Proposals would give Mo. homeowners more rights, protections in assessment process
A Missouri legislative committee has proposed a series of reforms to the state’s property tax system in response to this year’s reassessment process, where thousands of homeowners who saw their values spike filed a record number of appeals with Jackson County.
The recommendations won’t help taxpayers facing onerous tax bills this winter as a result of those big increases. But the committee’s chairman, Rep. J. Eggleston, R-Maysville, said in an interview that the changes would make the property tax system fairer for homeowners across the state. They would also see a tighter lid on tax increases, some of which are influenced by quirks in the law that treat taxpayers differently, depending on where they live.
“There’s just a variety of exceptions and carve-outs that have worked their way into the law and the constitution over time that need to be cleaned up,” said Eggleston, chairman of the Special Interim Committee on the Oversight of Local Taxation.
House Speaker Elijah Haahr, a Republican from Springfield, appointed the 13-member committee in July after taxpayers complained about steep increases in their assessed market values, which influences how much tax they pay. Much of that criticism was centered in Jackson County, where many homeowners saw values soar three-and four-fold in some cases.
The committee issued its report Friday after months of study and listening to taxpayers and local officials at hearings in Kansas City, St. Louis and Jefferson City.
“Given all that the committee has learned,” the 29-page report said, “the majority of committee members would like to see changes to property tax law to insure that all taxpayers are treated equally and fairly regardless of their demographics, including the county they reside in, and to insure that the reassessment effects that have occurred in Jackson County do not occur again there or in any other Missouri county.”
To achieve that, the committee made up of nine Republicans and four Democrats made five recommendations, two of which would require a statewide vote to change the constitution.
One would eliminate the Kansas City Public Schools’ special status as the only taxing body in the state allowed to capture a big cash windfall when property assessments soar. All other jurisdictions — cities, counties or fire districts — must roll back their levies to match the rate of overall inflation.
Those mandatory rollbacks kept tax bills from rising as much as they might have for taxpayers whose market values jumped during the 2019 reassessment. But because schools get the biggest share of property taxes, people living in the Kansas City district might not have noticed because, as the report noted, that district’s school board chose not to roll back its levy and “instead chose to extract the maximum amount of tax money they were legally allowed from their residents.”
The other suggestion that would require changing the state constitution would mandate that all assessors be elected so that they are more accountable to voters. All but two currently are voted into office. The assessors in Jackson County and the city of St. Louis are appointed positions.
Said the report: “Therefore, the recent reassessment in Jackson County caused thousands of Kansas City’s residents to pay millions in additional property taxes that those citizens never got to vote on, by a county government official that those citizens never got to elect.”
The committee also recommends changing three laws. One would give property owners at least three to four weeks to file an appeal if they think the assessor has set their market value for tax purposes too high. Under current law, assessors have until June 15 to notify property owners of assessment increases, and then the taxpayer has until the third Monday in June to file an appeal with the board of equalization.
This year, that was a two-day window, which is not a problem when assessors send notices out in April, as many do. But Jackson County waited until the end of May to start sending its notices out. The Jackson County Board of Equalization was under no requirement to extend its deadline, but did so three times.
Another would give taxpayers in all counties the same rights as those who live in St. Charles and the city of St. Louis. In those jurisdictions, assessors have the burden of proof in appeals proceedings to show the value they set is appropriate. Everywhere else, the homeowner carries the burden.
The third proposed law would require on-site, physical inspections of any property when an assessor raises its value by 15 percent or more. The law requires that now, the committee report said, but it is subject to interpretation.
That allowed Jackson County Assessment Department Director Gail McCann Beatty’s staff to do “desk-top” inspections by looking at photos on the internet of properties whose values crossed the 15 percent threshold. Beatty based that view on one of the special carve-outs Eggleston mentioned, a special law for St. Louis County that requires “on-site” physical inspections.
Many Jackson County taxpayers said Beatty’s method was unfair to them because inspectors hadn’t actually seen the condition of their properties up close.
“The committee believes that while this practice may comply with the legal letter of the law,” the report said, “it does not comply with its spirit, and if a citizen’s home is going to receive a significant increase in valuation, that citizen deserves an on-site physical inspection if they want one.”
The committee accused their former colleague — Beatty was a Democratic member of the House from 2011 until 2018 — of being untruthful when, at an October hearing, committee members questioned her about the high number of residential properties in Jackson County that saw their values rise by exactly 14.9 percent, and thus didn’t require an inspection.
“...Assessor McCann-Beatty called it ‘a coincidence of the process,’ “ the report said. “The committee does not believe this statement.”
Beatty has explained elsewhere that she ran out of time to do individual inspections and set the cap at 14.9 percent on thousands of properties. Local critics of the Jackson County reassessment say that decision was discriminatory, as it affected certain low-income, minority areas more than others, and claim it is justification for the board of equalization to cap assessment increases for 2019 at a lower amount.
On the other hand, the report said the committee had no evidence to doubt Beatty’s assertion that the reasons values rose so much in Jackson County this year was because her predecessors “had failed to increase valuations for years.”
The committee also agreed with Beatty when she said that under state law she had no choice but to set values as near as possible to what a house would sell for in today’s market. Her critics, including members of the county legislature, had questioned why she didn’t ease the pain on property owners by raising values incrementally.
All five recommendations are expected to come up for intense discussion in Jefferson City when the General Assembly convenes next month. Several other suggestions from committee members may also get consideration, but might have a tougher time getting traction, Eggleston said.
Among them, changing the assessment cycle to every four years instead of every two, limits on property tax increases and a proposal to reset a home’s value only after it is sold.
In a written statement, a spokeswoman for County Executive Frank White thanked the committee for its service but said the committee failed to address a key issue.
“After reading the Committee’s report, we were disappointed to see that the report completely avoided the issue of state funding,” the statement said. “Most notably, the fact that the State of Missouri is currently only providing to counties the absolute minimum level of funding currently required by state law. In the best of circumstances, county assessors are asked to do extremely difficult and unpopular work, but without adequate funding their jobs become practically impossible.”
The Kansas City Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 10:23 AM.
