Jeff Porter’s long political career continued on Aug. 28 after he was sworn in as Montgomery County assessor.

Porter will be the county’s first new assessor in over 50 years. He will replace Jerome Overkamp, who retired as the county assessor after 51 years.
Porter, who lives in Montgomery City, will bring in 15 years of political experience to his new job as assessor. It will be the first time he will be working in county government. He has experience in local and state government.

“What I bring to the table more than anything else is a lot of experience in different areas,” Porter said. I’m a home owner in town. I’ve been here for a bunch of years.”

Porter was scheduled to begin his term as assessor on Sept. 2. He was elected assessor after winning the general election unopposed in November. In Missouri, county assessors are elected during the general election and do not take office until September of the following year.

“I discovered that the assessor and collector have different dates,” Porter said. “Assessors start on the first day of September because the reinspection cycle is based on that. When they start doing reinspections like Jerome, he actually had that for this whole year, so it’s all underneath his watch. I think the collector starts on the first day of March. So they’re just a little bit different than the norm of the offices that I’m used to.”

Porter served four years as State Representative of House District 42. He also served 15 years as Montgomery City mayor.

Now, Porter will be replacing a long-time assessor in Overkamp. A retirement ceremony was held for Overkamp at the Montgomery County annex building shortly after Porter was sworn in.

“There’s no way to replace a legend like that,” Porter said. “He has shoes that are 51 years of size. There’s no way to compete with that and I don’t want to compete with that. He’s an icon of that industry and an icon of being an elected official all of these years in Montgomery. I fully respect the man. I just hope I can be a tenth or more of what he did.”

Overkamp has high expectations for Porter.

“He’s going to be all right,” Overkamp said. “He may be rough around the edges. There is more there to do than anybody thinks. But he’ll be all right. The tax commission is going to help him out.”

Overkamp became the county assessor on Feb. 24, 1974.

“The officer who won the job got sick and had a heart attack and died before his term in his first year,” Overkamp said. “Then, 15 of us went to a committee trying to get the job and I got it.”

Porter said during his first days as assessor, he will be getting some tutelage from Lincoln County assessor Kevin Bishop.

“He’s going to be my mentor and I’m going to learn underneath him,” Porter said. “He’s been doing it for 30 some years. I’m trying to get a lot of experience to understand how the thing works.”

Porter has lived in Missouri all of his life. A graduate from South Shelby High School and the University of Missouri-Columbia, Porter became a State Farm Insurance agent in Montgomery City in 1991 and a real estate agent in 2003.
Porter said while growing up in Shelbina, he never thought he would work in jobs in local, state and now county government.

“That was the farthest from my mind,” Porter said. “You just never know. The thing is you just have to do the best you can and learn from the people. I’m excited. I’m 63 and I was the youngest one to run in my group during the last election. I feel like I’m young again to try something new.”