WALLER COUNTY APPRAISAL DISTRICT BOARD:

Before I was elected to the Katy ISD school board, I was in disbelief concerning the use of the Waller County Appraisal District to appraise all of the property in the school district.

It seemed unfair if not just wrong for those of us who live in Ft. Bend and Harris County to have had our property appraised by the Waller County Appraisal District. [Also understand that the Waller County Appraisal District used to be housed in the Katy ISD Administration building with KISD paying some salaries and retirement benefits, and employees getting Katy ISD holidays to boot!]

Obviously only a small portion of the Katy school district lies in Waller County, and this arrangement appeared to be a way to have control of the appraisals, in my mind.

As it turned out, I was absolutely correct.

In order to understand this matter, I talked to the head tax official at all 22 school districts in Harris County while I was first running for the school board.  Ironically, one of them became Waller County's tax appraiser about the same time I got elected to the school board.  I never said a word, but it was nice to know that he had told me the truth prior to his hiring, and I gave him a pass the whole time I was on the Board in appreciation of his honesty.

But back to my story.  When I was observing the workings of the WCAD, it was not hard to notice that one of their board members, Jim Williams, was also a board member for the Katy school district.

I thought that to be a conflict of interest, and I called my state legislator, John Culberson, to see what I could do about it. The answer was, "not much."

Mostly I just raised a big stink.  Sometimes that works better than legislation.

I pointed out that it was a conflict of interest because the good of one government might not be for the good of  the other government.

Evidently Dr. Williams agreed with me and resigned his position on the WCAD before I finally got elected to the KISD school board.

Of interest to me is that apparently, the TASA appears to have gotten legislation passed since I left the school board 21 years ago, that allows for school board members once again to be on the appraisal district's board of directors.

That's still a conflict of interest, in my opinion and should not be allowed. 

That's what happens when people get elected to the school board who do not have a sense of right and wrong, who do not read all the stuff they are asked to vote on or do not understand what it means if they do read it, and who are on the board for all the wrong reasons.

Of interest is the fact that George Scott, a Katy ISD school board member, put himself out there as a candidate for that position.  Thankfully, he did not get elected.  He was not even nominated by his own school board!