Commissioners discuss concerns with tax lid bill with Rep. Hutchins
The Jackson County Commissioners continue to be concerned with a proposed “tax lid” bill as Kansas lawmakers return to work at Topeka on Wednesday.
The commissioners and Jackson County Clerk Kathy Mick were able to express some fears associated with that proposed bill to 61st District Representative Becky Hutchins, who visited with the commissioners at their meeting on Monday afternoon.
In March, the Kansas Senate approved a bill with a 24-16 vote to accelerate a cap on city and county property tax increases. The bill would move up the implementation date of the tax lid from 2018 to 2017.
The lid, which originally passed last session, would require a public vote to approve any property tax increase above the “rate of inflation” or “Consumer Price Index.”
Rep. Hutchins said she doesn’t serve on any of the committees that are focused on the tax lid bill and doesn’t know too many specifics on the progress of the bill, so far.
“The old bill had a lot of things wrong with it,” Hutchins said. “They have a group from the Kansas Association of Counties and the Kansas Association of Realtors that are trying to duke it out, to create some kind of framework that they can all live with.”
Jackson County Clerk Kathy Mick recently attended a statewide county clerk meeting where the bill and its ramifications were discussed.
Mick said it would be impossible to meet the election and budgetary deadlines set by the state if the bill were to be passed and take effect.
“At that meeting, as far as county clerks are concerned, we would rather not have this current bill pass, and just deal with it next year,” Mick said.
Hutchins said she’s also in favor of putting the tax lid bill off until next session.
“Quite frankly, we have bigger fish to fry right now than this bill, like balancing the budget,” Hutchins said.
Mick said if the county would try to get a property tax question on an August ballot, the county would have to move its budgetary process up by two months.
“We’d have to make the budgets without an audit and without knowing what the values were going to be,” she said. “We normally do budgets halfway through the year, and we know what’s coming.”
Hutchins said that a tax lid bill hasn’t been presented on the House floor yet.
Besides moving the start-up date for the tax lid bill from 2018 to 2017, the Senate bill also would remove numerous exemptions from the original amendment, it was reported, such as allowing local governments not to have a public vote when additional funds are needed for infrastructure and federal or state mandates.
Hutchins said that since the bill has passed the Senate already, it is “conferenceable,” which means it can be rolled into another bill.
The commissioners said they are concerned that the tax lid bill could be bundled into a budget bill with several other proposed laws and passed by lawmakers who are concerned with passing the budget by any means.
“The county’s CPI last year was $117,000, and we have a budget of $12 million,” Mick said. “Jackson County is proud to say that we are not in debt, but if this goes into effect, they would be crazy if they didn’t go into debt next year for machinery and everything else.”
Commissioner Rob Ladner said that, with the tax lid bill, the county would have to have an election to buy equipment or to raise wages for county employees.
“No one is going to vote yes to raise taxes,” Mick said. “It’ll take three elections or so for people to realize that they don’t have any more rock on their road or that a different service got cut.”
The commissioners said that they wanted Hutchins to be aware of all the ramifications that come with the proposed tax lid bill before the session resumes.
