Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The North Richland Hills City Council held a work session at 6:00 PM followed by a regular meeting at 7:00 PM on May 13, 2026. The work session included a discussion of preliminary taxable values and future agenda items. The regular meeting featured canvassing of the May 2 general election results, swearing-in of elected officials, approval of a consent agenda, and citizen presentations.
2026 Preliminary Taxable Values: Assistant City Manager Trudy Lewis presented an update on preliminary taxable values received from the Tarrant County Appraisal District (TAD). Preliminary values show a 1.5% increase over last year's certified values, totaling $140 million in additional assessed value, including $51.7 million in new construction. However, protests and ongoing certification (due July 24) are expected to reduce this figure, possibly to around 1% or less. Lewis noted a downward trend in new construction values as the city approaches build-out, and that business personal property exemptions (new for tax year 2026) will remove an estimated $60 million from the tax roll. The city's tax rate may need to increase to maintain the no-new-revenue rate.
Future Agenda Items:
The council entered executive session at 6:26 PM under Texas Government Code Sections 551.071 (consultation with city attorney on pending litigation) and 551.087 (economic development negotiations) regarding three lawsuits and five development prospects. The session concluded at 6:50 PM, and no action resulted.
The consent agenda was approved 7-0 without removal. It included:
Good evening. Welcome to the North Hitson Hills City Council work session is 6 p.m. and I will call the Wednesday, May 13th, 2026 Council, City Council work session to order. A quorum of the city council is present, and the meeting has been duly posted in accordance with the Texas Meetings Act of the Texas Government Code. Items listed for discussion for the work session item agenda provide an opportunity for the city council to discuss these items and receive information from the staff and the city council will not take action on any of the items listed for discussion during the work session. Any members of the public wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the work session agenda may do so during the public comments portion of the regular meeting. First item on the agenda is for the council to be able to the opportunity to ask any questions of the items on the regular agenda that the council has not had clarification on at this time. Anybody? No, no. All good. Okay. Next is Trudy Lewis on the preliminary taxable values that I'm sure look wonderful. Of course they do, Mayor. Uh good evening, Mayor and Council. So this evening we are going to discuss what we received from Tarrant County appraisal district on April the 30th, which they provide to us every year our preliminary taxable values. I am going to caution everyone, they are preliminary. They are very, very early estimates of where we stand. These are based on the values that TAD has assessed as of January the 1st of this year. Along with the assessments that we receive, property owners, of course, also receive their preliminary values. Those are sent out by April the 15th of every year. Along with that notification is information regarding how to protest and the deadline for that. People get 30 days, and so those are due by May the 15th. Protests do remain at a record high for TAD, even though they have not done reappraisals since 2024 for residential properties. They're still seeing a high number of properties to protest. Certification is due by July the 25th, so there are a lot of things that happen in between when we receive our first preliminary values and the final certified information. Certification happens and we receive the information that day, but we do have a lot of processes that continue to happen for properties well past July the 25th of every year. When we get our certified role, it is possible that there are still some accounts that are in process. They could still be before the appraisal review board. So these are only properties from tax year 25 that had settlements. So again, they were certified last year. So they were included when we were going through the tax rate adoption process. We believe that we would receive those revenues based on the value of those properties. And since that time there's been significant shifts. So these are not residential homes, these are larger scale commercial businesses. And again, it's ongoing work. So it's not values are not at a point in time. July 25th is as of a point in time, but lawsuits can settle throughout, you know, at any at any given moment. And so this is just a snapshot of information that we received from TAD from recent activity. One of the things I also want to uh provide is a quick review of the no new revenue property tax rate. Property taxes are function of last year as well as this year.