COLUMBIA − The Boone County Commission announced on Tuesday that residents within the county will have the opportunity to vote on whether the commission should implement a property tax exemption for senior citizens.
The vote on the matter will be on the April 2 ballot and will presented as Proposition 1: “Shall the County of Boone exempt senior citizens from certain increases in the property tax liability due on such senior citizens’ primary residences?”
The driving force behind the proposition was the the passage of Senate Bill 190, which Gov. Mike Parson signed into law last summer.
The law provides property tax relief for eligible taxpayers, who it defines as “Missouri resident[s]” who are “eligible for Social Security retirement benefits.” Each individual county government has the option to either opt in or out in participating in the program.
Boone County Presiding Commissioner Kip Kendrick said the commission really needs to hear from the voters before implementing the freeze.
“…The Boone County Commission felt it was important to put this question to the voters,” Kendrick said. “If or when it’s passed in April, we will begin the public process of developing up a policy and administrative procedures and implementing it down the road.”
The Boone County Commission issued a resolution in November that recognized the value of providing tax relief for fixed-income senior citizens, while also acknowledging that aspects of the law as currently written, are of concern.
SB 190 sponsor Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer (R-Parkville) filed a new bill that would modify the definitions of “eligible credit amount” and “eligible taxpayer” in his original bill. The bill is currently moving its way through the General Assembly.
Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch (R-Hallsville) has been advocating for the Boone County tax freeze to go on a ballot. She started a petition in August that has more than 2,000 signatures from registered voters in the county.
In response to the commission’s news on Tuesday, Toalson Reisch said she will continue gathering signatures due to the “vague” and “ambiguous” language included for the April ballot question.
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“I plan to continue to gather signatures of Boone County registered voters to put the current Initiative Petition language on the August or November ballot, as it will freeze ALL taxing entities. I will not take the chance of the commission doing a partial freeze,” she said.
While Boone County has made its decision on the property tax freeze, some counties are still deciding if they will implement the law or leave it up to voters.
Harry Otto, Western District commissioner for Cole County, said he thinks the law needs more work before the county makes its final decision.
“If it doesn’t change much from the way it was previously written, with just some minor tweaks, I would not as a Western District commissioner vote to put it on the ballot or to adopt it,” Otto said. “If the residents of Cole [County] want to put it on the ballot, then they can get their signatures and do it that way.”
Otto is on defense of this law because of how it was originally written.
“With respect to this, we don’t know what it will cost, and we don’t know who it will cost, in other words, is it just the county taxes? School district taxes? Library taxes? Fire district taxes? Cole County residential services? There are a lot of places that would be impacted by this.”
Many of those places rely heavily on property tax for their revenue stream.
“There is no calculation to how much this is going to cost a local subdivision like a county or a school district, it’s unknown,” Otto said. “It’s very difficult to say, ‘Let’s go do something and we don’t know what the unknown cost is involved.’”
Tuesday was the final day for county commissions to put the property tax freeze on the April ballot, according to Kendrick.