What the appraisal district costs, and who pays (DRAFT – not published)

In short

The appraisal district sets the value of every property in the county. Its plan for 2026 costs about $15.7 million.¹ That is about $53 for each property it values.¹ The cities, school districts, county and other local bodies pay for it, each by its share of taxes.¹ The cost has grown faster than the number of properties, mostly because of protests.¹²

What it costs

• 2026 plan: $15,671,100, up 11.29% from $14,081,600 in 2025.¹
• 2021: $9,875,300. So the budget grew about 59% in five years.²¹
• Per property: about $52.57 for each of its 298,111 parcels (our math).¹
• Per resident: about $22 per person, using the district’s own population estimate of 713,134 (our math).¹

Who pays

Every local body that taxes property pays a share. The share is set by how much tax it levied in 2024. So each body pays about the same cost for each dollar of tax it levies.¹³

Who pays	2025	2026 (estimate)
School districts (all)	$7,071,203	$7,869,386
County and county-wide (main and road levy)	$3,060,268	$3,405,705
Cities (all)	$2,175,386	$2,420,938
MUDs, ESDs and other districts	$1,774,743	$1,975,071
Total	$14,081,600	$15,671,100

Source: WCAD Budget Overview 2026, budget allocation comparison. The last row adds three of the district’s rows (our math).¹

Three bodies near Leander (2026 estimate):¹

• Williamson County: $3,405,705 (about 22% of the total)
• Leander ISD: $2,027,676 (about 13%)
• City of Leander: $340,002 (about 2%), up $34,486 from $305,516

A rough check on the city’s bill

The City of Leander’s budget has one line for paying to appraise and collect its taxes. It is $386,209 for the city’s 2025-26 budget year and $413,243 for 2026-27.⁴ The city’s estimated appraisal share for 2026 is $340,002.¹ The gap, about $46,000 against the 2025-26 line (about $73,000 against 2026-27), is not explained in the budget. The line also pays for collecting the tax, and part of the city is in Travis County, which has its own appraisal district. The budget does not split the line, and the years do not line up exactly.⁴

The city’s appraisal share works out to about 50 cents for every $100 of property tax it collected in FY2025 ($340,002 ÷ $68,437,006, our math).¹⁴

The other side

• Protests rose from 63,220 in 2021 to 106,418 in 2025, and most were filed by paid tax agents.²
• The district says protests, lawsuits and tax agents drove the 2026 rise.¹
• The state gave its methods a top score in its 2023 review.²
• 50 cents per $100 of tax is small next to the tax itself.¹⁴

Questions to ask

• When will the appraisal district post the final shares for this year?
• How does the appraisal district compare its cost with other large appraisal districts?

What you can do

• The district’s board approves the budget each September after a public hearing. Its budget papers are on wcad.org.¹
• Watch your city, school district and county budgets for the line that pays the appraisal district.

Changes to this page

• Nov. 2, 2026: Replaced a guess about the gap in the city’s budget line with what the budget does and does not show.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Removed a cause we had not sourced; the district’s own reason is still shown.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Added questions to ask.

What we still don’t know

• The final 2026 shares. The district said it would redo them in the fall using 2025 levies.¹
• How much of the city’s line is the collection fee and how much goes to the Travis appraisal district.
• How these costs compare with other large Texas appraisal districts.

Numbers marked “our math” are our estimates, not official figures. The notes show the inputs and the steps.

Footnotes

1. Williamson Central Appraisal District, Budget Overview 2026 (Sept 2025), cover letter, district facts and budget allocation tables. Saved copy. https://www.wcad.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Budget-Overview-2026.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

2. Williamson Central Appraisal District, Annual Report 2025 (Nov 2025), financial results and appeal statistics. Saved copy. https://www.wcad.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Annual-Report-2025.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Texas Tax Code §6.06 (appraisal district budget and how its cost is split among taxing units). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TX/htm/TX.6.htm ↩

4. City of Leander FY2027 budget (saved copy), account 5680, and FY2025 annual financial report, property tax revenue. Budget https://www.leandertx.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/397; report https://emma.msrb.org/P11938164.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴