The state of Kansas hamstrings its cities on property tax rates

Earlier this month, The Kansas City Star missed an opportunity to highlight failed state policies that restrict local control and starve funding for infrastructure. Its editorial board offered a compelling sleight of hand in an editorial about this year’s staggering Johnson County property assessments. Municipal governments, it implied, could just roll back their mill levy, and residents would not notice any difference.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

The Star’s editorial board failed to consider the property tax lid enacted by the Kansas Legislature in 2016. That measure severely restricts the ability of local government to respond to annual revenue fluctuations in a responsible way by efficiently adjusting property tax rates. Further, no mention was made of statewide revenue cuts under former Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration, which starved funding for infrastructure and left counties and cities to pick up the slack.

The city of Prairie Village, where we serve, experienced some of the highest assessment increases in Johnson County this year. In part, this is because Prairie Village is a wonderful place to live: beautiful parks and green space, friendly neighbors, good schools and close proximity to many other great attractions. Demand for Prairie Village homes is high.

This is also because our city runs lean, with sensible city leadership, careful spending of tax dollars, a balance of essential city services, infrastructure maintenance and smart growth. We do this with the second-lowest property tax rate among all cities of the first class in the state. We receive approximately 15 percent of our residents’ total property tax contributions.

But while Prairie Village runs lean, we sometimes run too lean. We have roads that need attention. Inspections require staff to ensure safe, code-compliant development. Parks require maintenance. Public safety demands a financial commitment to law enforcement resources.

Solutions to community challenges require smart planning. All of these require community resources, made ever more challenging by our state fiscal environment.

In good economic times, like now, it’s tempting to assume healthy revenue numbers will continue. However, sudden and surprising economic downturns happen — and when they do, city revenues plummet. If we cut our tax rates at every opportunity during good times, we may find ourselves in a dangerous budget crisis later. Because of the property tax lid imposed on us by Topeka, we’ll have no efficient way to address it.

The current situation serves as an example of why the state-mandated property tax lid is bad policy. That approach was purportedly intended to encourage lower property tax rates, but in practice it has the opposite effect. Cities across Kansas are now reluctant to lower their property tax rates, because they know they may not be able to adjust the rate up again in the future to address revenue shortfalls.

Prairie Village is our home, too. We do not like the staggering rate of property valuations any more than our neighbors. But the suggestion that local governments are where to look for the solution misses the larger context.

We are committed to efficient government in Prairie Village, and will spend taxpayer dollars carefully. We expect the county and schools to do the same. But we can only find ways of operating under the environment set for us by the State of Kansas.

This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 8:30 PM with the headline "The state of Kansas hamstrings its cities on property tax rates."