Wyandotte County property tax bills are rising this year. How much yours could be
Fourteen Wyandotte County institutions are asking residents to hand over more property tax dollars in the coming budget year, although they haven’t yet officially decided by how much.
All area taxing entities, or public organizations that residents pay property taxes to, had to submit by July 20 whether they planned to collect any additional property tax revenues in the year ahead than they did during the 2025 budget year.
Among them only three — the Kaw Valley Drainage District, Wolcott Drainage District and the Self-Supported Municipal Improvement District Advisory Board — opted not to collect higher taxes. The remaining are planning to increase how much they collect from property owners.
All taxing entities that chose to ask residents to pay a bit more also submitted the maximum rates they intend to levy in the coming year. Before they can adopt those rates, or anything below their caps, residents will have an opportunity to weigh in during a series of public hearings scheduled in August and September. The full schedule for those hearings will be attached to the bottom of this story.
And although it’s not guaranteed that every taxing entity will adopt its maximum rate, those rates do provide some sort of idea for what residents’ bills could look like.
Should all governmental bodies adopt their caps, KCK residents living within Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools with a $200,000 market-value home would be facing at least $4,000 property tax bills — paid to the Unified Government, local community college, libraries and the public schools system — in the 2026 fiscal year, according to The Star’s calculations based on Unified Government data.
How does the UG fit into this?
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas — the county’s largest taxing entity — collects property taxes from all residents in the county and city.
It is also responsible for sending out property tax bills on behalf of all area entities. So although several groups collect taxes, the Unified Government’s name will appear on the bill that residents have to pay off.
Bonner Springs and Edwardsville residents who live in Wyandotte County but not KCK pay property taxes to the UG on the county side but pay a city tax to their hometown.
Unified Government commissioners by a 7-3 vote earlier this month approved a recommendation to collect higher property taxes in the 2026 fiscal year on both the county and city sides.
Bringing in new revenues would both increase the Unified Government’s portion of residents’ property tax bills and funnel cash back into area services, like public safety, after the commission’s 2024 decision to freeze revenues. That decision made for a complicated 2025 budget year that resulted in sweeping cuts to public services.
The Unified Government capped its county rate at 36.459, meaning it plans to collect no more than about $95 million to finance the county. In the 2025 budget year, the Unified Government collected about $84 million. Without changing its current tax rate at all, the Unified Government would have made about $88 million due to increased home valuations.
On the city side, the Unified Government adopted a 37.462 mill levy cap, meaning it plans to collect no more than $185 million to pay for city services. Last year, the government collected about $178 million on the city side. If it had opted to keep its tax rate the same as what it was last year, the city would have collected about $1 million more due to increased property valuations.
County Administrator David Johnston has previously told Unified Government commissioners that staff will not recommend the board adopt that maximum tax rate, but rather a lower figure. He said having that value on the books allows the government to evaluate how much room it has in the budgeting process.
How do I calculate the tax bill on my home?
Residents may calculate their property tax bill by applying their tax, or mill, rate to their home’s assessed value. A mill equates to $1 taxable dollar per $1,000 property valuation.
This means that if a taxing district, like a public library, had a mill levy rate of 7, a person with an assessed value of $1,000 would have to pay that library $7.
Each taxing entity will set its mill rate going into the budget year, and each of those entities account for a portion of a resident’s property tax bill.
To calculate someone’s residential property tax bill, total up the mill levy rates that apply to you. Then, multiply that number by your assessed value. In Kansas, an assessed value is equal to 11.5% of a property’s market value. This means that if you have a $100,000 home you would multiply your mill levy by 11,500. If you have a $200,000 home, by 23,000; a $300,000 home, by 34,500.
After multiplying the assessed value and mill levy rate, divide the end product by $1,000. That will give you your annual property tax bill, said Matthew Willard, the Wyandotte County appraiser.
How much someone’s property tax bill costs depends on how many taxing districts overlap in the area they live, how high of tax rates those districts adopt on an annual basis and how much the home’s assessed value is.
In general, unless someone has a homestead exemption, the higher someone’s home value is, the more they have to pay taxes on.
People in recent years have faced higher bills, even when entities don’t increase their rates very much, due to climbing property valuations that have touched every part of Wyandotte County and elsewhere in the Kansas City metro.
