ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. (First Alert 4) – The St. Charles County Council approved an emergency extension Monday night for seniors to submit online applications for the county’s senior real estate property tax relief program, pushing the online deadline to July 6. In-person applications are still due Tuesday, June 30.
The extension follows a software outage that took the online application portal offline for portions of last week, beginning June 20.
St. Charles County Collector of Revenue Michelle McBride said the issue surfaced the afternoon of Saturday, June 20, while her office was preparing for the enrollment deadline.
“It was off and on Saturday, off and on Sunday. Monday, it was pretty much down all day. Wednesday, our IS department, working with the outside vendor, got it up and running again,” McBride said.
She added that it was on Wednesday afternoon, June 24, that the system came back online and became stable.
McBride said a vendor used by the county’s IS department introduced a bug in a software update on June 16, which her office’s heavy use of the system brought to the surface.
“The vendor that the IS [Information Systems] Department works with had a bug in the software that they updated on June 16, and because my staff and I were using it so heavily, we, I guess, brought the bug to the forefront for the vendor, the outside vendor,” she said.
Because the June 30 deadline is set by county law, McBride said she needed council approval to extend it.
“My county council can extend that for us, and I’m going to ask them to let us have the portal open until July 6 for any of those people who were trying to renew or apply online and couldn’t do so because that wasn’t working properly,” McBride said.
The council approved the extension Monday night in a unanimous vote.
“I think the only fair thing to do is to keep that online portal open for the amount of time it was down,” she said.
In-person service centers were not affected by the outage and will not be extended. The last day for in-person assistance is Tuesday, June 30, at the St. Charles County Election Authority’s absentee voting area (397 Turner Blvd. in St. Peters).
“We do just have a team of four people. We have appointments for trust reviews because those take a little bit longer. We will get you in. If you are in the door before 4:30, we’ll get you in,” McBride said.
McBride said anyone who applies online will receive a confirmation of submission, followed by a staff review.
“If you get a denial, it will have instructions on what to do to correct that and still get a credit this year,” she said.
A steady flow of residents visited the St. Charles County Administrative Building office Monday to file or renew before the deadline.
Mary Parks, who renewed her senior property tax relief, among the people making the trip.
“It was really nice because I have a lot of other things going on, and they made it easy. So I appreciate that,” Parks said.
Ernest Miller also completed his renewal in person on Monday, saying he preferred the face-to-face process.
“I’m not an online person, so I like to do things in person. I like to have that face-to-face interaction, knowing that it is completed, that everything is taken care of. If I do it in person, then I know it is,” Miller said.
Miller said he was relieved to finish before the deadline.
“It went fast. I’m just glad that since it’s so close to being the last day, I’m glad it went as fast as it did,” he said.
Last year, approximately 30,000 seniors in St. Charles County received a credit through the program, totaling more than $5 million. McBride said the savings vary widely depending on the individual.
“We had some who saw savings of over $1,100. So, the savings varies greatly depending on the individual and their homestead, their property values, and the tax rates where they are located,” McBride said.
She added that some seniors received a zero credit because political subdivisions rolled back their tax rates when property values increased.
“Well, my taxes hasn’t went up, so, you know, that’s a good thing. I don’t know what they would have been if I hadn’t done this,” he said.
McBride also has a separate bill before the county council to eliminate the annual renewal requirement for the program altogether. That would start for next year. During Monday’s meeting, she explained that the majority of the applications are renewals.
“In 26, we’re like, you know, this is a burden on the seniors. They shouldn’t have to come back every year and renew,” McBride said.
She said she began working on the proposal in February after consulting with her county councilor, and that it would require a change to county law.
Copyright 2026 KMOV. All rights reserved.
Leave a Reply