The property-tax reassessment process has caused plenty of outrage in St. Louis County, where total residential assesments rose 22 percent this year. It’s fast becoming a statewide issue, with House Speaker Rod Jetton recently appointing a task force to study assessment changes.

Thousands of homeowners would agree that there has to be a better way to update property values, and  David Stokes of the Show-Me Institute has a simple suggestion. Instead of  reassessing each property individually, he says, officials should calculate  how much property values have risen countywide, and then apply that percentage increase to each individual property.

It would certainly be simpler, and arguably more fair,  Stokes says:

 This would eliminate wide discrepancies from house to house that undermine faith in the current system. These individual discrepancies are common even in places where the aggregate accuracy of the assessments is high, such as Saint Louis County. Furthermore, the savings from no longer paying so many assessors would be substantial.

Stokes would retain the appeal process, offering potential relief for anyone who thinks their property hasn’t appreciated as much as the countywide average. When a property is sold, he also would continue to update assessments to reflect the exact market value. He explains:

This would safeguard against incorrectly undervaluing properties — particularly expensive ones — which might be underassessed over time by the use of an average-based system.

This idea wouldn’t eliminate the “tax increases by reassessment” that many residents are screaming about. But it would end “drive-by” assessments and the confusing use of “comparable” sales that sometimes aren’t really comparable. For most homeowners, that would be a step in the right direction.