JEFFERSON CITY — Senior residents from Cole County will start benefiting from a tax freeze starting with the 2025 tax assessment.
The Cole County Commission approved an ordinance for senior tax freeze 2-1 at a Tuesday morning meeting. The decision follows Boone and Callaway County which had already approved a tax freeze.
To be eligible, Cole County residents must be 62 years or older, own their home, and live full time in their primary residence. Specific details about the tax freeze are still unknown but the commission expects additional criteria.
Eligible seniors will need to fill out an application, free of charge, each year if they want to receive the tax freeze, as the process is not automatic.
"We're gonna be one of the test counties that other counties are going to look at and see how we did it and see what we did and see how well it works" said Sam Bushman, the presiding commissioner.
Petitioners collected more than 2600 signatures for the senior tax freeze.
"I've been collecting signatures for 9 months to get it on the ballot and basically what they did was pass the ordinance so it didn't even need to go to the ballot," said Doug Mueller, a Cole County and Jefferson City resident. "So we won."
But those against the tax freeze say that it is not the solution.
"If they were really serious about helping seniors, they should have updated the old property tax credit for seniors which has been there for nearly 50 years" said Harry Otto, the Western District commissioner.
The commission said Tuesday it saved approximately $2,500 in election expenses by adopting the tax freeze by ordinance instead of putting it on the April 2025 ballot for citizens to vote on.
