Jackson County sues to undo order to roll back property values, citing political bias
Jackson County has sued to nullify a State Tax Commission order that threatens to undo much of the county’s controversial 2023 property reassessment process.
In its lawsuit, the county’s lawyers claim the county did everything by the book in setting values for tax purposes on its 300,000 real estate parcels. And in claiming the order was unfair and motivated by partisan politics, County Counselor Bryan Covinsky opens the lawsuit with a passage from the Old Testament.
“As the famous saying goes,” Covinsky writes, “‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again: there is nothing new under the sun.’
“So too with antagonism and controversy over the assessment process in Missouri, and politicians making statements and taking actions to further their political aims.”
The biblical references end there in the new court filing that asks a judge to overturn last month’s tax commission order that commands Jackson County to roll back increases on up to three-fourths of properties in the county.
But the quote from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, Covinsky writes, underscores what the administration of County Executive Frank White Jr. believes was at the root of the order that could wreak havoc on the budgets of school districts and other local governments, if left unchallenged:
“This 37-page filing details how the unlawful and dangerous order is the latest move in a political game,’’ the administration says in an accompanying news release, “one that threatens to cause significant harm to taxpayers, school districts, cities and essential services– impact then to the tune of approximately $117 million.”
The tax commission did not specifically order taxing districts to return that amount of money to taxpayers who the commission claims were victims of an allegedly unfair assessment process. But county officials say that taxing districts would have to compensate for the loss of that amount of money in the coming year, should the commission’s order stand.
The commission’s order was issued a day after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey dropped a lawsuit challenging the legality of the 2023 reassessment in Jackson County. That dismissal came in the midst of the trial before the county ever got a change to present its case, and before Bailey was expected to be questioned under oath.
County officials said that decision to drop the state lawsuit was, in essence, an admission that the state knew it would lose the case based on a lack of sufficient evidence presented that Jackson County had mishandled the 2023 reassessment.
The county alleges that the tax commission issued its order, hoping to achieve the same ends the lawsuit sought without a trial. The order instructs the county to set property assessment increases at no more than 15%, unless the county assessment department can show that a physical inspection was done of each of those homes and businesses.
About three-fourths of county parcels went up by 15% or more as a reflection of rising market values, the county has said.
The county contends that the tax commission knew of and approved of the county’s assessment methods prior to complaints by taxpayers in the summer of 2023 that their values were too high .
While the county’s court challenge does not mention party affiliation, it states that political bias figured into every aspect of the state’s lawsuit and subsequent commission order.
Bailey is a Republican as are two of the three tax commissioners.
Preston Smith, the state’s lead witness in that court case and a long-time critic of the county’s assessment process going back to the 2019 reassessment, is also a Republican who ran for county executive in 2022 and lost in the GOP primary.
White, the county assessment director, and seven of the nine county legislators are Democrats.
The county’s lawsuit says the genesis of the tax commission order dates to June 2023, when taxpayers began getting notices of their new property assessments.
“(M)any became upset about increased values, and a concerted campaign lead by politicians like Preston Smith began encouraging people to lodge various accusations and complaints about the 2023 reassessment process in Jackson County,” states the county’s lawsuit filed Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court.
It goes on to say that Smith has encouraged and assisted in several failed lawsuits against the county, including one dismissed by the Missouri Supreme Court last December.
The State Tax Commission filed its lawsuit after that.
In addition to blocking enforcement of the commission’s order, the county wants a judge to prevent the commission from filing another lawsuit over the same issues.
The tax commission, as the lone defendant in the lawsuit, had not responded to the suit with its own court filing as of Thursday afternoon. The commission also declined comment. Bailey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story was originally published September 5, 2024 at 11:41 AM.
