SCHOOL OFFICIALS WANT THE STATE TO ORDER COUNTY TO INCREASE ASSESSED VALUES
Platte County is under pressure from the Missouri State Tax Commission to increase the assessed value of properties, perhaps by as much as 15 percent across the board.
School superintendents in the county have been encouraging the state to push the county to increase residential assessed valuations, saying without a growth in assessed value “we are now in a position to have to amend our budget assumptions.”
The role of the State Tax Commission is to supervise assessors and board of equalization in enforcing the property assessment laws in the state. “By law the State Tax Commission must ensure assessment functions in counties are fair and equitable and as such may issue orders designated to enforce the law and ensure uniformity,” the agency says.
Multiple Platte County officials told The Landmark an order is likely to come from the State Tax Commission later this week. The anticipation is the tax commission will order the county to increase property values by anywhere from four percent to 15 percent across the board, some county representatives indicated to The Landmark this week.
That order is expected to arrive sometime after a meeting of the Missouri State Tax Commission, set for Wednesday, July 30 at 11 a.m.
It is not yet known how–or if–county officials will respond if an order is received from the state.
The Landmark has confirmed the Missouri State Tax Commission has ordered the Platte County Board of Equalization to remain open until the fourth Saturday in August “to afford the State Tax Commission sufficient time to evaluate this year’s property tax assessments.” Ordinarily the board of equalization must complete its work by July 31. That order to extend into August was sent to the county back on June 2.
In Missouri, a local board of equalization is an independent body, established pursuant to Missouri law. The board performs state-mandated functions relating to the review and equalization of property tax assessments, including hearing appeals filed by taxpayers.
SCHOOL OFFICIALS
PUSHING FOR HIGHER
ASSESSMENTS
Every school superintendent in Platte County signed a recent letter to the Missouri State Tax Commission, complaining that they have been informed by the Platte County Assessor’s Office that there will be no reassessment growth for tax year 2025. The Landmark obtained a copy of that letter via a Sunshine request to the Platte County R-3 School District.
“We were made aware of inconsistent, potentially discriminatory and disparate assessment practices in Platte County,” says the letter addressed by the superintendents to Greg Allsberry, chief counsel for the Missouri State Tax Commission.
Superintendents signing the letter were Dr. Mike Kimbrel of Park Hill, Dr. Jay Harris of Platte County R-3, Brock Dover of West Platte, Karl Matt of North Platte, and Dr. Mark Maus of Smithville School District.
“Our county assessor’s office informed us there will be no reassessment growth calculated for 2025. For the past decade and more, Platte County has followed a pattern of complete reassessment of all property in odd calendar years, and reassessment applied to only new occupancies and for improvements on current property in even calendar years,” the superintendents wrote.
The school officials referred to this pattern as “predictable and reliable” for their budgeting.
“In our budgeting process we provide revenue projections to our respective boards of education based on the historical reassessment practices. Due to the unexpected loss of revenue, we are now in a position to have to amend our budget assumptions and publicly explain the implications of the assessment issue to our elected board members,” the superintendents wrote in their letter dated June 5.
“Over the past decade, there has been a range of approximately 5-10% assessed valuation growth for the school districts in Platte County, and we have consistently developed our annual budgets accordingly,” the letter continues.
“For fiscal year 26, we have already made budgetary decisions around personnel and programs based on prior assessment practice and history. To now learn that we may only realize a very small increase in assessed valuation will put our boards of education in a difficult financial position,” the superintendents wrote.
The superintendents go on to request that the State Tax Commission issue an equalization order to the county, instructing county officials to make a “market adjustment” to all existing property to be in line with current market conditions.”
Platte County Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker had seen the letter from superintendents in early June. Fricker then posted on his Facebook page on June 6 that the school superintendents “clearly couldn’t care less about the burden that increasing home prices (and assessed valuations) put on Platte County households. All they care about is getting their 10 percent revenue increase every year. They should be embarrassed but they’re not.”
Under Missouri’s Hancock Amendment, when property assessments increase faster than prices generally, excluding new construction, taxing entities are supposed to reduce their levies so the new revenue produced is not a windfall.
TAX COMMISSION TELLS ASSESSOR COUNTY VALUES ARE TOO LOW
In a May 30 email from the State Tax Commission to Platte County Assessor David Cox, the agency tells Cox that home values in Platte County have been assessed too low.
The Landmark obtained a copy of the State Tax Commission’s letter to the assessor via a Sunshine request to Platte County.
The state explains that residential values must be in an acceptable compliance range of 90 percent to 110 percent of the property’s price in the open market.
“The 2023 Platte Residential Sales Study found your residential values to be below market value,” says an email signed by members of the State Tax Commission, including Gary Romine, chairman; Debbi McGinnis, commissioner; and Greg Razer, commissioner.
“Our office has made multiple attempts to contact you by phone and email to discuss this matter and to work with you regarding a Residential Memorandum of Understanding for the 2025 Platte County assessment roll,” the state tax officials wrote to Cox.
A county that is out of compliance with the commission’s ratio standards risks the loss of state reimbursement for costs of assessments, the tax commission says in its letter to the county assessor.
“State reimbursement monies will only be distributed to the county assessment fund if the county is in compliance with the State Tax Commission approved assessment maintenance plan,” the tax commission wrote.
The state told Cox that a reply of the county’s intended actions “shall be sent by the assessor to the State Tax Commission” before any assessment maintenance funds are distributed to Platte County by the state agency.
COUNTY ASSESSOR CRITICAL OF BOARD OF EQUALIZATION
The Landmark late Monday reached out to Platte County Assessor David Cox for comments on his decision not to increase property values for 2025. On Tuesday morning Cox responded with a detailed explanation in which he criticizes the Platte County Board of Equalization for their decisions to reduce property values that were appealed to the board in 2023.
“Our office reassesses every two years and this year was no exception. However, the decision to not increase values was made after careful consideration of several factors, including recent decisions made by our county board of equalization,” Cox wrote in an email to The Landmark.
“The Platte County Board of Equalization is a three-member board appointed by the county commissioners to ‘equalize’ values in order to ensure the tax burden is evenly distributed among all taxpayers, including residential and commercial taxpayers. Several extreme actions were taken by our board of equalization in tax year 2023, including reducing numerous commercial values to zero, essentially exempting them from taxation,” Cox says.
Cox said of the residential properties appealed to the board in 2023, the board reduced values on average by 16%.
Cox said of the commercial properties appealed to the board in 2023, the board reduced values on average by 67%.
“Values reduced by the board in 2023 included properties appealed by two of the three board members themselves, including residential and commercial-classed properties,” Cox wrote in his email to the newspaper.
“My office is very aware of the impact our reassessment has on the lives of our citizens. In my judgment, the board’s reductions created an inequity in our county’s overall assessment. Because of these decisions, they, in effect, created a disequalization of values within the county. This disequalization in our county’s assessment influenced me to do the only thing I thought was fair: not further compound the problem by increasing everyone else’s values that were not reduced by our board,” says the assessor.
“The board’s actions have consequences for our citizens. Reducing commercially classed property by an average of 67% shifts the tax burden to homeowners. Residential taxpayers that didn’t appeal have an increased tax burden compared to residential properties that did appeal. That is why equalization is so important. The extreme and arbitrary actions of this board have caused inequity in the distribution of the tax load and should not remain unchecked. As the assessor, I do not have a mechanism to appeal bad decisions by this board,” Cox said.
