Potter County officials are adjusting expectations for this fiscal year after a clerical error in the certification of the 2025 tax roll caused an overstatement of county property values, resulting in a revenue shortfall of approximately $412,126. The issue, involving Tyson Foods’ business personal property account, was explained in detail during the Potter County Commissioners Court meeting on Monday, Feb. 9.
According to Chief Appraiser Jeffrey Dagley of the Potter-Randall Appraisal District (PRAD), the error occurred when Tyson Foods’ inventory, which qualified for a Freeport exemption, was certified without it. The Freeport exemption applies to certain goods that are temporarily in Texas and leave the state within 175 days. Dagley confirmed that Tyson’s inventory met the statutory requirements for the exemption.
“This exemption was supposed to be there,” Dagley said during the meeting.
The error stemmed from a manual adjustment made to Tyson Foods’ account. Initially, the exemption was applied correctly. However, PRAD staff changed the owner ID for Tyson’s account to consolidate the company’s properties under a single entry in the appraisal district’s top taxpayer report. When the owner ID was manually changed, the exemption was inadvertently removed.
“When that owner ID was changed, it cleared the exemption from the account, and we didn’t catch it before certification,” Dagley said.
As a result, the taxable value of Tyson’s account was certified at $192.9 million rather than the corrected $123.1 million, inflating the county’s taxable property value by nearly $70 million. This figure was used by taxing entities, including Potter County, when setting tax rates last year.
The error was first publicly discussed during the Jan. 27 commissioners court meeting, when county officials indicated the correction would reduce anticipated revenue and would need to be accounted for in future budget planning. Dagley said the mistake was discovered in mid-January when Tyson Foods reviewed its tax bill and noticed a discrepancy with the values previously agreed upon.
“Once it was brought to our attention, it met the definition of a clerical error under the tax code, and we were required to correct it,” Dagley said.
Potter County Auditor Brandon Boston explained that the correction does not require the county to repay money already collected but does reduce expected revenue for the fiscal year.
“This represents about 0.6% of our roughly $95 million budget,” Boston said. “It’s manageable, but it does matter.”
Boston also noted that the county maintains a fund balance well above its minimum target, meaning the error does not put the county at financial risk. However, commissioners will need to account for the revenue loss when preparing the 2026–2027 budget.
Commissioner Blair Schaffer said some residents have reached out with questions, especially given the contentious budget process earlier this year.
“This wasn’t something Potter County did,” Schaffer said. “But it is something we have to work through.”
He emphasized that while the revenue loss is noticeable, it does not threaten county services.
“About half a percent of the budget is manageable,” Schaffer said. “It’s still real money, and we’ll have to plan around it.”
Dagley outlined several safeguards that PRAD is implementing to prevent similar errors in the future. These include rerunning more than 100 internal certification checks whenever changes are made late in the process, adding software warnings when ownership data is manually edited, and conducting careful reviews of high-value accounts before certification.
He also described how PRAD uses Pritchard & Abbott, a Texas-based appraisal and IT firm, for complex real, industrial, and personal property appraisals, as well as mineral and utility accounts. During the import of Tyson Foods’ data, PRAD noticed the company had multiple owner IDs in the system, which caused the company to appear multiple times in reports rather than under a single consolidated entry.
Dagley explained that manually changing the owner ID inadvertently removed the Freeport exemption and that PRAD failed to catch this error before certifying the tax roll.
“Changing the owner ID manually does delete the exemption that was already on the account,” he said. “We failed to recognize that error after we manually changed that exemption and did not get that corrected in time for certification.”
As part of the new safeguards, PRAD will now rerun all check programs if any changes are made after users are locked out of the appraisal system, which includes over 100 verification steps to ensure accuracy. Additionally, properties valued over $5 million will undergo extra checks comparing prior taxable values to the current year’s values to identify significant discrepancies. The appraisal software will also display warnings when owner IDs are manually changed, reminding users that exemptions do not automatically transfer.
“There will be additional reports that we’re working to add to more easily compare district totals from the prior year’s last certification to the current year’s totals before certification is processed,” Dagley said. “And we believe this will help us more easily identify any major percent changes that require additional validation.”
Commissioners expressed satisfaction with the explanation and corrective measures, acknowledging that while the error affected county revenue, it was not the result of any deliberate action on the county’s part.
H.R. Kelly, Potter County Commissioner for Precinct One, noted that the county was not actually owed the revenue lost due to the exemption.
“In fairness, it was an error that we weren’t entitled to that amount of money in the first place. They were entitled to that exemption,” Kelly said. “They got it. We just set our tax rate, thinking that we had the correct amount, so we didn’t really lose anything. We weren’t entitled to it.”
The financial impact of the error is expected to influence the 2026–2027 fiscal year budget because the corrected taxable property amount will lower the projected revenue available to the county. Dagley clarified that under Texas tax law, changes to property values directly affect the revenue collected by taxing entities, but the appraisal district itself does not bear the financial burden.
“Each property is in a taxing unit, and the tax code allows changes to be made,” Dagley said. “When those changes are made, it rolls down to the taxable value, and then the actual tax dollars. So, the entity is the one that’s going to be collecting those tax dollars. The Tax Office collects them and then sends them to the tax units. But there’s not a mechanism in place in the tax code that an appraisal district would bear the burden of any of those changes that are required by the tax code.”
Looking ahead, Schaffer said the incident underscores the importance of careful budgeting and contingency planning. Even relatively small clerical errors can have ripple effects on revenue projections and budget preparation.
“Even a small error at the front end can ripple through the entire process,” he said. “That’s something we have to keep in mind as we make decisions that affect taxpayers across the county.”
The Potter-Randall Appraisal District’s response, including new software safeguards and procedural checks, aims to reduce the likelihood of similar mistakes in the future. PRAD officials said they will continue monitoring high-value accounts closely and refining their processes to ensure the accuracy of certified tax rolls.
While the error represents a modest portion of the county’s budget, it serves as a reminder that accurate record-keeping and systematic verification are essential in managing public finances. County officials say they are confident in their ability to adjust to the revenue shortfall without affecting public services, while also maintaining transparency with constituents about the situation and its resolution.
