‘Zero accountability:’ What’s causing long assessment lines in Jackson County?

A tall man in a blue t-shirt walked into the Historic Truman Courthouse in downtown Independence just after 4 p.m. on March 29. The line of people waiting in plastic chairs had shrunk to around 30 — the shortest it had been all day. He spoke in a booming voice to the smiling employee at the front desk.

“It seems I failed to inform you guys of my Honda,” he said.

This is the protocol for meeting with the county’s personal property assessment office — the entity that tracks the value and ownership of residents’ vehicles in order to charge them annual property taxes.

Residents from around Jackson County gather every weekday at the courthouse in lines that can stretch down the hallways, out the door and around the block outside. Wait times vary depending on the day and time they arrive, but some report waiting for multiple hours to see an assessor.

Most of the people in line, including the man in blue, clutch stacks of documents that include car titles, registration receipts and even handwritten instructions from their local DMVs. Without proper documentation of their vehicle taxes, drivers are barred from renewing their vehicle registrations in Missouri— and for those whose tags are about to expire, seeking help in person is the only option.

A relocation of assessment department services in November now funnels all personal property assessment business through the Historic Truman Courthouse. Before the switch, drivers could get their accounts updated at offices around the county, including local DMVs and the courthouse in downtown Kansas City.

County officials disagree on exactly why the problem has gotten so bad and who has the power to fix it. Here’s what we know about what’s causing the hours-long lines in Independence.

Why are drivers waiting in line to meet with the assessment department?

Regina Roberds, who staffs the front desk at the Historic Truman Courthouse, found her job while waiting in the assessment department line last year.

“My husband threw our declaration postcard away, so I just came up here to do my declaration and get it fixed,” she told The Star. “I was in line, and I found out they were hiring.”

Failure to declare personal property is just one of the circumstances that brings drivers to the courthouse. The Star spoke with around thirty people in line on March 29 and heard a variety of reasons why they were waiting to see assessors.

Among them, 13 drivers were waiting to either add or remove a vehicle from a personal property account — something drivers must do every year in order to keep their tax bills accurate. Four more needed a statement of non-assessment, a document stating that a driver was exempt from paying personal property taxes last year because they did not yet own a vehicle in the county.

Statements of non-assessment, also called “waivers,” are obtainable via email from the assessment department. But Roberds said that the wait time for an emailed reply is around three and a half weeks. For drivers whose vehicle registration is about to expire, that timeline can pose too great of a risk.

Three other drivers were in line to pay a past unpaid personal property tax bill, and two were waiting to get their accounts reopened after the assessment department mistakenly closed them. Other individuals needed the department to open a new personal property account, update their account to show a paid bill and return a waiver issued to them by mistake.

Three people waiting in line told The Star that they didn’t fully understand what exactly they needed to do when they reached the assessors’ window but had been told at the DMV or another courthouse to bring their materials to Independence.

“I’m not used to dealing with this sort of thing,” said Blue Springs resident Nick, a recent military retiree. “Nobody really explained it to me when I was getting out of the military.” He added that in his home state of Iowa, vehicle owners don’t pay property taxes on their cars.

Another person told The Star that her daughter stood in line for her starting at 9:30 a.m. so she wouldn’t have to miss work. She arrived at the courthouse as her daughter was approaching the front of the line around four hours later.

Why are assessment department lines so long?

The Historic Truman Courthouse opens on weekdays at 8 a.m., but Roberds told The Star that people arrive at 6 a.m. or earlier just to be one of the first through the door.

The reason why lines remain so long is a subject of debate among drivers and county officials. One of them is a familiar refrain in city and county government offices: a shortage of staff.

“For Clay County, I think there’s five assessors for the whole county,” Roberds said. “We have, right now, I believe, seven staff for Jackson County.” That’s despite the fact that, as of mid-2023, Jackson County had nearly three times the population of Clay County, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

But according to assessment director Gail McCann Beatty, staffing has seen significant improvements in recent years. On April 1, Beatty told county legislators that her department now has around 100 employees — although she did not specify how many work in personal property assessment.

County legislator Manny Abarca said that he believes the software used by the assessment department is doubling the amount of work assessors have to do for each customer.

“They’re using the old system that we were using pre-Tyler Technologies and the new system with Tyler Technologies, and the systems aren’t communicating to each other,” Abarca said. “And so they’re having to input data twice to make sure it’s consistent across both systems.”

The assessment department did not comment on this claim when The Star attempted to verify it.

Tyler Technologies, a private firm contracted by Jackson County to assist with property assessment last year, has faced criticism for its role in increasing home valuations throughout the county. Home values rose the most in predominantly low-income and non-white ZIP codes, an analysis by The Star found.

McCann Beatty suggested another potential cause of long lines is the way Jackson County processes vehicle registrations.

Since drivers only have to renew their registration every two years, she said, many neglect to update their personal property declarations annually. Then, by the time their car tags are about to expire, their personal property accounts are out of date and must be fixed in person by county assessors.

What can be done about long lines in Independence?

In Monday’s legislative meeting and in an email to The Star, the county’s assessment department stated that its new building at 1300 Washington in downtown Kansas City could provide a potential solution to long lines.

“The County possesses a viable long-term solution through its new administration building at 1300 Washington. This facility offers free parking, is ADA accessible and provides ample space for residents to wait indoors,” county spokesperson Marshanna Smith told The Star.

“(But) 1300 Washington can’t be fully used right now because the Legislature has not approved the money to do necessary renovations.”

The renovations in question, which McCann Beatty said could include a vault for county collections and service windows for assessment, will cost an estimated $17 million.

Abarca, hough, is skeptical that these upgrades would translate to improvements in customer service.

“People have asked, why not allow for more digital options for registering your taxpayer account? That should be something easily done. They don’t want to do it. They want people to come down and stand in line,” Abarca said of McCann Beatty and County Executive Frank White.

“They want to create this problem to then create the solution, which is 1300 Washington ... I’m not sure how the legislature can hold them accountable at this point.”

Smith said that the county “remain(s) steadfast in our commitment to maximizing the benefits of this new amenity for the community.”

In the meantime, she said the department is looking into short-term solutions like increasing staff, expanding weekend hours and potentially opening a second location in the downtown courthouse.

Until those solutions arrive, Roberds will continue greeting the influx of drivers that come through the courthouse door— from the agitated to the serene.

“Most everybody’s really, really nice,” she said of the drivers who wait hours in the courthouse hallways. “Most people in Jackson County are just good people.”

The Star’s Nick Wagner contributed reporting to this piece.

Do you have more questions about personal property assessment in Jackson County? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.