Hays County Takes Tax Records Offline for 22 Days

Hays County will take its property tax system offline on Sept. 21 for a cutover expected to last until Oct. 13, 22 days later. The Tax Office is leaving Tyler Technologies software it has used for more than 20 years and moving 136,062 parcels onto a cloud system from Appraisal and Collection Technologies, LLC, a San Antonio firm. That stretch includes Oct. 1, the date Texas law tells collectors to mail tax bills.

A First Software Swap in More Than 20 Years

Tax Assessor-Collector Jennifer Escobar announced the change on Sept. 10 from San Marcos. Her office framed the project as an investment in how the county serves a population that has grown far past the system bought when Hays was a fraction of its current size, and she warned that the switch would limit service for a stretch she called brief.

After more than two decades on our current system, this upgrade is an important investment in how we serve Hays County taxpayers. While the transition will require a brief period of limited service, the new system will give our staff better tools to work efficiently and provide the level of service our growing community expects and deserves.

Jennifer Escobar, Hays County Tax Assessor-Collector, Sept. 10 Tax Office statement

The public notice does not name the incoming vendor. County procurement files do. Commissioners Court voted 5-0 on Feb. 3, 2026, to award RFP 2026-P02 to Appraisal and Collection Technologies, LLC, on a motion by Commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe, seconded by Commissioner Michelle Cohen, with Judge Ruben Becerra and Commissioners Morgan Hammer and Walt Smith also in favor. The service agreement took effect April 28, and Adrian Garza, ACT’s president, signed for the firm at 2915 W. Bitters Road in San Antonio.

The request for proposals had set an initial term of January 2026 through December 2028, with four optional two-year renewals. ACT’s scope of work, attached to the Hays contract, said a March signing pointed to an Oct. 1 go-live and a latest date of Nov. 1. The April signature slipped that calendar, so Escobar’s office is taking Tyler down on Sept. 21 and aiming to restore full property tax service on Oct. 13, inside ACT’s outer window and after the state’s preferred bill-mail date.

136,062 Parcels Leave Tyler for a Cloud System

The October 2025 request for proposals listed the load the new system has to carry: 136,062 parcels, 52 taxing units, nine public improvement districts, and seven special road assessments. It also required a cloud, software-as-a-service platform that can take a feed from the Hays Central Appraisal District and tie into online mapping. Vendors had to be the original author of the code, not a reseller, and they had to migrate up to 10 years of history, which is the kind of conversion that takes a live file offline instead of a weekend patch.

A later payment-processing solicitation, issued while the conversion was already under contract, described the current property tax package as Tyler ERP and said the office was updating to ACT. The public lookup site at tax.co.hays.tx.us still runs under the banner Orion Public Access. That portal, and anything else that has to read a live tax account, is what goes dark on Sept. 21.

HAYS COUNTY ON THE OLD SYSTEM

• People: The Census Bureau estimated 304,390 people in July 2025, up 26.3% from the 2020 estimates base of 241,064.
• Housing: The same estimates counted 120,266 housing units and 4,595 building permits in 2025.
• Accounts: The county’s software RFP listed 136,062 parcels on the file being converted.
• Baseline: The 2010 census counted 157,107 residents, which is the scale the retiring system was bought to handle.

Owner-occupied housing ran at 64.1% in the latest Census figures, and owners with a mortgage faced median monthly costs of $2,289. A large share of those bills is paid by a servicer from escrow, which is why a live tax file matters to people who never walk into a Tax Office window.

The Property Tax System Goes Dark on Sept. 21

Escobar’s office said the property tax system will be unavailable beginning Sept. 21, with full property tax services expected to resume Oct. 13. Online payments stop. Account lookups and balances stop. Payment history and tax-statement requests stop, along with any other service that has to open a property tax account. Residents can still pay by cash or check in person or through a drop box, and staff will write a manual receipt at the window.

WHAT STOPS AND WHAT STILL RUNS

The Sept. 10 notice covers the property tax system. It does not say motor vehicle counters will close, and it does not keep the current phone-pay line or card terminals in the plan for property tax. On the live portal, card payments carry a 2.35% convenience fee and e-checks a $0.50 fee; those channels are among the online tools the office is taking down for the cutover.

What Title Companies Lose When Records Freeze

A closing in Hays County usually needs a current tax picture: what is owed, what has been paid, whether a prior year is still open, and often a tax certificate before a lender will fund. For 22 days the live file that answers those questions is scheduled to be dark. Title desks, escrow officers, and anyone trying to print a statement from home will be told to come back after Oct. 13, unless they pulled the record before Sept. 21, which is the deadline Escobar’s office is pushing.

Mortgage servicers sit on the other side of the same file. ACT’s Tax Collection System, the product Hays is buying, is built around mortgage company statements and tapes, lockbox posting, and a taxpayer web portal. Those are the tools a county uses to take bulk payments from lenders and to show a payoff without a counter visit. They only work when the database is up. During the conversion, a servicer that needs a balance, a tape, or a corrected bill will be working from whatever it downloaded before the cut, or from a manual receipt if someone stood in line with a check.

People who already know they will need a balance, a payment history, or a statement during those 22 days are being told to obtain those records before Sept. 21. That advice is aimed at homeowners, but it is the same instruction a closer or a lender should follow. A deal that needs a fresh certificate in late September or the first days of October does not have a public lookup to lean on, and the office has not published a workaround for issuing certificates by hand.

Texas Law Still Points to an Oct. 1 Mailing

Section 31.01 of the Texas Tax Code tells assessors to mail tax bills by Oct. 1 or as soon thereafter as practicable. Hays County’s own FAQ says statements go out by October each year and that taxes are due on receipt, with the usual last day to pay without penalty on Jan. 31 of the following year. Oct. 1, 2026, falls inside the outage. A collector cannot generate and mail bills from a property tax system that is offline, so 2026 statements will go out under the “as soon as practicable” clause, not on the preferred date.

This is not the first time the October window has moved in Hays County. In 2025 the Tax Office said 2025 statements would be mailed after the Nov. 4 election, in mid-to-late November, because ballot items could change final balances. Escobar chose one correct bill over an early mailing plus reprints. The 2026 conversion occupies the same October slot for a different reason: the file itself is being rebuilt.

THE CUTOVER CALENDAR

1. Oct. 17, 2025: County purchasing issues RFP 2026-P02 for property tax collection software to replace the system in the Tax Assessor-Collector’s office.
2. Nov. 13, 2025: Proposals are due at 10 a.m.
3. Feb. 3, 2026: Commissioners Court awards the work to Appraisal and Collection Technologies, LLC, on a 5-0 vote and authorizes a contract.
4. April 28, 2026: The service agreement takes effect, with ACT’s San Antonio office as contractor.
5. Sept. 21, 2026: The property tax system is scheduled to go unavailable.
6. Oct. 1, 2026: Statutory target date for mailing tax bills falls during the outage.
7. Oct. 13, 2026: Full property tax services are expected to resume.

Failure to send or receive a bill does not erase the tax. Tax Code Section 31.01(g) keeps the due date, the lien, and collection tools in place even if a statement never arrives, which is why the office tells people who have not seen a bill by mid-December to call. A later mailing can push the delinquency date if a bill goes out after Jan. 10, but that is a backstop, not a plan the county has announced for 2026.

Cash, Checks and Manual Receipts at Four Offices

Payments that cannot wait for Oct. 13 still have a path, just a slower one. Cash and checks will be taken in person at any Hays County Tax Office location, and each office has a drop box. Staff will process those payments by hand and issue a manual receipt on the spot. Mail payments still go only to the San Marcos office; substations do not take mail. The postmark, not a meter date, is the payment date under Tax Code Section 1.08.

WHERE CASH AND CHECKS STILL CLEAR

• San Marcos main office: 712 S. Stagecoach Trail, Suite 1120, with a drive-through on the east side of the building, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, 512-393-5545.
• Kyle substation: 5458 FM 2770, same weekday hours.
• Dripping Springs substation: 195 Roger Hanks Parkway, same hours, closed noon to 1 p.m. for lunch.
• Wimberley substation: 200 Stillwater, same weekday hours.

Anyone who needs an account balance, a history printout, or a duplicate statement has to get it before Sept. 21. After that date, the people at the window can take money and write a receipt, but they will not have the live account in front of them. Partial payments, dispute copies, and anything that depends on seeing the screen wait for the new file.

ACT Already Serves Harris, Dallas and Bexar

ACT sells one tax-collection product, not a menu of packages, and it hosts that product as SaaS. The Hays scope of work says the same code is already in 42 tax offices throughout Texas, including Harris, Dallas, and Bexar Counties, and that a feature built for one client is rolled to the rest. Each office gets a list of more than 1,000 preferences to set names, disbursement rules, and local options, and the screens run in English and Spanish. ACT also says it does not purge data, so the 10 years Hays is migrating are meant to stay queryable instead of landing in a side archive.

That is the bet Escobar is placing against a Tyler install that has lasted more than 20 years. The incoming system is built for bulk lender files, lockbox batches, and a public portal that can schedule payments, which are the functions a county of 304,390 needs once the file is live. Getting there requires taking 136,062 parcels off the old database, loading a decade of history, and pointing 52 taxing units at a new ledger, and the Tax Office has chosen to do that work in the three weeks that Texas still treats as bill season.

Taxpayers who need a balance, a payment history, or a statement are told to pull those records before Sept. 21. Full property tax service is expected back on Oct. 13.