Jackson County may roll back property assessments — but don’t hold your breath for a refund

by Josh Merchant, Beacon: Kansas City
April 10, 2025

The Jackson County Legislature was packed Monday afternoon with homeowners hungry for property tax relief. 

The county clerk called the roll for a vote related to the ongoing battle over property assessments. A handful of “no” votes by legislators were met with jeers.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” called out one audience member.

“Greedy!” shouted another.

DaRon McGee, chair of the Legislature, smacked his gavel and threatened to clear the chamber if the audience had another outburst.

Residents were riled up because of a court ruling last week in which a judge sided with the Missouri State Tax Commission, ordering the county to roll back recent property assessment increases that were greater than 15% — roughly three out of four properties. 

That led to Monday afternoon, when the Legislature voted 5-4 to order the county assessment department to comply with that order.

Now, many homeowners may (incorrectly) believe that big refund checks are on their way.

But that was never going to happen.

Last year’s property taxes have been spent — on things like teacher salaries, mental health services, fire prevention and road repairs. Even if the county rolls back its assessments, that money is long gone.

So what happens now?

The county may decide to issue tax credits to homeowners whose assessments spiked more than 15% in 2023. Those tax credits would likely be paid for with a “recoupment levy” to make up for the shortfall.

Essentially, all taxpayers would be paying more to offset the tax credits for the 75% who get assessment relief.

In the meantime, the housing market has continued to drive up property values. And now that the State Tax Commission has ordered Jackson County to reduce assessments on 75% of its properties, county leaders are getting anxious for the next assessment cycle, when they expect values to spike even higher than they did in 2023.

“We’re coming up on another tax assessment season right now,” County Legislator Megan Marshall said. “So you’re going to be right back here. It’s inevitable.”

Jackson County Legislature voted to roll back assessments but expects a veto

The county’s two-year fight over property assessments began when values spiked an average of 30% during the 2023 assessment cycle.

Property owners revolted — flooding the courthouse with appeals, filing a class-action lawsuit and gathering signatures to recall County Executive Frank White Jr.

In last week’s ruling, a judge found that the Jackson County Department of Assessment didn’t follow the state’s legal requirements to send out notices in a timely manner that would allow for homeowners to appeal their values. The judge also found that the county didn’t always inform homeowners that they were entitled to request an interior inspection if their property value increased more than 15%.

Marshall wants to make sure taxpayers have reasonable expectations about whatever refunds may happen.

The county and taxing jurisdictions can’t simply sign a check to return money to taxpayers without causing severe financial problems for the county and school districts.

Instead, the refunds would likely be issued as a tax credit applied to property owners’ bills for the next few years. To pay for those tax credits, the taxing jurisdictions would use a “recoupment levy” — a tax rate increase that’s typically used on a much smaller scale to adjust for property assessment appeals.

Essentially, all taxpayers would pay a higher tax rate next year to fund the tax credits that would be applied to the 75% of property owners whose assessments spiked the highest. 

Marshall said she’s concerned that by rolling back the assessment increases now, the county might be jumping to an immediate knee-jerk solution that could backfire.

“Could (the 2023 reassessment) have been rolled out better?” she said. “Absolutely. I said that a long time ago. And that doesn’t change where we are now.”

That’s why she voted against the measure on Monday that would roll back the county’s property increases to comply with the order.

If “we just go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off and adjust everyone,” she said, “that’s going to have an effect for our schools, our fire districts and public safety.”

Doing that without hearing first from the schools and fire districts, she said, is irresponsible.

Legislator Sean Smith is less concerned. 

He said he’s spoken with many of the school districts, and as long as the refund tax credits are rolled out over the course of a few years, rather than all at once, the districts say it’s “doable.”

The measure on Monday passed by a narrow margin of 5-4, but Smith said he expects White to veto it. That means the Legislature will need to find one more vote to override the veto.

If not, he said, the county risks facing even steeper consequences from the state of Missouri. One proposed bill would withhold all sales tax revenue from the county until it complies with the State Tax Commission order. Smith expects that bill, which is sponsored by Rep. Ron Fowler, a Blue Springs Republican, to pass.

Setting Jackson County up for another fight in 2026

Rita Jefferson, local analyst for the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, has been watching the Jackson County debacle with growing concern.

She has never heard of a state tax commission ordering a county to pay back taxes that have already been spent on schools, fire prevention and other services.

Similarly, Mike Ardis, a spokesman for the International Association of Assessing Officers, told The Beacon last year that he was unfamiliar with any case where a state has tried to void an entire county’s assessment increases.

Jefferson said that amid this fiery debate in Jackson County, what’s getting lost is that property values really are going up faster than most people realize.

The average property in 2023 saw an assessment increase of 30%, which she said is on par with real estate market trends.

“Everyone says: ‘This is crazy. My house didn’t accumulate 20% value in a single year,’” Jefferson said. “It probably actually did.”

The spike in home values since the COVID-19 pandemic is unlike anything that this country has seen in many years, she said. Even in the recovery from the 2008 recession, property values didn’t spike this quickly, which is why so many people have a hard time believing that it’s happening now.

“When you’re talking about normal property increases, 15% is a lot in a single year,” Jefferson said. “It really is. But the problem is that you’re dealing with a really unusual real estate market post-COVID for a lot of reasons.”

When a property value increases more than 15% in a reassessment, the county is required to offer the owner an interior inspection. But in 2023, more than 200,000 properties met that 15% threshold. That’s a lot of interior inspections.

“The county assessor’s office is dealing with a legal constraint that has no relation whatsoever to how real estate property markets work,” she said.

And now that the county is being ordered to roll back three out of four property assessments, county assessors will be required by law to make up that ground in the next assessment cycle. That could mean even bigger assessment spikes in 2025.

“You’ve rolled back your property tax values to something they aren’t anymore,” she said. “And there’s never going to be an efficient way for you to ever catch up.”

In the meantime, Jackson County’s director of assessment is concerned that rolling back the county’s highest assessment increases could redistribute the tax burden so that owners of lower-value properties pay a disproportionately high amount of taxes. 

“This significant undervaluation could lead to reduced tax revenues and a disproportionate tax burden distribution,” Director Gail McCann Beatty wrote in a letter to the State Tax Commission. “Never has the STC issued an order that is retroactive and has such a negative impact on both property owners and taxing jurisdictions.”

Solutions on the state level

Marshall thinks the State Tax Commission could more proactively help the county on the front end — rather than trying to fix problems after the fact.

“If you see this massive amount of parcels are due an increase,” she said, “it’s like, hey, hold on a minute. Maybe we need to get the state in here. Do we have to do everybody at once? Can we stagger it? Can we phase it in?”

County Legislator Manny Abarca said the county has already submitted its 2025 assessment plan to the State Tax Commission. And it’s identical to the one that caused so many problems two years ago.

“It is 100% going to happen again,” Abarca said. “We know it’s going to happen the exact same way.”

Jefferson said that if the county wants to keep what happened in 2023 from recurring, it needs to make sure that notices go out on time.

“It sounds dumb, but it is the thing that is fundamentally why they got (in trouble with) the state,” she said. “If you don’t want state scrutiny, don’t violate state law.”

But beyond that, she said, Jackson County is going to need to advocate for more fundamental changes in Missouri. 

“Unfortunately, any other suggestion I would have would require the state to change the law,” she said.

That could mean changing the in-person requirement for property assessments, which she said is outdated and very rare in big cities like Kansas City. Or it could mean that the state pays for extra staff to help with interior inspections.

County officials “could theoretically go and say: ‘Hey, this is a state law problem. We should work together to get this solved,’” she said. “But they’re not doing that. They’re pointing fingers at each other and saying, ‘Well, it’s not my fault.’”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Missouri AG’s efforts to undo Jackson County property assessments dealt another blow

by Allison Kite, Missouri Independent
November 21, 2024

State officials’ hopes of rolling back Jackson County property assessment increases are floundering after a circuit court judge dismissed a lawsuit by the State Tax Commission on Wednesday. 

The commission in August ordered Jackson County to reverse most of its 2023 property valuations, arguing they had been performed illegally and resulted in huge increases in property values.

But the county didn’t comply.

Jackson County officials called the State Tax Commission’s August order “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented” and said it only took action to cover for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s failures in his own efforts to undo the property assessments.

The State Tax Commission then sought a court order to force the county to cap property assessments to a 15% increase since the last assessment — unless new construction or building improvements increased the value. That effort was dismissed Wednesday.

Missouri attorney general asks to dismiss lawsuit a day before scheduled deposition

Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. thanked county residents in a statement Wednesday “for their patience and understanding as we’ve worked to address problems that have been decades in the making.” 

“Our goal remains ensuring that every property owner is treated fairly under the law,” White said. 

Gregory Allsberry, chief counsel for the State Tax Commission, said in an email that the judge did not find the commission’s order invalid.

“The commission’s order is still a valid order, despite Jackson County’s refusal to comply, and the Commission will continue to do all within its power to enforce the order,” Allsberry said. “It will also do everything within its power to ensure that Jackson county’s assessing officials don’t commit the violations of state law in 2025 that they did during the 2023 reassessment cycle.” 

Neither Bailey’s office nor the State Tax Commission immediately returned requests for comment.

Jackson County’s property valuation process has been in near-constant litigation since Bailey and the State Tax Commission first sued the county in December. 

According to that lawsuit, the county’s 2023 reassessment process resulted in an average 30% increase in value across hundreds of thousands of properties in the county. The lawsuit says more than 90% of residential properties saw an increase in value, and values increased by at least 15% for three-quarters of properties in the county.

The increase in property values means an increase in property taxes for some owners. 

Bailey and the State Tax Commission accused Jackson County of failing to follow proper procedures in the valuation process, including performing physical inspections, before increasing property values by more than 15%. 

During the litigation, Bailey and a deputy came under fire for meeting with a Jackson County official without notifying the county’s attorneys. Under Missouri Supreme Court rules, attorneys are not to communicate about a lawsuit with individuals represented in the case by another lawyer without the consent of the other lawyer.

Bailey maintained that his meeting with the official, Sean Smith, was nothing more than a campaign meeting. At the time, Smith, a member of the Jackson County Legislature, was running for the U.S. House of Representatives against incumbent U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, II, who won with 60% of the vote earlier this month.

Jackson County’s attorneys were granted permission by the judge in the case to question Bailey under oath about his meetings with Smith. But in August, a day before Bailey was scheduled to sit for the deposition, the State Tax Commission issued its order and Bailey’s office had the case dismissed.

At the time, Bailey’s spokeswoman, Madeline Sieren, said the state dismissed the lawsuit because of the State Tax Commission’s order.

“Pushing the lawsuit forward could have jeopardized the much needed relief offered in the Tax Commission’s order and would be counterproductive for Jackson County taxpayers,” Sieren said in an August email.

The county said at the time that the State Tax Commission was “being used as a shield for…Bailey, who is trying to escape accountability after lying and realizing he was losing the case.” 

When the county didn’t comply with the August order, the State Tax Commission sought a court order to force the issue.

In response, the county said in a filing that the State Tax Commission was attempting to bring the same legal claims a second time. That was impermissible, the county argued, because the original lawsuit was dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning the case couldn’t be brought again.

Senior Judge Jacqueline Cook, who handled the case because the circuit judges in Jackson County recused themselves, dismissed the case with prejudice Wednesday. 

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.

Frustration about crime shapes race for next Jackson County prosecutor

by Mary Sanchez, Missouri Independent
October 23, 2024

Public anxiety about crime is fueling interest in the campaign to succeed longtime Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker

Republican Tracey Chappell and Democrat Melesa Johnson are on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The candidates have attacked each other’s qualifications on social media and in person in the final stretch of the campaign.

That political drama is playing out amid mounting concerns among voters that criminal charges aren’t being filed on property crimes — especially car thefts, break-ins and drug cases. Recent incidents with guns in the hands of juveniles are drawing the attention of Waldo and Brookside residents, along with owners of restaurants and other small businesses in Westport, the Crossroads and the River Market.

It’s a broadening conversation often centered on the traumatic and disproportionate impact violent crime has on Black communities.

“Crime is bonding us all,” said Julie Prudden, a Realtor and Brookside resident.

Sharp differences

Chappell and Johnson have distinct differences in how they plan to approach the job. Chappell vows to be an aggressive criminal prosecutor, while Johnson promises a balance of prosecution and crime prevention efforts.

Chappell leans into her time as the appointed prosecutor for Blue Springs and her private defense practice, including cases where juveniles have been charged with violent crimes.

She speaks of getting tough on criminals and sees social justice programming as secondary to pursuing criminal convictions.

“We can’t afford to just program our way out of prosecution,” Chappell said.

Johnson promotes her lifelong connections to Kansas City’s urban core, her ability to strike a balance between crime prevention efforts and swift prosecution, and her experience as public safety director for Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

Johnson’s job in the mayor’s office gives her a role in the city’s latest anti-violence effort, SAVE KC, a model that focuses on people deemed most likely to be perpetrators or victims of violence.

“I am the only candidate with a real plan to bring meaningful change to our community,” Johnson said.

Each Wednesday morning, Johnson joins a Kansas City Police Department discussion analyzing  every shooting of the prior week — whether someone was grazed by a bullet or killed. It’s part of a strategy to be responsive to the trauma that gun violence inflicts. Police and other community-based programs can intervene before retaliatory violence occurs and offer help for the people impacted.

Campaign attacks

The candidates have also questioned each other’s qualifications.

Chappell repeatedly has asked if Johnson has ever tried a felony case during her time in the Jackson County prosecutor’s office. Johnson says she was involved in the prosecution of felony cases, including murders, but not as the lead prosecutor.

Johnson said her experience includes making opening statements, cross-examinations and preparing jury instructions in drug and murder trials.

“Your obsession with my resume versus your actual platform is concerning,” Johnson posted to Chappell’s campaign Facebook page.

Johnson has questioned why Chappell left previous legal work with the county, noting that Chappell filed a discrimination suit accusing the Jackson County counselor of discrimination.

Chappell joined the county counselor’s office in April 2008 and filed the discrimination suit in 2016.

Chappell’s lawsuit alleged that she was demoted from handling litigation to working the mental health docket after taking a three-month maternity leave. The suit alleged she was fired after filing a complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The case was settled in July 2018.

“The truth?” Chappell said. “I filed a disability discrimination lawsuit related to maternity leave issues that led to a firing — an issue close to my heart as both a mother and a legal professional.”

After leaving the county counselor’s office, Blue Springs hired Chappell as a contract city prosecutor from December 2018 through May 2022.

Anti-violence programs

The next Jackson County prosecutor’s office has historically played a role in a wide range of anti-violence efforts.

Kansas City, in coordination with local nonprofits and community leaders, is deeply invested in programs like SAVE KC and KC 360, led by KC Common Good.

“Safety and justice go hand in hand,” Johnson said.

SAVE KC is a revamp of a similar anti-violence program championed by Baker, KC NoVA, for Kansas City No Violence Alliance.

KC NoVA saw some early success, including a drop in homicides in 2014. But the program unraveled without the backing of former Police Chief Rick Smith.

Chappell questions if there is enough community buy-in for SAVE KC to be any more successful than KC NoVA, which she called a “snitch” program too reliant on expecting people to lead police to suspects in exchange for social service help.

“You have services right now that a person can get without snitching,” Chappell said. “If they wanted to take it, they could get help right now.”

Chappell has accused Johnson of being “a director of no one,” noting she functions without staff reporting to her.

“I’m the only one in this room who’s actually trained police officers on Fourth Amendment issues,” Chappell said, adding that she has experience training other prosecutors and staff during her time as prosecutor in Blue Springs.

Johnson promotes her time with the Jackson County prosecutor’s office early in her career.

“I am the only candidate in this race with felony prosecutorial experience and public safety administrative leadership experience as well,” Johnson said.

Johnson said she leads a city task force that works with businesses that have been plagued with public safety issues, finding them relief through numerous departments at City Hall.

Both candidates are critical of Baker, vowing to prosecute more property crimes and drug cases.

Johnson plans to form a property crimes division in the office, staffed in part by law students.

Chappell proposes satellite offices at police stations to work more collaboratively.

Focus on property crime

Baker has long emphasized that the prosecutor’s office can only file the cases it receives and that property crimes are notoriously difficult to solve.

In 2022, the Kansas City Police Department recorded 24,356 property crimes. Just 6.4% were sent to the prosecutor.

The same year, KCPD logged 7,587 violent crimes. Only 18% were sent to the prosecutor’s office.

“If they sent me another 1,000 property crimes a year I would do them,” Baker said. “I would file them. … It’s not because (police) are lazy or that they don’t care. It’s because they aren’t solving them.”

The prosecutor’s office is a check on police powers. A prosecutor has the discretion to decide whether evidence in a case supports a likely conviction.

In 2020, Baker began research that led her office to focus on drug cases with a connection to violent crime, declining to pursue charges in other, nonviolent cases.

Baker’s research showed a disproportionate number of nonfelony drug cases charging African American suspects (81% of buy-bust cases had a Black suspect, while the county is 39% Black).

Chappell and Johnson have vowed to charge more cases, even those without a tie to violence.

Most of the cases brought to the prosecutor’s office come from Kansas City police.

But the county also works with eastern Jackson County and law enforcement agencies from Independence, Lee’s Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Blue Springs, Greenwood, Lake Lotawana, Levasy, Lone Jack, Sugar Creek and the Missouri Highway Patrol.

Most cases processed and tried by the prosecutor’s office are felonies.

Misdemeanors are managed through the Municipal Court by city prosecutors.

Kansas City has seen 122 homicides as of Oct. 21 this year, compared to 152 at the same time a year ago, with 14 of the cases currently in the prosecutor’s office, according to Kansas City police.

Black men were the victims in 79 cases and the suspects in 76, by far the highest demographic group affected. A firearm was used in 116 of the cases.

KCPD data also show a 68% clearance rate, meaning at least one person was arrested and the case turned over for prosecution.

Teenagers with guns

In early October, two men and two juveniles were taken into police custody after a series of armed robberies in parking lots behind Brookside businesses.

Charges against the men, for robbery and armed criminal action, came swiftly after police pieced together fraudulent use of a credit card, victim statements and surveillance footage.

The county’s Family Court handles juvenile cases.

But the prosecutor can play a role if the Family Court judge certifies a teenager to stand trial as an adult.

Chappell said she’s more qualified to take on crime by juveniles because she has represented teenagers in her defense work and understands the laws of the family court system.

She believes the next prosecutor needs to be willing to charge teenagers prosecuted after they have been certified as adults by the court.

Johnson has criticized “giving slaps on the wrist” to violent juveniles, arguing that disrespects their victims and also the young people.

“We’re selling them a dream that they can conduct themselves in this way, without consequence,” she said.

This will “fast-track their journey to either a jail cell or a morgue for the rest of their life,” she added.

Johnson has also said that her work with Kansas City police, through her job as the city’s public safety director, gives her an understanding of cases where the parents of juveniles who commit crimes need to be held accountable.

“I see incidents where parents can be proven to be complicit in the criminal conduct of their children, or are criminally negligent,” she said.

The adult charges in the Brookside robberies are only the latest incidents that also involve young people as suspects or victims.

Of the homicides reported by KCPD so far this year, 13 victims were younger than 18. Another 27 were 18 to 24 years of age.

Prosecutor candidates in Jackson County

Tracey Chappell

Chappell is from Alabama but moved to Kansas City in 1997 and later enrolled in law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

She’s running as a Republican in a Democratic-leaning county.

She identifies as conservative and said she does not plan to vote for either Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.

“But why bring national politics into something, into a local race?” she said.

Doing so, Chappell said of her opponents, is a “dog whistle” attempting to link her campaign to racially divisive comments made by Trump.

Chappell ran for Jackson County prosecutor in 2020 but was defeated handily by Baker.

Her platform includes a pledge of “safety for every ZIP code,” calling for prosecuting violent offenders and property crimes while protecting the rights of victims.

Chappell said that she has not tried to gain the endorsement of unions or other groups.

Melesa Johnson

Johnson grew up in the Oak Park neighborhood of Kansas City.

She often credits her single mother for working three jobs so Johnson could attend Bishop Miege High School.

Johnson graduated from Columbia University in New York with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Her law degree is from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

But it is her deep connections to Kansas City’s urban core that she often taps in forums, noting that she knows families who are fearful of their own neighborhoods because of rising gun violence.

She recently posed with Kevin Strickland, who was released after serving 43 years for murders that he didn’t commit.

She plans on invigorating the conviction integrity unit, if elected, running on a promise for “fairness, transparency, and accountability in our justice system.”

Johnson has been endorsed by numerous elected and civic leaders including Jackson County Executive Frank White, Kansas City Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw, Kansas City Council member Melissa Robinson, longtime area leader Alvin Brooks and the community group Southland Progress.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected]. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.