KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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For more than six years now, Jackson County voters have been frustrated with the county’s assessment process and Tuesday had the chance to decide whether to change the way that the county assessor gets their job.
“I voted yes,” Deron Binkley, a teacher and coach in Independence, said. “It should be a position that’s elected instead of just given. ... If you have to run for it and people elect you for it and you go through this process, then you’re going to take a little more pride in it. So, I think the job will be better if it’s an elected position.”
Binkley wasn’t alone in that opinion as every voter we talked to at two polling sites in Independence voted yes on Question 1, which would make the Jackson County assessor an elected position beginning in 2028.
“The assessor deals with our money, why would we want somebody appointed?” Jackson County voter Shawn Malles said. “We should be able to elect and select, as voters, that position.”
Independence resident Carly King agreed: “I feel like it should be elected. Give people the power of the vote and give them an opinion.”
Some voters even pointed out that, in a sense, the assessor remains an appointed position, even if it’s decided at the polls moving forward.
“They are being appointed by voters versus some Democrat or Republican,” Heather Winship, a teacher in the Independence School District, said.
Jackson County has been roiled in recent years by controversial assessment cycles and record numbers of appeals amid skyrocketing valuations.
The assessment controversy erupted in 2019 when Jackson County passed along a raft of assessments just under 15% across the board in an attempt to inflate lagging assessed property values.
While it’s true that the county’s assessed property values had fallen off the pace compared with neighboring counties, Jackson County’s approach — blanket raises without due consideration property by property — led to a record number of appeals.
With the Covid-19 pandemic still running roughshod, the 2021 assessment cycle brought some calm, but Jackson County angered constituents from State Line Road to Oak Grove and Sibley to Greenwood with its 2023 assessments.
The county jacked up assessed property value by 30% on average, sending out notifications late and often failing to provide evidence of an in-person assessment for increases greater than 15% as required by state law.
The enraged Jackson County citizenry reacted with another record wave of appeals, which ultimately culminated in a lopsided vote Sept. 30 to recall former County Executive Frank White Jr.
“As a homeowner, I know my husband is very passionate about (the assessment issue),” King said.
Even people who escaped a massive increase in their property-tax bill understand the groundswell of unhappiness.
“We weren’t hit too hard with it, but it’s coming and I know it affected a lot of people that were dear to us and close to us,” Binkley said. “So, yeah, that’s kind of one of the reasons why” he voted to make the director of assessments an elected position.
Park University Associate Professor of Political Science Matt Harris said there are pros and cons to making the position elected rather than appointed.
“You have direct accountability, where voters can look every four years and say, ‘Do we like the job that the assessor is doing?’” he said. “The accountability as it exists now kind of flows through the county executive.”
White had defended the county’s assessment process and was a staunch supporter of Gail McCann Beatty, the former state representative he appointed as director of assessments in July 2018, but that structure also creates imbalance.
As an appointee, the assessor isn’t on equal footing with the county executive, but the Assessment Office should have more independence as an elected official.
Currently, Jackson County is the only county in Missouri where the assessor, who sets the property values for property-tax formulas, is appointed and not elected.
“I did not know that, but why on earth is that the case?” Malles wondered.
“I had no idea, so I think it’s great that we’re putting it up on the ballot and letting people have a voice,” King said.
“Now that you’ve told me we’re the only county, that kind of blows my mind,” Malles added.
Perhaps not for much longer.
After all, voter unhappiness about property taxes amid the botched assessment process helped sink an effort by the Chiefs and Royals to extend a 3/8-cent sales tax for the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex in April 2024 and cost White his job, so Harris expects Question 1 will pass.
“I think given the energy we've seen around the issue of assessment, I would imagine this is going to pass and we'll be voting for an assessor in 2028,” he said.
Jackson County voters will see the issue on the ballot again in November 2026 anyway.
The issue of whether assessors in charter counties — there are five in Missouri, including Jackson and Clay counties — should be elected will be up for a statewide vote as a constitutional amendment next year.
Missouri Speaker of the House Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, confirmed Monday that the vote next year will go forward regardless of Tuesday’s election outcome.
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