Should Jackson County elect its assessor? Amid outrage, Missouri lawmakers want a change

As Jackson County homeowners sound the alarm over dramatic growth in property assessments amid allegations county officials violated state law, Missouri lawmakers are pushing to make the county’s assessor an elected position.

The fresh effort comes 13 years after Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution allowing Jackson County to remain the only charter county in the state with an appointed assessor. The 2010 exemption specifically targeted Jackson County and was worded to apply only to charter counties with populations of more than 600,000 people but less than 700,000 people.

Supporters of electing the assessor say the position should be directly accountable to voters. Some even question whether the county, which now has more than 716,000 residents, is still legally allowed to have an appointed assessor. Most officials and legal experts who spoke with The Star said that idea would likely not hold up in court.

But questions surrounding the state constitution’s population limits, outcry from residents and a series of lawsuits fighting increased assessments have ramped up the pressure on both Missouri lawmakers and county legislators to act, as Jackson County remains out of step with every other county in the state.

The Jackson County Assessment Department is currently led by Director Gail McCann Beatty, a former Democratic leader of the Missouri House. Jackson County Executive Frank White, Jr., a Democrat, appointed her to the position. The agency is tasked with valuing and assessing all real and personal property in the county.

Missouri Republican lawmakers who represent portions of Jackson County have filed four constitutional amendments this year to require elections for the assessor in the Democratic-leaning county. If lawmakers pass one of the measures, it would be placed on a statewide ballot.

“I think the time has come for the citizens of Jackson County to be able to have their say on their assessor just like every other county in Missouri,” said House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, who argued that a statewide vote would remove any ambiguity about whether Jackson County still applies to the exemption after its population growth.

“It’s a no brainer for me,” said Patterson, who is in line to become the next House speaker. “And, you know, there’s nothing that would stop the current assessor from running and being elected.”

At the same time, the Jackson County Legislature is weighing whether it can propose a county-wide ballot measure asking voters to make the assessor elected without state intervention.

Democratic 1st District Legislator Manny Abarca, after reading the population language in the state constitution, said he would be “more than happy to introduce ballot language that would rectify that and require the assessor to be elected as early as this year if that’s what we want to do.”

“I think given the most recent impact, what an assessor can do in a county like ours, I absolutely agree that it should become an elected position,” he said. “An election doesn’t necessarily guarantee a better outcome, it just allows for a true accountability metric for taxpayers.”

Abarca said he and 6th District Legislator Sean Smith, a Republican, have asked the Jackson County Counselor’s Office for an explanation as to why the county is the only one that appoints its assessor and how the legislature would go about changing that. They have not received an explanation, he said.

Smith said he and legal counsel would review the language in the state constitution and state law and if there’s enough information “that would allow us to have an elected assessor, then I would say we go ahead and pass an ordinance immediately to allow us to do that and get it on the ballot for maybe even this coming November.”

While the state constitution limits appointed assessors to counties with populations less than 700,000 people, state law indicates that a county’s operation of government would not change based on a shift in population.

Legal experts said it would likely require a court opinion to determine whether the statute is in line with the constitution. However, most suggested the county’s appointed assessor likely doesn’t violate the constitution.

“I think the courts are likely to say that because Jackson County was included at the time the constitution was adopted, it remains within this provision,” said Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City-based attorney who worked in the attorney general’s office under Democrat Jay Nixon.

“But there is a legitimate argument to be made that the population change takes them out of this provision, and it’s not the first time it’s ever come up.”

Two Republicans pushing for an elected assessor, state Rep. Chris Sander of Lone Jack and state Sen. Mike Cierpiot of Lee’s Summit, acknowledged the county likely still qualifies for the exemption despite its population growth.

A spokesperson for Jackson County said its attorneys and county officials were not available for interviews for this story. But county officials, including Beatty, have previously said the county is working to correct errors in the assessment process. County officials have also painted a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican running for election this year, as politically motivated.

Victor Callahan, a former Democratic state senator from Jackson County, supported the measure in 2009 when he was in office that required all county assessors to be elected except in Jackson County.

Callahan, who now serves as a commissioner for the Missouri State Tax Commission, said there wasn’t a big push at the time to make the assessor in Jackson County elected. More attention was focused on St. Louis County, which was having problems.

When asked if he now supports the county having an elected assessor, Callahan said it’s “up to whatever the people want to decide.”

“That’s really up to the legislature if they want to put it before the voters,” he said. The state tax commission is a plaintiff alongside Bailey in the lawsuit against Jackson County over the assessments.

Upset homeowners

Jackson County’s assessment process has sparked outrage for months after assessments jumped significantly this year. Residential property values increased by roughly 40% overall since the last assessment in 2021, according to county data.

Prior to Bailey’s lawsuit, Republican state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick released the preliminary findings of an ongoing audit that has found the county used a “flawed and inadequate” process that violated state law. But last month the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jackson County in a lawsuit related to the property assessments, finding that a series of property owners failed to exhaust other options before suing the county.

Property assessments, which take place every two years, have long been a source of controversy in Jackson County. Many houses were chronically undervalued, Beatty and other officials have said, until she began raising valuations in 2019.

Support for an elected assessor isn’t universal. State Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat, previously told The Star that an election raises the possibility that unqualified individuals will be elected. Washington, who did not respond to a request for comment for this story, has argued that Republican-led attacks on Beatty appear to sit at the heart of the matter.

Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, said he’s received numerous calls from homeowners upset about their assessments. The question, he said, is whether the process was conducted poorly enough to require a drastic change.

“I could see it going both ways,” he said. “I can see that they want an assessor that’s accountable to them directly. But then I could also see the fact that if there is an assessor that’s elected, the whole idea would be to never raise, you know, any assessments right? And keep them low, which means the schools don’t get funded.”

But for Patterson, the Lee’s Summit Republican, making Jackson County’s assessor elected “just goes to the basic fundamentals of American democracy.”

“This is just basic democracy 101 of taxation without representation,” he said.