Jackson County homeowners want to see tax credit for 2023 troubled assessments
JACKSON COUNTY, Mo. (KCTV) — On Thursday, Jackson County announced it is capping 2025 tax assessment increases at 15 percent, but homeowners want to see more done with the troubled 2023 assessments where all of this started.
Last August, the Missouri State Tax Commission ordered Jackson County to limit 2023 assessments to 15 percent, but that never happened.
Earlier this month, a judge said the STC acted lawfully in that order.
But Jackson County said it is too late to do that.
“The truth is simple: the money from 2023 and 2024 is gone. It was spent to keep teachers in classrooms, keep fire trucks running, and keep services moving,” said County Executive Frank White Jr in a statement on Thursday. He added, “What’s left now is to fix the system, not pretend we can go back in time.
One homeowner said this 2025 decision is a semi-slap in the face.
“I’ve lost sleep over it. I stress easy and I’m just real concerned of how this keeps increasing every single year,” said Jackson County homeowner, Tim Bullock. He added, “I don’t know how much longer I can continue to deal with this and be able to afford to pay it.”
KCTV5 Investigates has met with Bullock multiple times since his 1956 home saw a huge jump in the 2023 property tax bill. It went up 40.5%.
He is retired and on a fixed income, so it hasn’t been easy to make repairs to his home. He has tried though, recently repainting the ceiling and removing wallpaper in his living room.
“My tax bill goes up every year, that is less money that I have to do improvements and upgrades on my house,” said Bullock.
Across town in Blue Springs, Jason Wood lives in a four-bed, four-bath home with his wife and five kids.
“The price was right, something we could afford, and it was spacious enough for raising a family,” said Jackson County homeowner, Jason Wood.
They paid around $155,000 in 2015 for it.
“Our property tax effectively doubled, immediately tried to figure out what we could do to say there must be some error, this house isn’t worth $350,000,” said Wood.
Now with the decision by the County to cap 2025 assessments, these homeowners worry it will still create a mess.
“Homeowners are still going to get hit even if a 15% max we are still going to get hit with a large increase because of the unjustly high assessments from two years ago,” said Bullock. He added, “It seems to me Frank White, he just doesn’t care about the effect this is having on the residents of the county, and that makes no sense or logic to me, how can he defy the tax commission order?”
“This whole thing has been the ‘23 assessment and now they are saying this massively increased price is probably going to probably jump another 15% almost guaranteed I could have handled another 15% back in 2023, but they are gonna have inflated values then getting a 15% cap for this next one when they are supposed to be rolling it back the ‘23 I’m wondering if that is the idea they are trying to make it more convoluted so it is harder to roll it back,” said Wood.
They feel more could be done about the 2023 assessments and following the STC’s order to rollback 2023 increases.
“Maybe we just get a tax credit and apply that towards future payments,” said Wood. He added, “They know they did wrong, fix it. I’m not asking for a time machine, but adding 15% on top of what they know at this point was an unlawfully inflated value is wrong.”
On Friday, KCTV5 Investigates reached out for an interview with the County Executive or Assessor. His office replied with a statement:
At this time, the County Executive and Assessor are not doing interviews, due to ongoing litigation and the urgency of implementing the 2025 policy in compliance with existing deadlines. Our assessment team is fully focused on getting this right for Jackson County residents.
We’ve issued a detailed public statement that you can refer to. We appreciate your understanding and interest in this important issue.
“I couldn’t as a person go to a judge and say well I don’t want to follow your rule but it seems like that is exactly what Frank is able to do like how is that fair,” said Wood. He shared, “We don’t want police to be unset, we don’t want schools to be unequipped and teachers unpaid obviously so work with that don’t just ignore it and say we can’t get a time machine and some nonsense like fix the value and then apply a lawful 15% cap to that.”
And that is what homeowners want, a fair system.
“He needs to go back and I understand the money is gone I don’t expect a refund of a difference, but they can do something like a type of a credit for example and they need to reset the assessments on the homes back to the maximum of 15% it wouldn’t be difficult to do that,” said Bullock. He added, “Do the right thing, fess up to the fact that the previous assessment was done completely incorrectly you know show some backbone and just admit to it and correct it.”
READ MORE: Jackson County to limit 2025 residential property tax assessment increases to 15%
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