The leaders of Johnson, Sedgwick, Wyandotte, Douglas, and Shawnee counties collectively came out in opposition to property tax reform yesterday with a mix of outrage and misdirection that underscores a let-them-eat-cake attitude toward taxpayers.
“The late night, drastic changes to this bill were made without conferring with local government partners,” they wrote, according to the Sunflower State Journal.
Hello! Legislators are elected to represent taxpayers, not local governments, and taxpayers are fed up with unnecessary and unaffordable property tax hikes.
In another Freudian slip, they write, “They (legislators) disincentivize growth in communities and will increase costs for borrowers.”
Restricting property tax increases encourages growth and investment and makes it harder to grow government, and the latter seems to be the basis of their indignation. Allegations of “increased costs for borrowers” are not explained, but similar statements are routinely made to justify embarrassingly high cash reserves. The 2022 budgets of 35 large counties and 25 large cities discovered more than $5 billion in unencumbered cash reserves, some of which are set aside for debt payments. Every entity needs some reserves, but there is no taxpayer-focused excuse for building bank balances to this degree while taxing people out of their homes.
Proposed property tax reforms
The common-sense reforms that county officials say are “unworkable” and “unfunded mandates” include these provisions:
- A 4% cap on valuation increases.
- Requiring voter approval of property tax increases that exceed the lesser of 4% or inflation plus new construction plus voter-approved bonds. Cities and counties need to notify the county clerk of their intent to exceed the limit by June 1 to get a vote on the August primary ballot or a September 15 mail-in ballot if there is no August primary election.
- Those that do not exceed the limit receive a state incentive payment from a $60 million fund based on assessed values.
City and county officials lobbied hard to repeal the revenue-neutral process, which requires them to be honest about the tax increases they impose, but it remains in place with transparency enhancements.
This is all easily workable for local governments that want to make efficient use of taxpayer money and limit tax increases. It requires considerably more effort than approving staff-prepared budgets, which may be the “unworkable” part for some of them.
The adjacent table shows each of the five counties imposed unnecessary tax increases over the last 27 years. Johnson County’s 359% property tax increase is 2.6 times the combined rates of inflation and population. Sedgwick County is the least harmful at 1.7 times inflation plus population and Douglas County is the worst at 4.4.
As a quick aside, we should be sensitive to claims of unfunded mandates but this isn’t one! Ensuring taxpayers are not overtaxed and mandating transparency amounts to “good government,” not “unfunded mandates.”
Claims that counties “can’t logistically provide notice” that they intend to spend more than the year before on the same day they receive valuation estimates ring hollow, as valuations and spending are two different matters. Valuations are used to set mill rates based on the proposed amount of property tax. How much a county wants to spend is a different matter that can – and should – be reasonably estimated by the end of May.
City and county officials can make this work if they commit to providing services more efficiently.
