the amendment to include the first year’s payment on the software, the district’s total proposed budget is $16.4 million.
“We really do need to have a more robust and modernized technology to help us accomplish our tasks,” she said.
Tax Assessor-Collector Tammy McRae said the new software is critical.
“It’s a matter of time before that software crashes,” McRae said.
While the court understood the need for new software, Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack said he was hesitant to approve the district’s budget, which includes raises for staff, until the county has gone through its budget workshops.
“We haven’t decided what our raises for our employees are,” Noack said.
Noack asked if the district could use its fund balance toward the 2024 budget but Jennings-Doyle said the $1 million will be used to cover shortfalls in the current budget.
