SUGAR CREEK, Mo. — Ellen Kardell lives in a modest house in southwest Sugar Creek.
She’s 68, lives off social security and will attend a workshop on Jackson County’s senior property tax credit program at 6 p.m. on Thursday at Truman Heritage Habitat for Humanity, 501 N. Dodgion St. in Independence.
Kardell is among the legion of Jackson County seniors who are worried — and sometimes angry — about recent reassessment debacles, so she wants to better understand how to take advantage of Missouri Senate Bill 190.
“I’m going in solidarity, just to maybe find out a little more information,” Kardell said. “I’m not going to be filing online at the meeting, I am going to walk my paperwork down to the courthouse, hand it to them, ask for a receipt and a photocopy of it.”
Kardell then put her right index finger and thumb a half-inch apart, raised it to eye level and squinted through the gap.
“The trust level is not quite there,” she said.
Joe Nicola, who won election to the Missouri Senate representing District 11 last month, organized the workshop.
“We’ll do a whole presentation,” Nicola said. “The presentation doesn’t take very long, answer questions that people have, then we’ll have volunteers there that can actually help them apply, whether it’s on paper or online.”
APPLY | Jackson County Senior Property Tax Program
The Missouri Legislature approved a new property tax credit law, which Jackson County adopted, in 2023 with the goal of keeping seniors from getting taxed out of their homes.
When a Missouri homeowner turns 62 in counties that have opted into the law — including Jackson, Clay, Platte and Cass counties — they are eligible to lock in their property tax amount at the level they pay at the time of the application.
Jackson County began accepting applications in March 2024 and made changes to the law after the state legislature tweaked Senate Bill 190 earlier this year, but homeowners remain in limbo.
“I don’t think anybody has gotten a letter in the mail saying they’ve been approved, so they’re very nervous, wondering why,” Nicola said. “I’m getting phone calls right now — ‘Still haven’t heard anything, the 31st is approaching’ — so there’s a lot of frustration with this whole process.”
Responding to a Sunshine Law request last month, the county said they’ve received more than 19,000 applications and processed more than 15,500 but wouldn’t begin sending approval notices until “sometime in December.”
“I’m just looking forward to having this resolved in a fair way for all of the people in Jackson County, so that we don’t have to continuously have this on the top of our minds,” Kardell said. “It’s a major stressor to think that you could lose your house because of property taxes.”
To that end, it’s important for eligible seniors — in all counties, but especially Jackson County — to apply on or before Dec. 31 because next year is a reassessment year.
Missouri recalculates assessed values in odd years, so those values — and the taxes triggered based on those values — could surge again as they did in 2019 and 2023, when Jackson County experienced waves of anger and floods of appeals.
RELATED | Property value assessments
Kardell fears she knows how 2025 will go.
“They are going to try to grab as much as they can,” she said.
Seniors are encouraged to register in advance for the Senior Property Tax Credit Program with Nicola, but walk-ins will not be turned away.
“I’m getting phone calls every week, sometimes every day, about this,” Nicola said. “This will be the 15th or 16th forum that we’ve done in the district to help as many Jackson County homeowners as we possibly can. It’s a very simple program, but people are confused. That’s why we’re doing presentations to explain it and give them a chance to ask any questions that they may have for it.”
The workshop Thursday in Independence is the last one scheduled before the end of the year.
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KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
