Sedgwick County property tax rollback appears unlikely

There are a lot of things in the 806 page recommended Sedgwick County budget for next year.

But a majority of county commissioners say a proposed property tax decrease won’t be one of them in the budget’s final version.

Instead, they are hoping to keep taxes level with this year’s rates. The money they gain by not cutting taxes could instead wind up going to a number of organizations and programs facing cuts in the recommended budget.

While Chairman Richard Ranzau and commissioner Karl Peterjohn wanted to slightly lower taxes, the budget process is moving forward without a rollback in taxes.

“That (tax reduction) is not part of the plan at this point,” commissioner Jim Howell said at Wednesday’s budget public hearing.

The recommended budget released last week included a $512,094 rollback of county property taxes. That would have amounted to $1.37 in tax savings per year for the owner of a $100,000 home.

Last week, the commission capped how much revenue from property taxes can go into the 2016 budget. That $130.1 million amount theoretically gave the commission options to keep rates level or lower them slightly. The state-mandated cap prevents tax increases without more public notice or feedback.

But, by this week, Howell told county residents at the hearing that a majority of county commissioners want to keep property taxes level with last year. He joined commissioners Dave Unruh and Tim Norton last week in voting for the ceiling without the rollback in taxes.

Commissioner Karl Peterjohn and Chairman Richard Ranzau wanted to reduce the mill levy to the 2010 rate. Now they say the question becomes how that half million dollars will be spent in the final budget.

“There is support to do what Jim did in that previous meeting,” said Ranzau, referring to the budget ceiling approved last Wednesday.

Peterjohn said he was concerned that the mill levy, and thus property taxes, could rise slightly.

“Four out of five years, the mill levy creeps up,” Peterjohn said.

The county’s mill levy can fluctuate after the budget is approved because property owners can continue to appeal the assessed value of their property into the fall.

“By the time they get around to actually making that (mill levy) calculation, there have been adjustments in the assessed valuation,” Howell said.

Howell said the county should take those tweaks into account and make sure the tax rate remains flat with this year.

“I think we need to be vigilant to not let that happen in the future but I’m not concerned about rolling it back,” Howell said.

The mill levy rate for 2015 was 29.478 mills, which means the owner of a $100,000 home paid $399 in Sedgwick County property taxes.

The tax revenue could provide some hope for the organizations that saw proposed cuts in their funding for next year.

Supporters and representatives of the Wichita Arts Council, the South Central Kansas Economic Development District, Wichita Area Technical College, the Sedgwick County Zoo, Exploration Place, the Kansas School of Effective Learning and various other nonprofits spoke to county commissioners on Wednesday about the proposed cuts in planned spending.

Doctors and medical students also told county commissioners to restore potential cuts to the county’s public health department.

Commissioner Dave Unruh, an opponent of the cuts, says this is a start.

“Recapturing that intended cut goes a long way toward relieving the pain some of these community organizations felt,” Unruh said.

Unruh said it is unwise to deliberately cut the county’s revenue from property taxes.

“It’s unnecessary,” Unruh said. “It puts too much strain on our community partners and health programs.”

But Unruh said it will be difficult to spread that tax revenue, about $512,000, to cover the full extent of the recommended cuts in the budget. For example, cultural and recreation groups alone would lose $514,086 in county funding they had expected for next year. The county proposed $780,000 in cuts to its public health department.

“It ought to first go to our health department,” Unruh said.

Commissioner Tim Norton said he knows a lot of the affected organizations very well.

“I’m not ready to defund them or eliminate their funding,” Norton said.

It’s still up in the air who could stand to benefit from the restored tax revenue without a rollback, Peterjohn said.

“The commission majority is going to have to budget that,” Peterjohn said. “Where it goes, time will tell.”

The second public hearing is Aug. 6. The final budget will be adopted Aug. 12.

This story was originally published July 30, 2015 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Sedgwick County property tax rollback appears unlikely."