Judge Carter Responds to Shocking TGC Property Appraisals

SAN ANGELO – Tom Green County Judge Lane Carter Wednesday reached out on social media to followers who were shocked by recently released property appraisals by the Appraisal District of Tom Green County.  

The Appraisal District is a separate entity that has a board of directors and operates under orders of the Texas Comptroller and the State Legislature.  The District's job is to assess the value of all the property in the district, in this case, the geographic region including all of Tom Green County.  Those appraisals are mandated by the Comptroller and presented to taxing entities including school districts, cities, and counties.  From there, every fall, those taxing entities set a tax rate to fund local government.  

The appraisals assessed by the local Appraisal District released in 2023 seem to be all over the place, but mostly some are way higher than land owners expected.  Some were reported to have risen 1200%.  

San Angelo LIVE!'s Joe Hyde recently wrote an article about one such appraisal.  

Below is Judge Carter's response on social media: 

A lot of people have called, texted, and emailed me concerns about their current values on their appraisals. Let me start by saying that I get it. I’m in the same boat. I plan on protesting every single one of mine. But I also need to say this…our chief appraiser has been extremely transparent on the techniques they have been tasked with to obtain correct appraisal values. I just got off the phone with him. He and I will be meeting next week when I’m back in town from Probate training to discuss our system and where we are currently. He was upfront to say that he knows a lot of the values may be incorrect. But that’s why we need to protest. The way that values are obtained can’t always be across the board and that’s why we see uniform increases that do not make sense to us. We as a county and city need to show the district where our values truly need to be. No one else knows your property better than you!!! They want us to protest to show them. 

As a disclaimer, the city and county have no authority over appraisals. They present us the values and we work our budget based on those values to provide our services. Also, there is a meeting that is posted for tomorrow as a public meeting. This meeting is being held as an opportunity for the ARB to meet and discuss policy. This is not a meeting for open protests. Please take your time and allow the board to hear your protest. Do your research like I have and plan to do. There are a TON of questions that need to be answered for the district to be accurate. Let’s do our part to help them and show where we need to be! And as always, thank you for standing up and being concerned citizens. Being stagnant in our voices get us no where. It’s a pleasure to serve you as your Tom Green County Judge. 

I may not have answered all questions in this post or said everything I needed to. Not sure where you may lose some in the long post read but please feel free to reach out!!