The Leavenworth County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to raise property tax by 5%, or about $2 million, for the coming year, but blamed the state legislature and the federal government for their inaction to curb rising property taxes.
Commissioner Vanessa Reid was the lone “No” vote, while Chairman Mike Smith joined his colleagues Jeff Culbertson, Mike Stieben, and Willie Dove in approving the tax hike.
Basehor homeowner Sharon Plum echoed the opinion of speakers who followed her to the podium as she addressed the commissioners in the Public Comment part of the meeting:
“We have paid more in real estate taxes since we built our house in 1997 than what it cost us to build it. Over the last 10 years, our appraised value has increased by more than $200,000, and our taxes have also doubled. So I’m asking, why do you need more money? Increase in the valuation and the rise in the taxes that we’ve paid should have been ample to run the county.
“I think it’s safe to say that everyone here has had their taxes go up, too. We, the people, cannot sustain this doubling of our taxes every 10 years. It has to stop! We can’t do that. So you guys need to figure out how to pay the county’s expenses or what expenses are really necessary and what are just “wants”, with the money that you’ve already collected, rather than raise our taxes. Figure out how to live within the constraints of the money you’ve collected.”
As the Sentinel previously reported, Leavenworth County Commissioners had multiple options to avoid a tax increase, but they chose to do it anyway. Instead, the majority of commissioners blamed other people for the unnecessary tax increase.
The discussion among the commissioners begins here at the 31:30 mark.
Leavenworth County Commissioners’ excuses and deflections don’t help taxpayers
Culbertson led off by claiming that budget cuts in recent years have left the county underfunded by about 30% (while providing no documentation to support his claim), then spoke about the main issue shared by Leavenworth and a handful of Kansas counties:
“Leavenworth County is about 56% property tax exempt. Only about 44% of you pay all the bills. That in itself, has you paying twice as much as you should be paying.
“Fort Leavenworth, federal prisons, state prisons, church-owned properties and schools add up to over $3 billion in valuation that is all property tax exempt. They don’t pay any property tax to maintain our roads and bridges, blade our snow, replace worn-out equipment, use our ambulance, police, fire, mutual aid; they use it all, but you and I pay for it.”
Dave Trabert, CEO of Kansas Policy Institute and the Sentinel, adds perspective to Culbertson’s statement:
“The county’s mill rate would be lower if all property were taxed, but that doesn’t excuse excessive spending. Leavenworth County spending in the funds that receive property tax revenue is 98% higher in the proposed budget than was spent in 2014; that is more than double the combined change in inflation and population. It also doesn’t excuse raising property tax while holding unnecessary cash reserves.
“It also doesn’t excuse raising property tax more than four times the combined rates of inflation and population since 1997.
Culbertson also made recommendations to solve the budget and property tax issues the county faces:
- PILOT. Payment in Lieu of Taxes. Payments made by the federal government to counties with substantial federal government facilities. Currently, counties with Department of Defense installations do not receive PILOT money; the feds reason that the number of jobs provided from those installations provide sufficient tax base for county budgets.
- Allow counties to use sales and income taxes to supplement property taxes in financing local governments. That would require state government authority.
- LAVTR. Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction. The state provides sales tax revenue to counties to reduce property taxes. In Kansas that program hasn’t been funded since 2003, and in 2024 the Kansas Legislature eliminated the fund.
- End Unfunded Mandates. The commissioner called for an end to the mandates issued by the state legislature without the funding to pay for them.
- Eliminate Property Tax Exemptions for Projects. The most recent project receiving the exemption was the Panasonic battery plant in DeSoto.
Commissioner Mike Stieben noted that only about 25% of the total property tax paid in the county is for county operations, and the rest is for schools, cities, and other taxing authorities. Stieben also called for a cap on the increase of property tax assessments, noting 26 states have such a tax lid. The Kansas Senate passed a constitutional amendment this year for such a cap, but the House failed to do so.
The commissioners will vote to adopt the 2025-26 budget on September 8th. The meeting is open to the public.
