The Board held its regular quarterly business meeting on Friday February 9th , and we offered appraiser continuing education (ACE) hours for attendance, so we had a number of extra license holders join us that day.  The Board members elected Martha Gayle Reid Lynch as Vice-Chair and Earl “Buster” Renfrow as Secretary for the next 12 months. We appointed Board members to the Enforcement Committee (Bolton, Renfrow, Pena), Education Committee (Jeffries, Yannuzzi, Sostre), Budget Committee (Black, Sostre, Pena), a liaison to the Long-Term Facilities Working Group (Bolton), and as Ex-officio Chair of the AMC Advisory Committee (Reid Lynch). We await the appointment by the Governor of members to the AMC Advisory Committee.  We also appointed 12 generous volunteer appraisers to serve on our Peer Investigative Committees.

We received progress and statistical reports from the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, and other agency directors, as well as some progress and recommendation reports from two standing committees. We approved thirteen agreed orders to resolve complaints with targeted remedial education and mentoring. We advanced the Rule Review process and approved a process for our Agency 5-year Strategic Plan report that is due for delivery to state leaders in June.  We discussed the status of the Long-Term Facilities Master Plan and updated our Investment Policy. Three notable substantive items deserve additional explanation.

First, the Board approved a new rule which will allow Supervisory Appraisers to oversee the training of more than three “trainee appraisers” under certain conditions.  Details on how to add more trainees will be forthcoming soon. This is just one more way in which our Board and agency tries very hard to facilitate the development of a qualified license holder pool sufficient to maintain a healthy market.

Second, the Board heard a lengthy report from the Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC), our federal oversight agency who visits every two years for a formal review of the Board’s programs. We await the results of their official review visit, which we expect will be received shortly and will be very positive.  Last time we received the highest possible rating, and we worked hard to earn that again. Stay tuned! 

Last, the Appraiser Qualifications Board (AQB) announced updated education and experience criteria to become effective on the federal level on May 1^st.  Based on Texas’ policy preference to reflect the federal standards and only exceed or augment them when we truly believe the need is necessary and well documented, we anticipate amending our rules to reflect the revised criteria which offer additional flexibility with new equivalencies for education and experience.  To mirror the federal effective date, we moved our next meeting to late April rather than our regular date in mid-May. More details soon.    

You are invited to participate in one of our nine Strategic Plan Listening Tour events held around the state and online. We also invite you to be a part of the 2^nd Annual Residential Realty Summit in Austin on Monday April 2^nd.  Separate articles in this newsletter offers more details, or just go to our website. We really do listen to your inputs as we shape policies for the protection of Texans and promote a healthy market. Our next meeting will be held on Monday April 23rd at 10 AM at our offices in Austin. Stop by!