The Denton Central Appraisal District Board voted this week to approve a new budget for the second time in the last couple months.
In late July, the board approved a proposed budget that increased the district’s budget from about $15 million to $18 million. The main reason for the 17% increase was the addition of nearly 20 new full-time employees because DCAD is understaffed.
But that budget was disapproved by a majority of taxing entities within DCAD’s borders. Many local officials criticized the leadership of then-Chief Appraiser Hope McClure and said the budget was too much, and it didn’t account for enough training for the new employees. Earlier this month, the board parted ways with McClure and named Deputy Chief Appraiser Don Spencer as the interim chief appraiser.

Spencer said he listened to the critiques and feedback from local taxing entities and he brought back a budget with more details about an increase in training and education for new employees, and he removed one proposed new director position from the budget and converted another one into a second deputy chief appraiser position.
“I’ve heard the expressed concerns throughout the last budget process, about communication and execution and delivery of services, and my goal is to improve that,” Spencer said.
The revised budget, which is nearly $200,000 less than the one that had been disapproved, was approved unanimously by the board during this week’s meeting. Taxing entities have the next 30 days to consider the new budget.
Spencer said DCAD’s staffing issue is not new, but a problem that began about 10 years ago and has been slowly growing worse, and then a combination of COVID-19 restrictions, flooding caused by Winter Storm Uri and a software conversion “created more stress on an already tense environment.”
“In my opinion, there was not a continued growth of staff here trending with the growth over the county over the last 10 years,” Spencer said. “You can do things for a while to create efficiencies, such as utilizing technology and AI to a certain degree, but you can only do that for so long.”