There’s a simple solution for Jackson County property value spike: Cut tax rates

The property valuation process in Jackson County has now lost the consent of both the governed and the governing.

It has done that, oddly enough, by perhaps working properly for the first time in years — likely estimating the values of thousands of parcels of property more accurately for tax purposes. Jackson County assessment director Gail McCann Beatty’s effort to more scrupulously assess property values has led, in various cases, to colossal increases in the valuations of homes and businesses across the county.

That has created sticker shock for many, and has prompted a torches-and-pitchforks response to the process. Now, property owners have been joined in their hue and cry by all nine Jackson County legislators, who’ve asked County Executive Frank White to toss out the new assessments and start over.

He won’t, he says. And while few would have argued against phasing in those increases in valuation to avoid delivering a one-time mammoth hit to homeowners and business owners, White and Beatty are technically following the law.

That may not matter, with thousands appealing their property values (the deadline is Monday) and restive taxpayers starting to grouse about recalling White. This is how tax rebellions begin.

But neither county legislators nor their cousins at the county’s other taxing entities are quite the helpless bystanders to this drama that they may want to appear. Higher property assessments don’t necessarily mean higher taxes. All taxing jurisdictions in Jackson County can lower the total tax bite, as well as the current temperature of property owners, by simply rolling back tax rates later this year.

In fact, they are duty-bound to do so, if not by reason and morality then by the state’s Hancock Amendment, which limits revenue increases to either the actual growth rate, the inflation rate or to a 5% total increase — whichever is lowest.

The two problems with the Hancock Amendment are that most people likely don’t know about it, and those who do may not trust it to hold the line on taxes anyway.

Thus, we call on all Jackson County taxing officials to take both the fear and mystery out of this process by signing an unshakable, unmistakable pledge to roll back tax rates enough to avoid reaping a larger-than-inflation windfall from rising property assessments.

Beatty has endeavored to make assessments an accurate reflection of reality. It’s clearly up to elected officials to forge trust with taxpayers. That includes elected representatives of the county, city, relevant school districts, the library board of trustees and more.

In fact, such a pledge ought to be made in any other county seeing surges in property assessments.

Kansas City Mayor-elect and current City Councilman Quinton Lucas called the idea of rolling back levies countywide an interesting one that’s worthy of consideration, though one that admittedly has a lot of moving parts.

“We’d need to coordinate with the other taxing jurisdictions like the county, the school districts in the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, the library district, etc.,” Lucas said in an email. In addition, he noted that parts of Kansas City aren’t in Jackson County, of course, and the various elected officials would have to agree on how much increased revenue would be appropriate.

On the latter, a revenue increase close to the inflation rate would be a good figure to start with. In 2018, Jackson County took in $130.1 million in property tax revenues, 4.9% more than a year before — and a much higher rate of growth than inflation.

Thanks to soaring property values, the coming tax take could be astronomically higher than that — unless elected officials promise otherwise.

This story was originally published July 2, 2019 at 5:05 PM.