The Unified Government Commission voted to adopt the UG administrator’s recommended maximum mill levy at a UG budget workshop on Monday, July 10.
The UG Commission voted to establish the maximum mill levy at 39.875 mills for Kansas City, Kansas, and 38.813 for Wyandotte County. The city mill rate is 2 mills lower than last year, while the county mill rate is the same as last year. The commission may decide to reduce the mill levy further, but it cannot increase it more than this amount, according to UG officials.
The vote was 9-1 with Commissioner Hal Walker voting against the city mill levy, and the vote was 10-0 in favor of the county mill levy.
While the city mill levy would go down 2 mills, for many residents, the assessed valuation is going up this year.
Commissioner Walker said, “I am not satisfied with a 2-mill reduction. I understand that this is a maximum mill levy, and that we can always reduce it.
“My opinion is that we need to send a message that we’re going to reduce it. The people in this community deserve tax reduction. They’ve been promised it for I don’t know how many years,” he said. “To my way of thinking, we have more revenue than we’ve had the previous year, with a 2-mill reduction.”
Commissioner Walker said the UG is spending more money than in previous years, and reducing the tax rate by 2 mills, which for most people is an insignificant amount.
He proposed a maximum mill levy of 7 mills lower than last year, and a county reduction of 1 mill.
People “just got clobbered by the state with higher income taxes,” he said. “The bottom line is, people are still going to end up paying more.”
However, Walker’s motion died for lack of a second.
Mayor Mark Holland advised walking through the budget, and that there are 2 percent raises in the budget for employees. Personnel costs make up 80 percent of the budget, he said. There is almost $4 million in increases in additional health insurance that the UG has no control over, he said.
He said the staff’s cost-of-living increase is desperately needed. That increase, plus the health insurance, is almost 7 mills, he added. The UG’s departments have already been asked to take a 2.5 percent decrease, he said.
If the commission decides to reduce staffing significantly, It needs to be done over the course of budget sessions and not Monday night, he said. If the UG couldn’t meet a 7-mill reduction goal, but set that as the maximum mill levy, it would have to republish the budget, he added. The wise move, he said, would be to adopt the administrator’s recommended mill levy, and there are a few weeks for the UG Commission to address how and where an additional 5 mills could be removed, if that’s what the commission wants to do.
The consensus of the commission seemed to be to encourage more economic development in order to increase the tax base and lower taxes, while looking at the budget to see if there are any areas where savings might be found.
The city mill levy was reduced by 2 mills last year and is proposed to be reduced 2 mills this year.
UG officials at Monday’s meeting also answered Commission Jim Walters’ earlier question about how many residents are seeing increases in their assessed valuations this year.
Mayor Holland said the citizen survey and listening tour responses wanted property taxes reduced using about a third of the windfall from the STAR bond payoff, and that is the amount recommended for the property tax decrease.
According to Joe Connor, assistant UG administrator, 25 percent of the residential taxpayers had no change to negative changes in their valuations this year.
Seventy-five percent of the residents had an increase in the value of their homes, he said.
About 45 percent of the residents will see no change in their tax bill this year or a decrease because of the change in the home value, Connor said. That applies to the city portion of the property tax bill.
UG officials said the valuations are set by the appraiser and based on the market, and with home sales prices across the community going up, the valuation rise is reflecting it. Other counties also are experiencing increases in valuation, according to officials.
There were many other budget questions answered at the Monday night meeting, which is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESz-BndFVxU.
The Unified Government Commission has scheduled a budget workshop at 5 p.m. Thursday, July 13, in the fifth floor conference room, City Hall, 701 N. 7th St., Kansas City, Kansas.
A public hearing on the budget is scheduled at 5 p.m. Monday, July 24, in the Commission Chamber, lobby level, City Hall, 701 N. 7th St. The UG budget is scheduled to be adopted at the Thursday, July 27, UG meeting.