COLUMBUS —Through a turbulent couple of years, the Colorado County Central Appraisal District seems to have righted the ship and is moving forward to serve the residents of Colorado County. The waters appeared to have calmed with the help of old and new faces.
Jane Armontrout took over as interim of the appraisal district, quickly assessed the situation and made several goals her priority. One such goal was to get the office in order. Armontrout, a past Col orado County Central Appraisal District employee of over 36 years, brought back several seasoned employees. These employees have valuable insights into the county and know the county well.
Returning were Olga Poncik, Marcella Pflughaupt, Mollie Janik, Valerie Spal ek and Dianne Hadash. She says about herself and the returning employees, “When you worked somewhere for 40 years, it is your life, and you want it to succeed.”
Armontrout is thinking long-term as she talks about how she added younger new hires to the group. She wants to turn the reigns over to a trained generation that knows the county and the people that they serve. She encourages them to get out into the field and meet people in the county.
One of the challenges she faced when she took over was the vast number of houses left off the rolls. They are adding these structures and fixing other errors on an ongoing basis. New house construction has about doubled in just the last two years.
The appraisal district is mailing out hundreds of business-personal renditions and ag applications. The renditions must be returned by April 15, and the ag applications by April 30. The number of ag applications went from 250 two years ago to 700 because of the number of land tracts sold.
Another project is a land combination where properties under a person’s name appear on one statement. In the past, an acre was split out for their home, and they had another with their land. This will help streamline everyone's tax bills and get it on one statement.
For the future, Armontrout sees it will take some time to get it back up and running like before. She says, “It’s easier to knock a house down in a day. You can’t build one in a day.” They plan on going slow and being accurate so that will take time.
What eats at her is that the State did a property value study in 2023 this year.
Those results come out on Jan. 31. Those numbers were certified in July of 2023.
She says, “Pass or fail, I do not take credit, nor do I take any responsibility in those numbers because I was not employed here.” Armontrout takes pride that she was in charge of the Columbus School since 1993 and never failed a property tax evaluation.
If the numbers fail, she continues, “She and her staff will do everything in their power to get the appraisal numbers back in line like they should be and get the schools the maximum funding from the state.” Armontrout is optimistic about the future and, apparently, much of the public. She says no day goes by that someone comes by or calls and says they are glad the old crew is back. The public will find that she has an open door policy and, although there is still the one-way mirror, she doesn’t hide behind it.
Michael T. Trefny, board member and chairman, gives praises to the work Armontrout and her team have accomplished. He said, “In the short time during since Jane Armontrout returned to the Colorado County Central Appraisal District and became the interim chief appraiser, we have had a remarkable turnaround at the CAD. A significant turnover of employees, allowing for the re-hiring of past employees with years of experience and proven track records, plus the addition of new employees who are dedicated to their jobs, has allowed the CAD to get its operations back on track. Millions of dollars of taxable property improvements have been add- ed to the tax rolls which previously had been missed. All properties in Colorado County are being reviewed to ensure that they are properly and fairly appraised by the CAD and all proper exemptions are allowed. There is still much work to be done, but it is well underway. I am con- cerned, however, that deficiencies in the appraisal of properties during the time which Ms. Armontrout was not with the CAD, may be revealed by the regularly scheduled and recently completed Prop- erty Value Study conducted by the Texas Comptroller's Office. Any such deficiencies could poten tially cost any affected school district a portion of its state-allotted funding and, unfortunately, can not be corrected ret- roactively. To be clear, any deficiencies found would be the result of the actions of prior administrations, not the current administration or staff. The Proper- ty Value Study has been completed for 2023 and the CAD expects to have the results shortly.
Whatever the outcome of the pending Property Value Study, I am confident that the CAD is now back on track and will meet all state-mandated requirements in the future. I give credit to Ms.
Armontrout, her staff and the dedicated board members for working together to make this turnaround possible.”
