Republicans and Democrats began the 2025 legislative session with much swagger about passing meaningful property tax reform. However, they adjourned for the year on April 11 with little accomplished. A few good things happened during the two-day veto session in April – more on that in a bit – but Kansans first deserve to understand why they didn’t get the major property tax relief they demanded.
The political aspirations of several key lawmakers and the membership at large have driven this legislative session. On the one hand, this isn’t surprising. On the other hand, the particular personalities and dynamics kicked it into overdrive. In general, they want to curry favor with some constituency—often government entities—or not alienate them, rather than run for re-election after fixing serious problems.
The 2026 election for Governor and other statewide offices is top-of-mind for Democrat and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. There are no formal announcements yet, but there’s a lot of speculation in Topeka on where some of them might land when the political game of musical chairs stops, and the domino effect that would set off for other legislators to ‘move up.’
The House and Senate tax committees were seemingly at loggerheads through much of the session. The Senate quickly passed a constitutional amendment to limit valuation increases and kept chewing on several different proposals for further reform. The House, on the other hand, passed legislation repealing the popular and effective Revenue Neutral Rate legislation. What’s more, they advanced a plan that has state tax dollars pay local governments even if they raised taxes up to roughly 4%. There was some progress as the end of the session neared, but valuable time was lost to a game of parliamentary chicken.
There is also the horse-trading that always takes place, but it was kicked into overdrive this session. The constitutional amendment to elect Supreme Court justices barely squeaked through both chambers. We have multiple unconfirmed reports that scuttling property taxes and education policy were the “trades” needed to get judicial selection over the line. It worked something like this: to get Rep. Brownback to vote YES on judicial selection, you needed to promise no votes on school choice. Or, to get Senator Sebelius to vote YES on judicial selection, you needed to promise to kill property tax relief.
The shortened legislative session also worked against property tax reform; both chambers agreed to end the session on April 11 rather than the typical mid-May adjournment. The House and Senate Tax Committees reached a deal (Substitute for SB 82) that would limit the tax increase that can be imposed beyond a specific limit without supermajority approval of at least 80% of the elected body.
The limit would be the amount from the prior year and tax increases associated with the construction of new structures or improvements or the remodeling or renovation of existing structures or improvements, excluding ordinary maintenance and repair and the lesser of 3% or the combination of the annual percentage increase of the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers in the Midwest Region, and the payment of a bond issue approved at an election held on or after July 1, 2025. The funding limit would not apply to the State or to school districts. In most cases, the limit would likely work out to about 4%.
The bill isn’t ideal – a fixed limit with no exemptions would be better, the bill also includes subsidy payments to cities and counties that hold revenue neutral and scaled-down subsidies to those that keep increases below the limit, and the limit could apply to all government entities that impose property tax – but it would be a good improvement for taxpayers.
Substitute for SB 82 passed the House 74-48 on the last day of the session, but the Senate oddly didn’t vote on it. Senate leadership didn’t give a reason, but one possibility is that Senate leadership assumed Governor Kelly would veto it, and the Legislature would have no chance to override because they ended the session early. The good news is that the Senate could approve it come January and have plenty of time to override a veto next year.
No excuse for not resolving taxpayers’ #1 priority
Many lawmakers openly admit that property tax relief was the #1 thing they heard from voters when campaigning last year, and public opinion polling shows strong support for limiting assessed value jumps and total tax collections.
A December poll conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of The Sentinel’s owner, Kansas Policy Institute, found 87% of voters support a 3% limit on tax increases without voter approval with only 9% opposed. A constitutional amendment limiting assessed value increases to 3% is favored by a 66-18 margin (the balance of voters were undecided in both questions).
Predictably, the blame game took less than a day to begin.
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes (D-Lenexa) told the Kansas Reflector that Republicans are to blame.
“Kansans deserve better than what they got from their Legislature in 2025,” Sykes said. “Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues refused to join us in that effort. Republicans promised Kansans they would deliver property tax relief, but they failed to make good on that promise.”
That’s pretty rich coming from a Senator who twice voted against constitutional amendments to limit the increase in assessed values, along with most Democrats and a few Republicans. The first vote was on SCR 1603, and the second was on a reworked version of the House plan in SCR 5011.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but I scoured the tax bills introduced in the House and Senate and could not find a single one proposed by a Democrat. However, I will be happy to update this column if Senator Sykes, or anyone else, sends a link to a Democrat proposal for significant property tax relief.
There simply is no excuse for not providing substantive property tax relief this year. Leaders in both parties should just learn a lesson and get the job done come January.
