Property Appraisals: Computer Models Took Away Our Freedom, Now They’ll Confiscate Our Wealth

OPINION — The appraisal district is in hot water ever since the valuations for the FY2024 tax year were released this month. According to the Tom Green County Appraisal District, property owners — primarily homeowners — saw their property’s appraised values increase between 19 and 35 percent.

That did not sit well with anyone and citizens began organizing via social media. Over 1,000 property owners showed up yesterday to the first meeting of one of two appraisal review boards to protest what many said were unfair and arbitrary increases to property values during this year’s appraisals.

The protests were a bit early and this was the first and organizational meeting of this ARB, one of two being set up this year to handle protests. ARBs do not set policy but review each citizen protest. It is made up of citizen volunteers. The ARB could do absolutely nothing to quell the rebellion yesterday. Regardless of that, property owners are angry and will show up in big numbers to make their voices heard.

Chief among the mob’s complaints were that Mayor Brenda Gunter’s land value of her home decreased significantly while her neighbors’ land increased in value. Many cried “Corruption!”

Both chief appraiser Tyler Johnson and Mayor Gunter denied any collusion over the appraisal of her home. Besides, as a public figure, the mayor has the ability to have her public information removed from public websites such as the appraisal district’s property valuation listings. In fact County Judge Lane Carter has hidden his home’s valuation from the appraisal district website for his own safety, we were told. As for the mayor, however, her information is there for the entire public to view. She isn’t hiding anything, and because of that, we believe her.

The mayor’s valuation differences did encourage us to look at other correlations in the data for this year’s appraisal and we may have found a common theme.

Lots that are one acre or less in size saw massive increases in valuations this year. While lots greater than one acre saw valuation decreases. This is what happened to the mayor’s home on S. Bishop St. Every other home nearby is situated on a small, one-acre or less lot. Those properties saw massive increases in valuation.

Mayor Brenda Gunter’s home is on a large, 1.286-acre lot. Her land value actually decreased. And her lot was the only one on S. Bishop to go down in value. We suspect this is because her lot size was greater than one acre.

We tested our theory on a random street in Bentwood called Imperial Court. On that street, the two homes on lots sized greater than one acre saw a greater than 50 percent decrease in value. All of the other homes on that street were on lots sized less than one acre. For those on small, less-than-one-acres lots, the land values skyrocketed 24 to 51 percent.

Chief Appraiser Johnson said his office was forced to re-appraise every inch of land in Tom Green County this year using a different data model, or algorithm. I realize correlation doesn’t equal causation, but let me tell you, San Angolans are sick and tired of being judged by some unaccountable computer model or algorithm.

It is an algorithm on Facebook that puts you in Facebook jail. Say the wrong thing on social media and a computer shuts off your ability to speak. You have no recourse. Now the computers are seemingly unfairly taxing us! You know that what you pay in property taxes is the multiplication of your appraised property value times the tax rate. If a computer is unfairly setting your property value higher, then isn’t that taxation without representation? Are we going to turn loose the California Facebook-like algorithms to take away our wealth?

Even State Representative Drew Darby is suspicious. In a prepared statement he issued late Thursday, Darby said:

“I, too, am very troubled by the increases. I want to let you know that I am communicating with our local elected officials and the Appraisal District. The appraisal process is flawed, and hopefully we can, together, urge the Appraisal District to reconsider these dramatic increases.”

In Tom Green County we should be very wary of unleashing a computer algorithm to determine how much we will pay in taxes. The computer seems to have used quite arbitrary and unfair methodology to tell us how much we have to pay in taxes next year. It is bad enough to be silenced on social media by arbitrary and unaccountable algorithms. It is another thing to see our wealth confiscated with the power of government that is deploying similar arbitrary algorithms.

We elected our officials. Will any official other than Drew Darby stand up for the people who elected them?