The Kansas Senate voted overwhelmingly to move forward with a proposed constitutional assessment limit that would restrict taxable assessed valuation increases on real estate and mobile homes to 3% per year.
The Senate voted 30-10 on Wednesday to send SCR1616 to the Kansas House of Representatives for action to put the measure on the ballot. The vote was largely along party lines, but there was some bipartisan crossover. Two Democrats — Sen. Patrick Schmidt and Sen. David Haley — voted for the amendment, and three Republicans — Mike Argabright, Tory Marie Blew, and Michael Fagg — voted against the assessment limit.
This is the fourth straight year legislators have attempted to pass such a measure.
Dave Trabert, CEO of the Kansas Policy Institute — which owns The Sentinel — spoke in favor of the proposal during the hearing in the Senate Assessment and Taxation Committee.
“Statewide, 75% of voters support an assessment limit, while only 13% oppose it,” Trabert said in written testimony. “There is robust support across all geographic areas of the state and all self-identified political viewpoints. Voter support isn’t just strong — it is skyrocketing.”
According to Trabert, homeowners in 52 of the state’s 105 counties have been hit with property tax increases above the 26% state average because local officials took advantage of valuation spikes.
In oral testimony, Trabert noted that from 1997 to 2024, “residential property went from paying 39% of the tax burden to 55% and ironically, everyone else went down.”
The share borne by commercial and industrial real estate increased by four percentage points, but machinery and equipment dropped by eight points, for a net burden decline of four points.
Moreover, he said, there are 10 counties in the state where property taxes rose by more than 45% over three years.
“Who got a 45% increase in their income?” he said. “This is just not affordable. It’s not even about ‘can we pretend that all the assessed values are accurate,’ we know they’re not, because we know that half, at least, of the [Board of Tax Appeals] cases get overturned in favor of the taxpayer, but let’s pretend that they’re all accurate. This isn’t affordable. That’s what this really is. It is an affordability issue.”
Part of the amendment includes language that allows those assessments to be “transferred” to new owners. In other words, someone buying a home would not be taxed on the purchase price of the home, but on the previous owner’s taxable assessed value.
Some senators focus on how the assessment limit benefits taxpayers, others on being fair to local government
At Wednesday’s session of the Senate, Republican Senator Craig Bowser spoke in favor of the assessment limit.
“Property taxes are not just numbers on a statement,” he said. “They’re grocery money, they’re car payments, they’re retirement savings, and they’re the difference between potentially staying in your home or being forced to sell.
“Over the past several years, many Kansans have seen their property valuations rise sharply, even when local tax rates remain steady. Higher valuations means higher tax bills for homeowners on fixed incomes, for families, for young families trying to build a life, and for farmers and ranchers whose incomes fluctuate with markets and weather, this unpredictability creates real financial strain.”
Senate Minority Whip Cindy Holsher suggested that capping assessments would somehow shift the tax burden to car owners from property owners and starve local governments for funds.
“The dominant amount of funds for local government comes from property tax,” Holscher said. “So if we are putting a limit or a cap, funds have to come from somewhere else, and essentially we have to take into consideration that services for local police departments, local roads, those costs aren’t going to decrease or disappear, so the funds have to come from somewhere else.
“And according to some data runs, if you put a 3% valuation cap, such as what we’re talking about here, within two to three years, typically, automobile taxes go up by as much as 27% because you got to come up with the funds from somewhere to pay for those services in the local communities. Now, what does that amount to if we break that down, 64% of adults typically own homes in Kansas, 74% own vehicles. We’re effectively switching and removing the burden from property owners to car owners, some of whom don’t own property.”
Republican Senator Caryn Tyson responded, for the record, that the assessment limit would not put a cap on valuations, but rather on assessments.
“This does not impact valuations,” Tyson said. “I will say that again and again and again. It does not impact valuations. This is a limit, a cap, on the assessment value.”
Holscher responded, saying that “legislation like this limits the ability to raise … property taxes, and again, the cost of roads, schools, highways, police departments isn’t going away. So the burden of coming up with that money is going to have to come from somewhere.”
Trabert says Holscher is making false arguments. SCR 1616 doesn’t limit local governments’ ability to raise taxes and fund services. It’s just an assessment limit that protects taxpayers from unaffordable property tax hikes. He says her claim on automobile taxes is inaccurate, as cars are taxed at the same mill rate as real estate.
Holscher went on to say, “If this body were serious about lowering property taxes, one of the very basic first steps we could take is fully funding our schools, both general education and special education, because when we fail to fulfill that obligation, the burden of that responsibility falls to the local level.”
However, schools have been fully funded under the Gannon decision since 2019, and the Legislature funds schools based on a formula that’s mostly driven by enrollment. The amount of state funding each district receives is not determined by the amount of property taxes collected.
Moreover, SCR 1616 is a resolution that would put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.
The assessment limit now goes to the Kansas House of Representatives for further action.
