KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s Attorney General announced Tuesday he is suing Jackson County for what he alleges are illegal property assessments.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey said he filed the suit, along with the State Tax Commission, against the county “for its failure to follow the law in assessing and levying taxes.”
The news comes one day after the Missouri state auditor released initial findings from an audit on the county’s property assessment process. Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said the county was not compliant with state law.
“As many as 200,000 Jackson County taxpayers have been victims of an assessment process that violated state statute and trampled on their rights,” Fitzpatrick said Monday.
Three cities — Lee’s Summit, Independence and Blue Springs — have also filed lawsuits against Jackson County, accusing the county of breaking state law in its property assessments.
Bailey’s new lawsuit alleges Jackson County “dramatically and illegally increased” property assessments, resulting in increased property taxes.
The attorney general argued Jackson County delivered assessments past the June 15 deadline, didn’t perform physical inspections of certain properties, and handled appeals illegally.
Bailey said the assessed value increased 30% on average in Jackson County, but some owners said their assessments skyrocketed by more than 100%.
“The Missouri Constitution expressly prohibits a county from illegally taxing its residents. We will stand in the gap to protect Jackson County residents and right this egregious wrong,” Bailey said.
But Assessment Director Gail McCann Beatty has previously said her department’s role is to place market value on properties, according to state statute, and any property owner that disagreed with that value could have appealed. Over 50,000 property owners did just that.
FOX4 has reached out to Jackson County for comment on Bailey’s lawsuit.
On Monday, McCann Beatty asserted there were “mistakes in these preliminary findings” from Fitzpatrick’s audit.
“There appears to be a mistaken belief that physical, exterior inspections are conducted after a valuation is determined. However, the case relied upon the auditor in the preliminary report shows that it is standard for inspections to be conducted before valuations are estimated,” McCann Beatty said Monday.
So what should you do if you’re a Jackson County resident who has seen your property taxes soar?
Both Bailey and Fitzpatrick have advised residents should pay their taxes under protest by the Dec. 31 deadline, “and then plan to pursue the remedies that are available to me by law,” the state auditor said.
Fitzpatrick also recommended Jackson County’s Board of Equalization take action to set a cap of a 15% increase.
Jackson County Legislator Sean Smith said he also believes the county should refund property owners.
“I think we have to,” Smith said Monday. “I think by law, we’re going to be required to.”
County leaders haven’t proposed any official legislation on that matter yet, so there are no details on what that could look like.
The deadline to pay your Jackson County property taxes is Dec. 31, 2023.