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Assessor outlines FY27 priorities, warns of state reimbursement risk and details tornado tax relief
Summary
Assessor Sean Ordway told the budget committee of a two-year assessment plan approved by the Missouri State Tax Commission, described appeals workload and staffing needs, and said the office removed roughly $1.3 billion from 2025 tax bills for 672 tornado-affected taxpayers; he also warned of potential state reimbursement cuts that could reduce assessor funding.
Sean Ordway, the city assessor, presented the Assessor's Office budget and a two-year assessment maintenance plan approved by the Missouri State Tax Commission to cover the 2027 reassessment cycle.
Ordway walked the committee through long-term assessed-value trends—residential values have driven recent assessed-value growth while commercial values have been flatter—and described the office's operational load. The assessor said the office maintains a digital tax map with roughly 135,000 parcels, currently staffs about 60 employees with six vacancies (around a 10% vacancy rate), and spends a significant portion of each year on appeals. He estimated appeals spikes during reassessment years can reach several thousand and said the office aims for appeals below 1,000 in nonreassessment periods.
On tornado relief, Ordway said 782 taxpayers applied for the 2025 unoccupied/uninhabitable property relief; 672 applications were approved and 110 denied. He told the committee the office ultimately removed about $1,300,000,000 from 2025 tax bills for those 672 taxpayers under the statutory relief rules covering the event year; going forward the office will revalue damaged properties in 2026 reassessments and reduce values for still-damaged properties.
Ordway also warned of state-level budget uncertainty: the State of Missouri initially cut about $3,000,000 in assessor partial-reimbursement funding but later largely reinstated it during House and Senate deliberations; current estimates still show a potential net loss of roughly $100,000 to $350,000 to assessors depending on a possible gubernatorial line-item veto. He said the mayor's lobbyists and the assessor's association are tracking the issue and that the city's budget team is monitoring contingencies for FY27.
Committee members pressed Ordway about vacancies, the accuracy of vacancy and exempt-property data (the assessor said his office lacks comprehensive vacancy tracking and relies on the building division and complaint-driven information), and the senior tax-free credit program (Ordway said the application deadline is June 30 and described its modest fiscal effect on city revenues).
The committee heard the assessor's request for one additional exemption analyst to manage special projects, tornado claims processing, and more active monitoring of exempt properties. Ordway said adding that position will free appraisal staff to perform other valuation work.
