BLANCO COUNTY APPRAISAL DISTRICT 3rd QUARTER MEETING

Transcription

1 BLANCO COUNTY APPRAISAL DISTRICT 3rd QUARTER MEETING On this the 22nd day of October, 2013 at 11:57 am, the Board of Directors for the Blanco County Appraisal District convened in a QUARTERLY MEETING at 615 N. Nugent Ave, Johnson City, Texas with the following members present to-wit: Brenda Adair, David Behrends, Lynn Boyd and Will Shelton. A digital audio recording was made of this meeting. That recording is the official record of the meeting and a copy is available to the public from the appraisal district office on request. This written summary of that recording is intended to supplement the audio recording, not to replace it. This summary is for the sole purpose of helping listeners quickly find those portions of the recording that pertain to the proceedings in which they are interested. This summary must also be provided whenever the official record of the meeting is requested. ITEM 1- Call to Order. (11:57 am) BRENDA ADAIR- Called the meeting to order at 11:57 am. ITEM 2 Swear in New Board Member. (11:57 am) Janice Fox was unable to attend the Board Meeting and was therefore not sworn in. ITEM 3 Roll Call and Recognition of Quorum. (11:57 am) BRENDA ADAIR- Four board members were present and a quorum was declared. Hollis Boatright was not present. Will Shelton asked why she was not present. Candice Fry replied that she is on medical leave. Candice Fry and Amy Hulburt were present as Appraisal District representatives. ITEM 4- Review Summary of 2ndQuarter Meeting and review the 3 rd Quarter Minutes. (11:58 am) Regarding the 2 nd Quarter Meeting, Will Shelton noted that the result of a vote taken under Item #9 was not recorded in the summary. He also noted that he had been misquoted under Item #10 regarding the budget cap and asked that his statement be corrected. He made the motion to accept the Summary of Minutes of the 2 nd Quarter Meeting with those corrections to Items #9 and #10. David Behrends seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. Will Shelton made the motion to accept the Summary of Minutes of the 3 rd Quarter as presented and complimented the job as well done. David Behrends seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. ITEM 5 Review Bills to Pay for June/July/Aug. (11:59 am) Brenda Adair asked if the district knew how the Affordable Healthcare Act would impact the district s office. Candice Fry said she did not know yet and did not know who to ask. Will Shelton mentioned that Hargrove and Evans were still the district s legal counsel and suggested asking Jim Evans if he could recommend someone to ask. Candice Fry said she would look into this. Lynn Boyd made the motion to

2 accept the Bills as presented. Will Shelton seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. ITEM 6 Financial Reports. (12:01 pm) Candice Fry explained that the Miscellaneous Account has been credited to the entities and now has a zero balance. David Behrends made the motion to accept the Financial Reports. Lynn Boyd seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. ITEM 7 Chief Appraisers Report. (12:04 pm) Candice Fry read aloud the Chief Appraisers Report. Afterward, she said Todd Swift had expressed an interest in joining the Agricultural Advisory Board as an advisor but not as an official member. There was a discussion about the difference between being an official member versus an advisor. Will Shelton made the motion to put Todd on the January agenda for a vote. Discussion continued without a second to the motion. Will Shelton said he had questions about the district s plans for reviewing Wildlife Management Plans. He said it was his understanding that the district planned to start reviewing Wildlife Management Plans for compliance, and that if a landowner wasn t meeting the requirements of their Wildlife Management Plan, the district would send a change of use notice to the landowner, possibly causing them to lose their Wildlife Management exemption. Candice Fry said the taxpayer would have the opportunity to correct those things before the district denied their exemption. Mr. Shelton asked how much time the landowner would have to correct those things. After further discussion, Candice Fry said that she would need to review the tax code to be certain. Mr. Shelton asked whether, if the Arbitration Review Board meets to examine a landowner s appeal and denies it, would the landowner then lose their Wildlife Management exemption? Ms. Fry replied yes, and confirmed that the ARB makes the final determination, not the Ag Board. Mr. Shelton asked if the ARB is qualified to make judgments on Wildlife Management Plans. Ms. Fry replied that it is not the district s call because it is the only system that the State has right now. She said she thinks ARB training includes a brief overview of Ag and Wildlife so that they get a general understanding of it. Mr. Shelton asked whether, after losing their Wildlife Management exemption on appeal, a taxpayer would have an opportunity to change back to regular agricultural use and keep their Ag exemption. Ms. Fry replied that she did not know. Mr. Shelton then asked, if someone lost their Wildlife Management exemption and can t fall back on a regular Ag exemption, wouldn t they be subject to a five-year rollback and have to pay market rates not only going forward, but also for the previous five years? Candice said yes, but that the district may need to check with the attorney and the comptroller, and also talk to the surrounding counties. She said Gillespie County has one person who could be particularly helpful. In response to another question, Amy Hulburt described a case in which the district denied a taxpayer s Wildlife exemption. She said the taxpayer corrected everything and reapplied the following year with extensive documentation, but in the meantime paid one year of full market value taxes and was not rolled back. Mr. Shelton asked if the district would be able to inspect every Wildlife Management property next year, to which Ms. Fry replied no. Mr. Shelton asked how the district would determine which properties to inspect,

3 and Ms. Fry said it would have to be random, but that the random selection process was not yet in place. Mr. Shelton noted that there was nothing in the district s Reappraisal Plan regarding Wildlife Management inspections, and Ms. Fry said it needs to be added to next year s plan. Mr. Shelton asked if the district had thought about developing an educational program to prepare taxpayers for a potential change of use notice after a Wildlife Management inspection. He also asked if there were someone a taxpayer with a Wildlife Management exemption could call prior to an inspection to verify that he was meeting the requirements, thereby giving the taxpayer an opportunity to correct any deficiencies before receiving a change of use notice. Candice Fry responded that people sometimes call C. A. Cowsert for advice on what they should be doing, and that he calls the district office if he has a question. Lynn Boyd asked about the minimum acreage. Amy Hurlbut said the minimum is 19.5 acres plus a one-acre home site for a standalone property, or 12.5 acres plus a one-acre home site for a coop-managed property. Mr. Shelton asked how the district came up with the number. Amy Hurlbut replied that the Board of Directors set it up years ago when the law was first passed. Mr. Shelton asked when the board had done that, as he did not recall seeing it in the minutes of any previous board meetings. Ms. Fry replied that she did not know and would ask the chief appraiser. Mr. Shelton said that by law, the tax district s minimum cannot be arbitrary, but must be based on analysis of what generally constitutes intensive use in the county. He also said that by law the minimum is established by the chief appraiser with the advice and consent of the board of directors, and he questioned whether this had been done because he found no record of a vote on it. He said he thinks the standard needs review, because the law says if it is arbitrary it is not valid, so anyone could say it s not correct. Candice Fry said that the district will start the Wildlife Management inspections in Will Shelton suggested that after a property has been randomly selected for inspection, the district could notify the taxpayer in advance that they would be inspected. He said his overriding concern is that if the district increases the frequency of inspections for Wildlife Management compliance and finds a number of people who are not compliant but who thought they were, that they have an opportunity to get up to speed without putting their program at risk. He said that the financial consequences could be devastating, even including the loss of their property. In response to a question, Candice Fry and Amy Hurlbut said that applicants for Wildlife Management status must submit a five-year master plan and provide progress reports each year. This was an informational item only. No action was taken on this item. ITEM 8 Review and Possible Action concerning posting of Minutes on the Website (12:19 pm) Candice Fry said that one of the taxing entities had asked if the district could post the minutes from each meeting on the district s website. She noted that there is typically a delay until the summary of the minutes is approved. Will Shelton suggested that a summary could be posted with a notation that it is subject to revision and make the recording available for download, because it is the official minutes. Candice Fry asked if just the summary could be posted with a note that the official recording is also available, and Brenda Adair agreed. Will Shelton said that if the district is going

4 to do this as a matter of policy, that the Board of Directors Official Policy Manual should be amended in the section dealing with meeting minutes. He said he would offer a draft for the next meeting. After discussion there was general consensus that the summary could be put on the webpage as a courtesy until the Board changes the policy at a future meeting. No action taken on this item. ITEM 9 Continue to Review Suggestions for new Chief Appraiser Evaluation Forms. (12:25 pm) Candice Fry stated that no changes have been made to Chief Appraiser Evaluation Form since the board last saw it. Will Shelton suggested that since the district would not use the forms until next year, the item could be postponed until the 2 nd Quarter Meeting in This item was tabled and no action was taken. ITEM 10 Internal Accounting Procedures. (12:27 pm) Candice Fry said she contacted a QuickBooks expert in Fredericksburg who agreed to review the district s internal accounting procedures and better define the accounts and what is in them. She gave examples of accounts whose names had been changed to make them more descriptive. She also explained that because the district adjusts the depreciation of fixed assets only at year end, there is a mismatch with the Profit and Loss statements during the year. Will Shelton said he didn t think a breakdown of fixed assets would be particularly useful, but that truing up the depreciation with the Profit and Loss would be helpful because otherwise it is confusing. There was general agreement among the Board that the QuickBooks expert should come to the office in person and help improve the internal accounting system. Will Shelton said he thinks the district s internal accounting has gotten a lot better during the last few years, but the fundamental issue is that no one in-house seems to be completely comfortable with the accounting system and accounting procedures. He said that if the QuickBooks expert could set things up in a way that made sense to the staff and also be available for additional help as needed, it would be a step in the right direction. No action was taken on this item. ITEM 11 Choose an Auditor. (12:32 pm) Brenda Adair stated that she reviewed an audit report prepared for Burnet County but did not find it different enough to justify the higher cost. She said the district s biggest need is to clarify what actually happens to money that is credited to someone at the end of the year, because the current auditor does not follow up on this in his subsequent audits. She also asked if the audits could be provided any earlier. Lynn Boyd said he thought the difference in cost (versus other auditors being considered) was huge and suggested that polishing up the process with the current auditor would be sufficient. Will Shelton said that although he likes the current auditor, the auditor has not given enough attention in recent years to legal requirements, as well as to the issues Brenda mentioned. He said there were things in the audits that were not correct from a legal standpoint, and he considered that a problem. He said the current auditor has been with the district a long time, that it is good policy to change auditors once in a while, and that he would like to see the district bring somebody else in, even at a higher cost. He agreed that if we keep the current auditor we need

5 to have a discussion about expectations. David Behrends said he thought that we should keep the same auditor and ask for improvements. David Behrends made the motion to retain the current auditor. Lynn Boyd seconded the motion. Brenda Adair, Lynn Boyd and David Behrends voted for the motion and Will Shelton voted against, so the motion passed by a vote of 3-1. ITEM 12 Public Forum. (12:35 pm) Members of the public present were Todd Swift and Edgar Hullum. Mr. Hullum asked what was happening with Pictometry and whether more help would be available to the taxing entities who wanted to use it. Candice Fry said that a bigger place was needed (for instruction) in which everyone could have their own computer. Mr. Hullum asked if a couple of people from each entity could come to the office (for instruction), and Candice replied yes. Mr. Hullum then referred to an earlier comment by Amy Hurlbut that the Ag Board was not in favor of Wildlife Exemptions. He said that they must remain neutral and follow the law. He also noted that the board meeting had started early and that he missed the beginning, and he noted that the new board member was not present. Candice explained that the new member was out of town when her car broke down, and her absence was unavoidable. Mr. Hullum asked about the new Bee Exemption, for which Amy Hulburt provided some details. Todd Swift said that as the county extension agent, he needs the right information for people who ask him questions. He said his office has seen a big increase in questions concerning Wildlife Management, so that is why his involvement with the Ag Board is important to him. He said the Ag Board had a really productive meeting that he sat in with recently where they talked about having some random audits or inspections of landowners who have Wildlife Exemptions. He said he gets calls from people buying 20 acres about the minimums for Wildlife Exemptions, and it is important for him to be able to tell these people that there might be some inspections, so they need to follow through and follow the law. He said his philosophy is to start by educating landowners that if they are not up to speed, they need to find out what they need to be doing and change their plans accordingly. He said he could help them do that as an outreach. He also said the procedures for being random need to be well thought-out and that the minimum acreage determination needs to be revisited. Lynn Boyd stated that if someone is benefiting from an exemption they need to be meeting the criteria. Candice Fry suggested that the district put an article in the newspaper to let people know that the inspections would be coming. She added that the district also needs to get clarification on how the Governor s declaration of extreme drought affects Wildlife Management. Will Shelton said that if a landowner has the option to revert back to regular Ag if they lose their Wildlife Exemption, it s moot point, but if they don t then it is really important. He said it is important to know the answer to that question. Candice Fry said that she agreed. No action was taken on this item. ITEM 13 Adjourn. (12:47 pm) Will Shelton made the motion to adjourn. Lynn Boyd seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously.