McClure out as DCAD chief appraiser

Hope McClure is out as the chief appraiser at The Denton Central Appraisal District.

The DCAD Board met on Tuesday afternoon, and after a two-and-a-half-hour executive session, the board reconvened and placed McClure on paid leave with no expectation of her carrying out duties of the job, then hired a law firm to negotiate a separation agreement with McClure, who was present at the beginning of the meeting but was gone before the board reconvened. Deputy Chief Appraiser Don Spencer was named interim chief appraiser.

In a farewell letter to DCAD employees, McClure said she is “moving aside … for the greater good of this District.”

“One of my biggest goals was to change the culture and to bring a work/home balance to our extremely overworked and under-resourced team,” she said in the email to staff. “To fully accomplish that goal and see out my vision, DCAD needs the 2023 budget to be approved … (which) will allow for DCAD to receive more employees, more resources, and finally provide all of you with the additional help you need.”

McClure worked at DCAD for 25 years and was named chief appraiser in February 2020, and has been criticized in recent months for her leadership, DCAD’s work environment and the agency’s processing delays. This spring, the board hired a consultant to study the work environment at DCAD and survey its employees. The report, which was leaked to the media before the board discussed it publicly, found that DCAD had a staff of 88 but needed about 124, and the consultant described a toxic work environment and criticized McClure’s leadership.

During the next board meeting, McClure had a presentation to rebut basically everything in the report except for the finding that DCAD is understaffed. When asked about a toxic work environment, she said that there were some toxic employees, but it wasn’t her fault. More recently, an email by Emer Sanabria — a communications liaison McClure hired over the summer — was leaked to the media and local officials in which he was asking DCAD employees to send him letters praising McClure.

DCAD, a taxing political subdivision of the state of Texas, recently raised its annual budget by $2.7 million (a 17% increase) in an attempt to address understaffing. But more than half of DCAD’s 60 taxing entities — including Denton County, Lewisville ISD, Denton ISD, Flower Mound, Highland Village, Argyle and many more — formally disapproved of that budget, triggering a state law that is forcing DCAD to adopt another budget. Many of those entities cited a lack of confidence in McClure, and they said they needed DCAD to explain how adding more employees would fix DCAD’s problem.

During Tuesday’s meeting, board members said appraisals need to be sent sooner and the district’s processing time needed to be improved. All the board members said they supported bringing in more employees and providing better training for existing and new employees, and they urged Spencer to better explain how the money would benefit the district and improve its effectiveness. A new budget is expected to be brought for approval to the Sept. 27 DCAD board meeting.