Behind the scenes of the Boone County assessor’s Office.

With more than thirty-five years with the Boone County assessor’s office under his belt, Kenny Mohr has learned to navigate and understand the complicated world of property assessment and taxation. After first joining the office in 1989 as an appraiser, Mohr held several positions through the years before being elected Boone County assessor in 2020. Even with his years of experience, Mohr says that assessing property values and understanding property taxes has many nuances and is often a point of confusion for property owners.   

“Assessment and taxation is a very complicated proposal, how they work and how they intertwine,” Mohr says. “A lot of people think the assessor is the tax guy, but in reality, my job is to value property. That’s all I do.”   

Valuation Process  

Agricultural, residential, and commercial properties are taxed at different rates, and the values of those properties are assessed in different ways.   

For a property to be classified as agricultural property, it has to be more than five acres. Anything less than that, Mohr says, falls into the residential classification.   

“Once you are deemed to qualify for the agricultural class, the value we place on that land is based on its productivity value, not its true value, defined by the state statutes and constitution of Missouri,” Mohr says.   

Every two years, Mohr says the state tax commission hands down productivity values, which divides agricultural land into eight types based on soil productivity guidelines. Land that has a higher production value is valued higher, and Mohr says the values provided by the state tax commission are “very generous.”   

“For example, bottom land has higher value than hillside,” Mohr says. “Land is divided by soil type, whether it is wooded, or pasture, and has other characteristics.”   

Once the land value is established, the assessment ratio for agricultural property is 12 percent. That means that a farm valued at $100,000 would have an assessed value of $12,000, Mohr says.   

“If there are outbuildings or barns, those are valued as an improved structure, and those are also assessed at 12 percent,” Mohr says.   

For residential properties, single family dwellings, manufactured homes, and other residential properties, Mohr says a representative from the assessor’s office goes out to the property to “physically string a tape around the home and come back with a square footage.”  

“We also do a cost approach, which is what it would cost to build it today,” Mohr says. “If it is an older structure, we consider depreciation, and once we have depreciated it, we have a value for the home.”   

The county also looks at what the lot is worth from a market standpoint, which is known as a market approach.   

“We keep a sales database, and we can use a sales comparison, where we pull five homes that have sold over the past two to three years, make adjustments for differences, and come up with an adjusted sales price based on those five comps,” he adds.   

When a property transfers in Boone County, the owners will also receive a survey to collect information about the property and what the buyer paid to make sure the data the assessor’s office has is correct.   

Once a value is assessed for a residential property, it is assessed at 19 percent of the value, Mohr says. A home valued at $100,000 would have an assessed value of $19,000.   

While agricultural property is assessed at 12 percent and residential property is assessed at 19 percent, commercial property is assessed at 32 percent of market value. Commercial property is valued using a combination of an income approach, which deals with income-producing properties that are generating income, a cost approach, and a market approach. In addition to having a higher assessment percentage, Mohr says commercial properties are also subject to a 61-cent surtax.   

“On the commercial side, there is a higher assessment ratio, which is almost twice the residential rate, which is why commercial taxes are so much higher than residential or agricultural property,” he explains.   

A Growing Challenge  

Being responsible for up-to-date property assessments in a growing city like Columbia is a challenge in itself. The first challenge is keeping up with newly constructed properties throughout the city and county.   

“Since I first started with the office in 1989, the city has grown, and we have probably doubled the number of rooftops in that amount of time,” Mohr adds. “The growth has been a large part of what we do — trying to keep up with that growth. The city continues to grow, and people are annexing their properties into the city. There is also a lot of growth in farms that are broken into smaller tracts with people building homes on them. We’re seeing a lot of that.”   

The past couple of years have also seen a flourishing real estate market, resulting in increasing home values.   

“If you would have told me that housing prices would increase by double digits, and not just 10 or 11 percent, but 15 to 17 percent in a year, I would have told you you were crazy, but we saw that,” Mohr says. “It’s been very difficult to keep up with.”   

The state of Missouri gives assessors the authority to do a general reassessment of property values in odd number years. That ensures that values are based on current market value and are comparable with other similar properties. However, statutes also dictate how much property values can increase at each reassessment.  

“The way the market has been, especially in the residential subclass, property values have increased,” Mohr says. “My job is to stay as close to market value as I can, but I can’t increase property value over 15 percent unless I’ve done a physical inspection of the property. When you’re talking about 70,000 parcels in Boone County with an appraisal staff of six, I am limited on my resources.”   

Contesting Assessed Values   

Once a property value is adjusted by the assessor’s office, an impact notice, or change in assessment notice, is mailed out. At that time, Mohr says that property owners in Boone County can call or email the assessor’s office to contest the assessed value.   

“They can call or email us, and we will set up an appointment for them to come in and talk to us,” he says, noting that the property owner needs to provide “firm documentation” to support their assertion that the assessor’s office value is incorrect.  

“We have an informal hearing with them, listen to their position, we explain our position, and if we find the individual has merit, there is a chance we will go out and look at the value,” he says.   

If a property owner still has an issue with their assessed value after the informal hearing, they can go through a formal appeals process with the Boone County Board of Equalization. Ultimately, property owners can appeal their assessed value to the Missouri State Tax Commission, the circuit court, and finally the Missouri Supreme Court.   

“We don’t see a lot of residential properties going that route,” Mohr says. “Most are large commercial properties.”   

Adjusting Property Values  

Mohr says that properties are valued as of January 1. Should a property decrease in value, the value can be adjusted for that particular year.  

“If a property is damaged by a fire, for example, we can make an adjustment for that,” Mohr says. “The value is based on the value as of January 1 of that year.”