KSHB 41 reporter Alyssa Jackson received a tip that the Missouri State Auditor's Office gave Jackson County a poor rating for its handling of the 2023 property assessment appeal process. Alyssa has covered the property tax assessment fallout for years. Want to share your experience? Share your story idea with Alyssa.
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The Missouri State Auditor's Office released a glaring report Thursday detailing how the Jackson County Board of Equalization failed to comply with county codes and state law during the 2023 property assessment appeal process.
KSHB 41 has covered the issues with the county's property assessment process for several years.
With the lowest audit rating of poor, Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick determined the assessment process was "flawed" and the appeal process "stacked the deck against taxpayers."
"Jackson County appeals process the county screwed us up in such a unique way we're really in unchartered territory of how bad it is — we’ve never seen anything like this anywhere in the state," Fitzpatrick said. "We can’t change the past. A lot of mistakes were made, but we can hopefully prevent this from reoccurring in the future."
According to the audit, hearing officers had an incentive to mediate as many appeals as possible, guaranteeing a $100 bonus for meeting a quota for signed agreements each day.
The audit found:
- The Board of Equalization (BOE) failed to require the department to meet its statutorily required burden of proof to support its valuations.
- The BOE failed to require the assessment department to provide an appraisal to support its computer-assisted valuation, as required by statute.
- The BOE accepted testimonial evidence from the Jackson County Assessment Department that was not substantiated by supporting documentation, while taxpayers were required to provide documentation to support their testimonial evidence.
- Photographs required by the BOE as proof of physical inspection were taken outside the reassessment period.
- The BOE failed to require the assessment department to prove it properly notified taxpayers of their right to request an interior inspection.
- The assessment department did not make supporting documentation for its appeals available in a timely fashion to taxpayers who had scheduled appeal hearings.
- The BOE also failed to sufficiently notify taxpayers of their hearing dates and provide timely information to evaluate the assessment department's evidence for the hearings.
- Taxpayers received notice of the right to an interior inspection less than two weeks before the appeal deadline, allowing insufficient time to request and receive an inspection before the deadline.
- The BOE did not have information available to review a negotiated assessed valuation because hearing officers maintained little or no documentation to support their valuations.
- The BOE did not adequately review or approve assessment modifications that taxpayers agreed to with the assessment department or in officer hearings.
The audit noted resistance from the Jackson County Assessment Department, Board of Equalization and county officials, including attempts to prevent the completion of the report, which required multiple subpoenas for records.
"For the county government to not work with the state government is mind boggling," Jackson County Executive Phil LeVota said.
LeVota, who has been in office for six months, said the assessment disaster is why voters recalled the last county executive. He added it is also why he has appointed new members to the board of equalization.
"This whole assessment debacle and sorting it out has been daunting to say the least," he said. "I've changed so many things they found wrong — following the state tax commission’s order, rolling back 2023-2024 assessments, giving tax credits, moving forward with transparent fair assessments. This is bad news how the government used to work, but good news is it’s not working that way anymore."
Jackson County property owners have been frustrated with the property assessment process since 2019. The county has seen a record number of appeals following skyrocketing valuations in the past several years.
The 2023 assessment cycle saw average valuation increases of 30%. Notifications were often sent to property owners late and failed to provide evidence of an in-person assessment for increases greater than 15%, as required by state law.
The fallout involved court battles and at least 54,000 appeals.
Stephanie Coen, appealed her assessment after an 86% to 89% valuation increase in 2023. She wasn't surprised by the findings of the audit.
"We lost our cushion," Coen said. "We had to sell that property because we didn’t get a BOE hearing until November of 2024 I believe."
Despite the changes being made by the county, Coen believes there's too much damage to fix.
"I plan to get the heck out of Jackson County as soon as I can," Coen said. "People have lost their homes — I'm just a minor example of the devastation that has been created because of this whole mess."
Jackson County voters will elect an assessor in 2028.
The Missouri State Auditor's Office said it will follow-up on whether the county has implemented its recommendations.
There will be a second audit released later this year on the reassessment process that led to mass appeals.
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