Ordinarily, one of the most low-profile boards or commissions in Kansas City or Jackson County government is the county Board of Equalization, aka, the BOE.
Very soon, however, the BOE is about to become the most relevant government body to thousands of taxpayers. That’s because the BOE will be hearing real estate assessment appeals lodged by people disappointed, put out or outraged at the valuations the Jackson County Assessment Department has placed on their homes.
The assessment department has been hearing informal appeals and will continue to do so, but if you’re seeking a significant assessment adjustment — in the range of $100,000 or more — your best bet is to file an appeal with the BOE.
The deadline for filing an appeal with the BOE is tomorrow, Monday, July 8. You can appeal by mail, email or in person, but you’ve got to get it in by tomorrow. Here is the website for the BOE, and here is the link to the page that spells out the appeal process.
It is especially important to file if you have already filed an informal appeal (that deadline has passed) but have not heard back from the county. There is no such thing as an automatic appeal from the assessment department. You are responsible, and if you don’t do so before the deadline, you’re out of luck.
…With that backdrop, I’d like to tell you a little about the BOE and what you can expect when your case is set and you go before the BOE at the county courthouse downtown.
The BOE consists of three members, each of whom is appointed by the county executive. The three current members are Christopher R. Smith and Marilyn M. Shapiro, both of whom are Kansas City attorneys, and Forestine A. Beasley, a real estate broker.
Christoher Smith
Forestine Beasley
Smith is chairman of the BOE. He is with the firm Krigel and Krigel, which has offices on the Plaza. He focuses on family law and workers compensation. I don’t know what, if any, political connections he has.
Shapiro is a solo practitioner who has her office in the Crossroads. (I couldn’t find a picture of her.) She focuses on divorce and family law. She has been on the fringe of politics for decades but, to the best of my knowledge, has never run for elective office.
Beasley, on the other hand, has run for office. She was one of six candidates in the April 7, 2015, primary election for the 3rd District City Council at-large seat. Beasley finished last and did not advance to the general election. The winner was none other than Quinton Lucas, who last month was elected mayor.
…So, those are the people you will see when you go to the courthouse for your appeal. Now, what to expect?
I appealed a valuation to the BOE about 10 years ago, and the process is generally fairly quick. My case took three to four minutes. One of the three commissioners back then was Joanne Collins, a former Kansas City Council member.
The chairwoman — I don’t remember her name — did all the talking. She asked me what I thought my house was worth and why. I don’t remember if I had any supporting documentation, but I clearly recall that the chairwoman offered me a modest break on the valuation. As I recall, I countered with a lower figure but she wouldn’t budge, and that was that. I went away not entirely happy but at least satisfied that I had gotten a reduction…On valuations, you’ve got to take the long view: Every time you can get the assessment department or the BOE down, it can make a difference in your tax bill not just that particular year but in years ahead. The savings can compound.
**
I have my appeal ready to go and will submit it by email today. My recommendation on supporting documentation is to keep it simple, clear and organized. My strategy is to compare my home to four others in my neighborhood that sold last year and one that is on the market now, with sale pending.
The four that sold were in the same price range as what I believe mine is worth, but all are larger than mine. The one that is for sale now is smaller than mine, and the listing price is significantly less than the figure the county has placed on my property.
If you’re thinking of preparing dozens of “comps,” I would strongly advise against it. The board is not going to give you very much time. The chairman is going to hurry you along and want you to make your points in short order. Brevity could work in your favor; to the board, time is of the essence.
If you make a decent case, you will probably be offered a lower valuation. Feel free to make a counter offer, but don’t be surprised if no concession is made: This will not be like haggling over the price of a leather purse in an Italian market.
One thing I feel certain about, however, is that with all the bad publicity the 2019 assessments have received, the BOE will be inclined to be generous. Who knows? Chris Smith or Marilyn Shapiro might want to run for office some day, or Forestine Beasley might want to run again and hope to do better than she did last time.
In any event, I don’t think the BOE members are going to make the same mistake County Executive Frank White has made by going out of his way to piss off half the county.
Good luck, everybody. And remember, no matter how unhappy you are about your valuation, you can’t beat being a resident of Kansas City and Jackson County.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
So are you sending all three of them a copy of this just to be sure they see it? A little brownnosing in advance never hurt. :-)
And I’m sorry, but I must call you out on your “you’re”s and “you/your”s.
I know one of them but, like last time, I don’t think it’s going to help.
I think I only screwed up once on “your” vs “you’re” and I fixed it. As always, let me know if you’re not happy.
You/yours — last paragraph, second line.
I absolutely love seeing tax and spend Democrats losing their minds about getting taxed more than they believe is their fair share. I guess taxing and spending is great so long as it is someone else being taxed. Welcome to paying your fair share.
Now here’s a guy lookin’ for a fight…Thank you for assuming everybody who doesn’t like their valuation is a Democrat. If that’s the case, we’ll have no problems keeping Jackson County in the Democratic column.
I have to laugh when I read such a comment. Let me relate my experience in Platte County.
I bought my first house in Platte County (within the City of Kansas City) in 1984. I paid $63,500 for my first house. Because of the way Missouri counties did property tax assessments at the time, I was paying more in property tax than most of the mansions on Ward Parkway.
Shortly after I moved in, I believe the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the counties needed to do an up to date reassessment of all properties, not just when they sell, to set tax rates. My property taxes then made a dramatic drop the next year because of all the properties that had not been reassessed for years were suddenly assessed for the current value (sound familiar?). The drop was due to every property owner paying their fair share based on the market value of their property.
Platte County since then has done regular reassessments though I would say they were rather slow the past several years increasing assessed values to match the market. My current house was reassessed again last year and the assessment value is still $30,000 less than what houses are selling for in my KC North neighborhood. In fact, I get regular notices from real estate agents telling us neighbors that houses are selling for $10k or more above the asking price in our area – so that would be $40k or more. So assessments seem to always be behind what the true value is.
I had to laugh again when I read the story in the The Star. about people on the west side complaining in one breath about the increased assessments on their property and in the next breath saying they can probably sell in this market for $150k more than what their property is assessed. There are a lot of people out there who know they got a good deal on taxes for years and now the jig is up. Why would they not complain?
The real problem is Jackson County has not followed the law (again) for years and is now trying to get caught up (much like happened in 1985-86).
I suspect Jackson County will have a lot of appeals, but probably not as many as people think. Property owners know what their property/house/business is worth and if the reassessed value is in the ballpark (or less) for their property they are going to let it ride (much like most of the people on the west side told The Star. in that article).
Because of the Hancock amendment, the taxing bodies need to adjust their levies to get no more than a 5% total overall increase in their tax revenue from the previous year. As The Star. said in their editorial, all the taxing bodies are going to need to adjust their levies down. However, that does not mean people who have seen a huge leap in assessed value are not going to pay more. They will now again be paying their fair shore again after many years of not doing so. And that means there will be others who are going to see their taxes drop with most likely candidates being people who have bought property or homes in the past 10 years.
It’s hard for me to decide which aspect of this fiasco to comment on. But, I’ll restrict myself to the Star editorial of July 2: “There’s a simple solution for Jackson County property value spike: Cut tax rates.”
As best I can tell, the Editorial Board’s argument is: “OK, your home’s appraised value may have increased, but if the tax rate is cut, your taxes won’t increase as much as you first thought. So, all of this isn’t really that big a deal.”
I don’t know who wrote that editorial, or what Colleen Nelson was thinking when she approved it, but it is completely ludicrous. Is the editorial board not aware of the comments of Preston Smith, who has represented the Blue Springs School District on the Board of Equalization for 12 years? Smith has found literally tens of thousands of errors in the county’s assessment process. And many others have pointed out obvious absurdities in comparing appraised values against actual sale prices. With so much evidence, how can anyone have any confidence in the overall accuracy of the appraisals?
The bottom line is this: Unless there is a redo on the appraisals, thousands of homeowners will pay much more than their fair share, and thousands will pay much less. The editorial board’s “simple solution” may or may not be simple, but it sure ain’t no solution.
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article232191572.html
What you say makes perfect sense. The reason so many valuations are so far off could well be because the Assessment Department is using some formula and just spitting out numbers. If they want to get it right, they need to do a “ground-up” reassessment, where they hire one or more companies, with experienced appraisers, to look at each parcel and assess properly.
The county has never gotten this right. The one time they did a full-fledged reassessment — in the early ’70s — they did it “in house,” using patronage employees, and, of course, it was fucked it up. Here we are more than 40 years later, and it’s still fucked up.
Mark writes:
>And many others have pointed out obvious absurdities in comparing >appraised values against actual sale prices.
I’d be curious about rationale about this. I am lucky. The first phase of the subdivision I live in had 5 different builders, so we have some variety so that every house does not look the same or even have the same shapes.
However the subdivision that is just east of us had the same builder and it is just the same house on lot after lot after lot. The same is true for the second phase of the subdivision I live in to the west of me. So except for possible incremental improvements on some of them, I fail to see how if the assessments on houses in those subdivisions match the sales price why that would be wrong. And because the subdivision east of me has starter homes, there is a lot of regular turnover of houses in that subdivision to gather data.
I can see Mark’s argument in the older areas of Jackson County, but any subdivision generally built in at least the last 40-50 years is made up of cookie-cutter houses that are of the same design and similar construction and it would matching up sale prices and assessments would be a fairly simple task. You don’t think realtors do that?
“And many others have pointed out obvious absurdities in comparing appraised values against actual sale prices.”
I totally agree that an actual sale price is the best starting point for establishing the market value. What I was saying was that I have become aware of a lot of examples where the county assessor’s 2019 market value is very different (both higher and lower) than the recent sale price. It’s amazing what one can find out by using the county assessor’s interactive map, Zillow, following the news, and just talking to people.
Mark,
Thanks for the explanation. However, I think the latest proposal from Mr. Smith from Blue Springs (only increase assessments 15-18%) is a non-starter under Missouri law. It would seem to me that if Jackson County backs away from complete reassessment they are setting themselves up for a class action lawsuit in the Missouri courts from non-Jackson County Kansas City residents. The non-Jackson County residents are already assessed near true value and pay Kansas City property taxes. The claim could be made they are paying more than their fair share due to low or faulty assessments in Jackson County. On paper, I would think it is a case that could be won by non-Jackson County residents/property owners in Kansas City.
Jackson County needs to fix their assessment system once and for all. Maybe the other counties that Kansas City has city limits in could provide some assistance and insight on how they do it.
Trade Frank White to Johnson County for a legislator never to be named later.
He screwed himself with the Royals and now he’s screwed himself with voters. You’ve gotta be really bad to make that double play.