Pull up a listing in Troy, Missouri, then pull up a similarly sized home in Moscow Mills or Elsberry, a few minutes down Highway 61, and the property tax line looks like a rounding error. Troy homeowners currently pay $.1706 per $100 of assessed value in city property tax. Moscow Mills pays $.6846. Elsberry pays $.6195. Foley pays $.7635. Silex pays $.8429, roughly five times Troy's rate, according to a Lincoln County Journal analysis of the city's budget published in June 2026.
For a buyer comparing carrying costs across Lincoln County, that gap can look like something built into Troy the way a shorter commute or a bigger lot would be. It isn't. It's a discretionary rollback the city funds out of its own budget every single year, and the Troy Board of Aldermen held a public hearing on July 20, 2026 to consider eliminating it.
The Rate on the Listing Isn't the Rate on the Books
Troy's advertised rate is the result of a voluntary fifteen-cent rollback the city layered on top of a higher rate voters already authorized. The city's own agenda for that July hearing describes it plainly: the ordinance under consideration would eliminate "the City's previously adopted voluntary property tax rollback in the amount of Fifteen Cents ($0.15) per One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) of assessed valuation."
Strip the rollback away and the rate doesn't need new voter approval to climb. Troy is already authorized to charge $.3206 per $100 of assessed value, the ceiling voters approved before the city chose to discount itself down to $.1706. That means the low number you see on a listing sheet isn't a floor set by law. It's a ceiling the city is currently choosing not to charge.
Here's how Troy stacks up against its Lincoln County neighbors at the current, discounted rate:
| City | Property Tax Rate (per $100 assessed value) |
|---|---|
| Troy | $.1706 |
| Elsberry | $.6195 |
| Moscow Mills | $.6846 |
| Foley | $.7635 |
| Silex | $.8429 |
Even at the full authorized rate of $.3206, Troy would still undercut every neighbor on this list. What's changed isn't Troy's competitive position. It's the assumption that the discounted number is the permanent one.
What Doubling Actually Looks Like in Dollars
At the current rate, a home assessed at $400,000 generates $129 a year in city property tax. Scale that same home to the full authorized rate and the bill lands closer to $243 a year. That's real money, but it's not the kind of number that changes a monthly payment calculation. What it changes is the story buyers tell themselves about Troy being a place where taxes simply don't happen. They do. The city has just chosen, so far, to keep them small.
The Deficit Behind the Decision
The rollback isn't under review because someone in city hall wants more revenue for its own sake. Troy's current 2025-2026 budget was built around a projected deficit of $995,000, the largest in the twelve years of city budgets the Journal reviewed dating back to 2015. When the Board of Aldermen workshopped the following year's budget in late May, that one carried its own projected deficit of $968,338, the second largest on record.
The driver is specific and traceable: in June 2025, the Board of Aldermen voted 4-2 to eliminate the employee contribution to the city's pension plan, shifting that cost onto the city and adding more than $400,000 to retirement expenses in a single year. City administrator James Knowles laid out the tradeoffs directly to the board, and the options on the table included raising property taxes, closing the city pool, or a hiring freeze that would leave a police department already nine officers short of full staff even thinner.
Twelve years of budget history offer one reason not to panic on sight. In ten of those twelve years, Troy projected a deficit and closed the year with a surplus instead. From 2020 through 2025, five straight budgets forecast a combined $3.5 million shortfall and instead produced a $1.5 million surplus. The city has a track record of talking itself into worse numbers than it actually delivers.
This year broke that pattern. City officials expect 2025-2026 to close with an actual deficit of about $250,000, the first real shortfall in recent memory instead of the usual surprise surplus. That's the detail that separates this rollback debate from a decade of overly cautious projections. The pension shift is a permanent structural cost, not a one-time budget quirk that resolves itself, and the numbers are finally showing it.
Meanwhile, Buyers Haven't Blinked
None of this uncertainty appears to have cooled demand yet. Over the three months ending in May 2026, Troy's median sale price sat at $295,000, up 1.7 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to Redfin's tracked closing data. Homes that sold in May 2026 had gone under contract in a median of 9 days, down sharply from 23 days the year before.
At the same time, homes actively listed for sale in July 2026 carried a median list price of $358,000 and sat on the market a median of 38 days, per Movoto's listings data for that month. The gap between that list figure and the lower closed-sale median isn't a contradiction. It reflects two different slices of the market: homes that already found buyers and closed, versus the current pool still waiting to. Read together, the pattern suggests a market where well-priced homes move fast while some sellers are still testing pricing that hasn't caught up to what's actually closing. That's not the behavior of a market pricing in tax uncertainty. It's the behavior of a market that hasn't heard about it yet.
Before You Write an Offer
If you're comparing Troy to a neighboring Lincoln County town on price alone, a few questions are worth asking before you get attached to the tax line on a listing sheet:
- Has the Board of Aldermen acted on the rollback ordinance since the July 20 hearing, and at what rate is the city currently billing?
- What is the home's actual assessed value, not just its list price, since city tax is calculated against assessed value rather than market value?
- Are there other local taxing entities layered on top of the city rate, such as school district or fire protection levies, that affect the total bill separately from this rollback debate?
- If the rate does move toward the authorized ceiling, does the resulting increase change your monthly budget in any meaningful way, or is it a rounding difference relative to your total housing cost?
None of this is tax advice, and the numbers above describe city-level property tax only. A local tax professional or the Lincoln County Assessor's office can confirm the current rate and how it applies to a specific parcel.
FAQ
Did the Board of Aldermen actually vote to eliminate the rollback? As of the July 20, 2026 hearing, the city had opened the ordinance for public comment. Buyers should confirm the current status directly with Troy city hall before assuming either outcome.
Does this affect school taxes too? No. This rollback applies specifically to the city's own property tax rate. School district, fire protection, and other overlapping levies are set separately and aren't part of this ordinance.
If the rate goes up, when would a buyer actually see it? Property tax rates apply to the tax year in which they're set, so timing depends on when the city finalizes any change relative to the county's assessment calendar.
Is Troy still a good value compared to nearby towns even at the higher rate? Based on the rates in the table above, yes. Even at the full authorized $.3206, Troy would still undercut every other Lincoln County town listed here.
Buying in a town with a moving tax picture doesn't mean stepping back. It means asking sharper questions before you write the offer. The team at Reed-Koppel Collective tracks these local governance shifts alongside the closing data, because a listing sheet only tells you what the number is today. If you're comparing Troy to its neighbors and want the fuller picture on what a specific property will actually cost to hold, reach out to get your free home valuation and a straight answer on where things stand.
