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County appraiser briefs commissioners on valuation study, school district data request
Summary
An agency official told Brown County commissioners the appraiser's office can produce a simple valuation total cheaply but detailed, by-property-type reports (the school board requested) require staff time; the office reported a 2025 median sales ratio of about 94.34%.
The Brown County Board of County Commissioners heard an extended presentation from the county appraisal office about property-valuation figures and a data request from a local school district.
Markle, an agency official who presented the appraisal office's findings, told commissioners the office can provide a simple “bottom-line” valuation figure with minimal effort but that breaking results down by property class — the school board’s request — requires substantially more staff time. "If they're wanting that...by property type, then that's a different driver," Markle said, noting the extra work needed to separate results into multiple tabs and compute percent changes.
Commissioners pressed for options that would let the office automate frequent requests. Markle said a basic query could be produced cheaply — he estimated the county's standard query fee historically covers the work — but creating a repeatable automated spreadsheet or macros would take additional development time. He suggested a compromise: provide the simple totals for free or a low charge and charge for the more labor-intensive, property-type breakdowns.
The presentation included the appraisal office's final-ratio study for the 2025 tax year. "Our median ratio, as you can see, is 94.34," Markle said, describing the county's sales-ratio position relative to the state’s desired range (about 90–110). He explained confidence intervals around the median and why certain categories (for example, commercial property in small counties) can show volatile ratios because of a small number of sales.
Commissioners asked about likely protests and the office’s capacity; Markle estimated the county might see roughly 75–100 protests next year and emphasized the need to examine neighborhoods with anomalous sales. Commissioners agreed to ask staff (including Dallas) to evaluate whether automation or a standardized product could meet the school district’s needs without creating an unsustainable recurring workload.
The board asked Markle to prepare a plain-language summary of acronyms and statistical measures (coefficient of dispersion, price-related differential, confidence intervals) for public use and to follow up on whether a streamlined product could be produced on request without the $50 fee for the simple totals.
