Audown Sonia Present Alderman Browning.

Present.

Audowman Velasquez.

Here.

Alderman Devotee.

Chair Aldrich.

Present.

We have five present.

We have quorum.

Thank you.

With that, we have established a quorum.

Next item of business item number three would be approval of the minutes.

I'll take a motion to approve the minutes from Wednesday, December 10th, 2025.

Second.

Move by the Alderman from the fifth, second by the alderman from the ninth.

Madam Clerk, please call to row.

Alder Woman Sonny.

Vice Chair Browning.

Aye.

Alder Woman Velasquez.

Aye.

Alderman Devotee.

Chair Aldrich.

Aye.

We have five eye votes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

With that, we have approved the amendment minutes from Wednesday, December 10th, 2025.

We will jump down to item number six committee discussion, which we will hear res we will hear resolution 194.

Aldo Women's White, so you may come up whenever.

Thank you, Chairman Aldrich.

Thank you to the members of the budget committee for hearing this resolution today.

This resolution 194 is the adoption of the assessment maintenance plan, which is required by the city to do uh per state statute.

And here to talk about it today.

I do have assessor Sean Ordway.

Uh but first and foremost, I would hope that we could uh if the committee feel feels um ready to do so, adopt the committee substitute, which has the exhibits for discussion that actually make up the assessment plan, uh which had to be added as um at uh as a um as an amendment as a committee substitute because it needed to go through the board of estimate and apportionment.

Um so that's why we're doing the committee sub today.

But I I would hope that we could get that um committee substitute adopted, and then I would love if if it's all right with uh the chairman to have assessor ordway come up.

Absolutely.

So uh I'll take a motion to put the committee substitute in front of us for resolution 194.

I move that we adopt uh resolution number 194 committee substitute.

It was moved by the Alderman from the 9th to adopt the committee substitute to resolution 194, seconded by the Alderman from the fifth previous role.

Hearing no objection, we have adopted the committee substitute to resolution 194.

Alder Woman, you may proceed.

Thank you, Chairman Aldrich.

Uh and with that, I would love to have uh Assessor Ordway come and speak about what this does and why it's why it's important, why it's needed.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Chairman, um, ladies and gentlemen of the uh committee, and uh thank you, Alderman Schweitzer, for uh sponsoring this resolution.

So every two years, all assessors in Missouri and all 115 counties, including City of St.

Louis, we have to enter into an agreement with the state tax commission.

It's known as a two-year reassessment plan.

If if uh you'll let me, I'll just read briefly from the statute, which covers this section.

Uh reading from chapter 1371 15 on or before January 1st of each even numbered year, the assessor shall prepare and submit a two-year assessment maintenance plan to the county governing body and the state tax commission for their respective approval or modification.

The county governing body shall approve and forward such plan, or its alternative to the plan to the state tax commission by February 1st.

If the county governing body fails to forward the plan, or it's alternative to the plan to the state tax commission by February 1st, the assessor's plan shall be considered approved by the county governing body.

And so what you have in front of you, uh uh, which was the attachment uh and the uh committee substitute is the actual plan that that we prepare every two years for the state tax commission.

We use their template, as you can imagine, they're doing this for 115 counties, so they kind of set the uh the standard for how it's done, and then we uh provide all the information that's particular to the city of St.

Louis.

Um we've done this every two years.

Uh this is my seventh plan that I've been involved with in the city.

This is the first time I've ever been in front of this committee to actually talk about it.

So we actually do appreciate the the ability to come and speak and answer any questions.

Um I think in the past it's always just people have reviewed the documents and then just gone based on that.

Um really the plan is not much different than prior years.

Probably the biggest issues we have uh in the next upcoming plan for the 26-27 reassessment is um the senior tax uh freeze has taken a lot of resources that that takes about one and a half to two full-time employees out of our office to implement that plan on an annual basis.

Um if you looked at all the other counties around us, they actually hired employees to to process all those applications and do all those uh processes that are necessary to implement the senior tax freeze.

We've actually just absorbed that in our office, didn't actually hire any more personnel, so that impacts our abilities to do other things if if those people are are uh now uh required to take care of that.

The other thing is going out and doing the review and the tornado damage.

So what we're doing right now is we've started that review, and we're gonna be required to go out to all of the 14,000 and change parcels in the tornado area, and we have to actually determine what the value is of the property now as of January 1st, 2026.

So many of those properties, the the value is going to be somewhat different, obviously than Wells before.

Um it's possible that some of those properties may have been uh repaired to some degree.

We know most of them have not.

So uh we are expecting a lot of assessment changes for that process, and it's just the the manpower that it takes to go out and do that, is it's just gonna be taxing on the resources that we have.

If you kind of look at the plan, just some uh basic points about it.

Um page two of the actual plan.

So the actual plan starts here, and then if you look at page two, it's kind of got uh the assessor's oath, admission statement.

Well, I wanted to point out is on the objective, you know, why do we do this?

The objective of the maintenance plan is to outline how the assessor is going to maintain assessments for both real and personal property.

And so, really, what it comes down to is on the next page, there's an agreement and approval, and it just kind of outlines briefly what each party's gonna do in the plan.

It states that the assessor will assess all taxable property in the county uniformly and at the statutorily required percentage of market value for the respective property.

So that's something important to keep in mind.

It says that the county or in this in this case the city will provide office facilities and the budgetary support set out in the agreement to allow the assessor and staff to carry out the terms of the agreement, and then it talks about what the state tax commission will do in terms of um technical assistance and support and uh regular visits to our office.

And so the the main thing about that is so we get a reimbursement for the state of three dollars per parcel, three dollars and thirty cents per parcel, excuse me, which helps to pay for the assessment program.

That's an annual amount.

If we have 135,000 parcels, it amounts to about 400 and almost 450,000 a year.

And and so by having a plan and being compliant with it, the state continues to uh support the assessment process.

The major portion of our budget is actually from withholdings from property taxes.

That's about three million dollars a year.

We get about two million dollars in general revenue, but a 450,000 dollar amount is still very significant to our budget.

Uh the other thing is it does is uh it's the state's kind of uh enforcement mechanism is if a county is not in compliance with their plan.

So if we don't keep our assessments where they're supposed to be, the state can come in and do a couple of things.

One is that they can withhold the funding, two is they can do what they've done in many other counties that happened in 2025, where if the assessor did not go out and actually uh keep their assessments up or raise their assessments to what the state tax commission determined where they needed to be, the state tax commission actually overstepped where the assessor was, went to the board of equalization, it required those boards of equalization to actually do across the board adjustments to all county properties to try to get their assessments up, and that's really not a situation we ever want to be in.

So we we try to avoid that at all costs.

We have a very good working relationship with uh the state tax commission, and um you know we've never had that problem, we don't expect to at any time in the future.

Elsewhere in the plan, you'll see function and responsibilities.

We have oversight from the state tax commission.

They come in and check on us to make sure we're doing what we're supposed to.

And again, basically they come up with the functions and responsibilities they think every assessor should be doing.

And then on the shaded area, we actually put in the resources that we have that and what it takes to get those done.

Um, there's several pages of that, and then behind that, there's actually um looks like it starts on if you can find the page narrow starts on page 12.

But you've got some graphs that start out looking like this.

And so what this does is it takes every component of the assessment program and breaks down, and we actually actually have to identify how many people we need based on how many inspections we can do or how many uh declarations we can process, or whatever the the function is that we're doing, we have to actually show how many personnel we need.

Uh and and so it's it's actually uh uh pretty comprehensive in in what it sets out to do.

Um and so basically that's it in a nutshell.

We uh be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Assessor.

And just for the record, uh, could you just state your first and last name?

Uh sure, absolutely.

Sean Ordway, S H A W N O R D W A Y.

Thank you.

I'll start in order of seniority, uh, Vice Chair Browning on any questions.

Uh thank you, Assessor Ordway.

Uh, really appreciate how comprehensive this is and recognize how important the job you do is, as well as the enormous amount of trust that is put into your office by the city.

Uh I think this level of transparency is not only should be expected, but I I appreciate that it's being met.

Um, I think it's a sign of of the good job you're doing.

So uh I don't have any questions, but I really appreciate uh the thoroughness with which you do your work.

Thank you for those comments.

All the woman's on Yeah.

Alderman Velasquez.

We'll bump the bus back a little bit.

I don't go ahead.

Aldo I don't have any questions.

I don't have any questions.

I just want to echo the thanks to uh Sessor Ordway.

I know that just from my experience, your office is always um very responsive.

And so uh I think today's presentation is um and the transparency in which you usually operate today's presentation is extension of that.

So I appreciate all the work that you do.

Thank you for those comments.

All the women's on Ye.

Thank you, Chairman.

Um, I also appreciate the work you do.

I really enjoyed kind of digging through and taking a look.

Um and specifically just to emphasize me on maintaining you know clear market value through kind of sales data and the depreciation tables and neighborhood certification.

It did make me curious about um how does the assessors of count for like long-term banking or dilapidated properties that rarely sell, and therefore, you know, I would imagine don't see much of an assessment change besides the what's meant to be.

Uh thank you for the question.

So much uh, you know, we just look at property and and so we're we're evaluating property, we're not evaluating anybody who's in it or not in it.

But I I think to answer your question is if if you were in a neighborhood and property values were changing because there were a lot of vacant properties or ordered up properties, something like that, we would see that because of the sales data.

They would actually show that there's some change in those properties.

Other than that, um the the thing we really look at is you know the condition of those properties.

So in the city of St.

Louis, you know, the average house has an age of 1922.

We're dealing with older properties.

So the main thing we deal with every day in and out is condition of property, and so you know, we just have to be careful that we're only comparing remodel property to remodel property, average property to average property, and when we get to these vacant and boarded and and uh derelict properties that we're only using sales that reflect what those values would be.

And so that's how we do that, which is really just using the market to guide us as to how we would value those properties.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um and the plan also just kind of references public information and customer service function, um, but doesn't necessarily talk about targeted outreach.

So specific reference to the senior property tax read.

Uh again, thank you for that question.

Um we always feel like we're doing everything we can, but I'm sure there's more we could do when it first came out.

We did a lot of outreach to senior programs, uh, people that cater to seniors, people that help seniors fill out their uh tax forms or any other forms.

Um we went to uh several uh community events that were catered to seniors, and uh outside of that, we we uh tried to contact you know through the board of aldermen or or through other city agencies, those people that interact with uh senior citizens.

Um ever since then, um, you know, we we continue to try to uh make the information uh as available as possible.

Um we we still reach out and go to community events when uh when we're invited or able to.

Um and and that's really uh where we've been probably for the last year or so.

But if there's anything that we could be doing that we're not, I mean, we'd be happy to make sure we had a representative or somebody there that could explain that process.

I can tell you that we had a major reassessment in 2025.

We we had you know many, many people contact our office.

And we certainly believe we had more questions about the senior tax issue than we had about the values, and and uh you know, we're hearing that from other counties as well.

So it it is something that um it just takes a lot of education and information.

Okay, thank you for answering my question.

Thank you for your work and thank you to Ottawa and Swipe that board by Mr.

Board today.

Thank you.

Alderman Devotee.

Assessor, I will uh echo Alderman Browning's uh comments earlier.

Uh your presentation here today, and the supporting documentation is very much appreciated.

I think it's also consistent with what I have seen from your office uh over the last year or so.

I know I had the opportunity to uh be in the room this past fall, presented to at least two neighborhood groups about the assessment process and why folks were seeing what they were seeing, and I thought it was very well done, and you were extremely patient, just like today with with folks' questions and comments.

And then, of course, within the last month or six weeks, you helped walk me through this the senior tax freeze process so that I could educate folks.

So again, thank you.

I don't have any questions, but but I I appreciate your work and your continued education of of our residents.

Thank you for those comments.

And echo all the comments from my colleagues.

I've been here, Mr.

and the presentation.

I've also seen you firsthand uh out in the community at a high park meeting.

Not uh members of your team, but you yourself explaining um kind of uh what's going on with property value, especially in the high park area.

So appreciate the work that you're doing.

Uh as we come closer to budget season, I'm sure we'll be seeing you again.

Uh hopefully you'll make an axe to uh Paul Payne for some FTE so that you can have support uh with the senior tax freeze.

Um I know we have some some folks also from the mayor's office that may also be willing to tag in with that support on that, but definitely want to make sure that uh you know your office is doing a lot, also assessing homes in the tornado area and you know, picking up this um extra thing that the state has done with the senior tax freeze, it's gonna be an ongoing thing.

So we want to make sure that you have the manpower to do so.

With that, if not seeing any other questions from committee members, I will um allow the all woman from the first to come back up on resolution one ninety-four.

Thank you so much, members of the committee and uh assessor order for being here.

I echo all the comments about how wonderful it's been work to work with Assessor Ordway over the last several years.

He's a first ward resident, so I have a little bit of extra pride there uh uh with that.

But um, it's just it's really appreciated city employees, people who work as hard as he does, because we couldn't function without them.

So thank you, assessor, for being here.

Uh and and that is um all I had to share on this resolution.

I think assessor ordway as always did a fantastic job talking about what it is, what it does, why we need to do it.

Uh, as you heard him say, it is up to us to pass this uh by February 1st, or else the plan as it's written goes into effect.

Um, but it's better if we get it passed and and make sure that we're doing our part to turn in the assessment maintenance plan.

So with that, I appreciate your consideration and hope that uh there is a due pass recommendation on resolution number one ninety-four committee substitute.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alderwoman.

And with that, I'll take a motion for due pass on resolution 194 committee substitute.

I move that we pass resolution one nine number one ninety-four committee substitute with a due pass recommendation.

Second it was moved by the alderman from the ninth, seconded by the alder woman from the fifth uh previous roll or the alder woman from the seventh previous roll.

Seeing no objections to previous roll, resolution one ninety-four committee sub has passed out with a do pass recommendation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All righty.

Uh we're gonna go back up to item number three of approval of the minutes.

Uh need to clarify the actual date.

Um, so I will actually take a motion to approve the minutes from Thursday, January 8th.

You got to take a motion to withdraw your first oh are we gonna okay.

So I will uh voting on the prevailing side.

Um I would make a motion you gotta withdraw your motion that you made earlier.

I can't withdraw because we voted on it.

So we are voting on the prevailing side.

What's the words?

Reconsider uh the approval of the minutes.

Second, madam clerk, please call the roll.

One moment.

Alderman Son Yay.

Aye, Alderman Vice Chair Browning.

Aye, Alderwoman Velasquez.

Aye, Alderman Devotee.

Aye, Chair Aldrich.

Aye.

Five eye votes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

With that, I would like to make a motion that we approve the minutes from Thursday, January 8th, 2026.

Second.

Second.

It was moved by myself, seconded by the alderman from the ninth.

Uh, madam clerk, please call the roll.

Alder Woman Son Yay.

Aye.

Vice Chair Browning.

Aye.

Alder Woman Velasquez.

Aye.

Alderman Devotee.

Chair Aldrich.

Aye.

Five I votes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

And also just for the record, I know we had skipped down to number six committee discussion.

Actually, what we discussed today in committee was item number five, resolutions for review, which we voted out resolution 194 committee substitute.

Uh jumping to item number seven.

Do we have any written testimony?

We have none.

Do we have anybody sign up?

We have no one.

All righty.

Any announcements from committee members?

Seeing no announcements, everyone was present.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

It was moved by myself, seconded by the Alderman from the ninth previous row.

Seeing no objections, we are adjourned.

Thank you.