Editor’s note: Many residents did not say their name before speaking or did not spell their name for the paper.
Over 30 residents showed up to Oskaloosa City Hall and voiced their complaints to the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners during the budget hearing Monday, Aug 29.
Despite the objections over increasing the budget from members of the crowd, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the budget at the end of the hearing. Commissioner David Christy said the county could not operate otherwise.
Many residents expressed dismay at how their property values increased so much in one year. A crowd member who identified themselves as a developer and investor threatened to pull out of the county to a different one if taxes did not become more affordable.
In one exchange, Terry Bellinger, Oskaloosa, told the commissioners that they were not following a state law to have a revenue neutral budget, forcing them to hold a hearing.
“You don’t want to keep a revenue neutral rate; you want to increase the levy of tax on real estate. The increase you’re making in the budget is all coming 100% from real estate. So, I don’t think that’s fair.”
Christy asked Bellinger how else could the county raise funds.
Bellinger replied that it was the commission’s job to find the answer.
Christy said the commission did look into the funding sources, and real estate taxes were the only option for the commission.
Commissioner Richard Malm said, “If you’re talking about real estate being the only thing we tax anymore, that is correct.” Malm said the state took away other funding sources, such as boats.
Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2012 to allow the state legislature to alter boat tax rates since many tax rates are set in the Kansas Constitution. As a result, the state legislature passed a law bringing down boat tax rates from 30% of assessed value to 5%.
According to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, the tax burden on a boat assessed at $30,000 went from $9,000 to $1,000.
Malm said Jefferson County lost around $800,000 as a result of the amendment and subsequent laws passed by the state of Kansas.
County Attorney Joshua Ney said the constitutional amendment hit counties with reservoir lakes especially hard.
Jefferson County also lost over half a million dollars in revenue after bankers and realtors lobbied the state to alter how deeds are filed, Malm said.
“So, the state has forced us to work the only thing we have to tax left, real estate,” Malm said.
Ney told the crowd that the three forms of tax that come up in every hearing are property tax, sales tax, and income tax. The property tax is the most local tax for funding local government and the sales tax going to the county is capped at 1% of the 7.5% customers pay. Sales tax can only be raised beyond that 1% for things listed in Kansas law, like a new jail.
“The income tax, well, obviously goes straight to the state and the state in their benevolence will spend money on local governments,” he said
The county also gets some money from fees and court costs, he added.
“Frankly, that state statute puts local governments in the unenviable position of having to rely on real estate,” Ney said.
As for why people’s property values and tax bill change every year, Ney said Kansas switched to uniform appraisal in the 1970s so that people who paid less than market value for property would pay the same taxes as everyone else.
“That’s where the perceived or real inequity comes in. Especially for those who are on fixed incomes,” Ney said.
Jefferson County appraiser Janet Allen said residents have 30 days to appeal their property assessment after they receive their evaluation in March. “All you have to do is call into our office. We are more than happy to visit with you over the phone.
County Appraisers in the state of Kansas do mass appraisals so the property value is based only on what is visible from the outside, Allen said.
“So, we’re under the assumption that if it is really taken care of on the outside, chances are pretty good that it is taken care of on the inside as well. But we have no way of knowing that for sure,” Allen continued.
Allen said there is another chance to appeal property value assessments if a resident files a payment in protest form at the treasurer’s office in the courthouse.
Joshua Ney, the Jefferson County Attorney, said if a resident does appeal, the burden of proof is on the county to show that the property value assessment is correct. Though the resident is responsible for any counterevidence to the assessment.
After multiple residents in the crowd voiced complaints that their paychecks have not gone up but their property values and tax bills have, Allen said the state of Kansas sets guidelines for how property values are assessed and taxed. The residential property tax rate is 11.5%, commercial is 25%, and vacant lots are 12%. The tax assessment rate is then multiplied by the mill levy to get the actual tax dollar amount, Allen said.
“It all comes back to your personal mill levy too, and you’ve got to remember there’s more than just the county involved in the mill levy. There is also different entities within your tax interest,” Allen said.
Mary Luse, Winchester, said she personally has not been successful with challenging her property values at the county level. “You have to hit this at the state level, you have got to get the state [to act],” she said.
“People need to give their ideas and complaints on taxes to state legislators because the county commission needs to afford services residents need,” Luse said. “We need the Sheriff’s Department.”
The residents in attendance had many complaints and anecdotes about county employees taking breaks during construction projects or not being as efficient as they could be.
Two crowd members alleged that the county was over-hiring people and that the head count was spiraling out of control.
According to the Internet Archive’s record of the Jefferson County website, the total number of full-time and part-time employees in 2018 was 195. Since then, the number of people employed by the county has only increased by 18. The department with the most employees is the Sheriff’s Department.
Another crowd member expressed that the increase in the budget for county employees was not justified and that the commission should pay them less instead.
“That’s why we’re losing them,” Commissioner Christy said. “They’re going to places like Lawrence and Leavenworth who pay one heck of a lot more than we can pay them. We’re losing our right leg. We’re losing our nurses our losing road and bridge people constantly. We can’t keep up.”
Multiple crowd members said that the increase in revenue itself was not justified.
Christy said that the county had to increase revenue to pay for gasoline, rock for roads, and everything else that has gone up with inflation.
After a crowd member interrupted Christy by yelling that everyone was paying for inflation, Malm asked, “We can take it back to revenue neutral. But tell us, which of the essential services you want us to eliminate? Want the Sheriff’s Department way down? Are you wanting Road and Bridge down? What do you want us to cut?”
The crowed member shouted that he’ll go through the county budget and figure something out.
“We already have looked at it,” Christy said.
A crowd member named Jeff Lyson said Jefferson County has been giving out massive tax breaks to businesses.
In response, Commissioner Lynn Luck said the allegation is not true and that Jefferson County does not get many businesses at all unless they already have ties to the county.
A different member of the crowd told Luck that there are no businesses in the county because of the property taxes.
“You know, from what I’ve been reading, Douglas County taxes, the mill levy, is going up more than Jefferson,” Luck said. “You would pay more right now for your house if you lived in Douglas County.”
Ney said businesses also pay for their use of public services, such as roads. “That’s part of the conditional use permit process,” he said.
Ney invited everyone in the meeting to come to county commission meetings every week where decisions, such the terms of conditional use permits, are made.
“So I’m not saying that these are not valid concerns,” Ney said. “They’re exactly the concerns that I think all of us as citizens should have. But it happens on a week-to-week basis.”
Another point brought up by Bellinger was why has Jefferson County gone almost 100 years without the township system, and other counties have kept it?
“Well, basically because maintenance wasn’t being done,” Christy said.
Luse disagreed and said the township system would be more expensive because every town would have to have its own fleet of vehicles.
Bellinger said the county should look into going back to the township system.
“So then if you live in a township, you have to pay for what you’re using in a township. You don’t have to pay for what somebody else is using in their township. Now we’re paying for what everybody’s using in every township,” Bellinger said.
In response, Malm said, “I was gonna say if you want to go back to the township system, go look at Atchison County, Nemaha County, and Marshall County. That’s the three you named with their township roads. If you think our roads are bad, go look at their township roads.”
Crowd members were also upset that out-of-county drivers for mail or Amazon deliveries were not paying more for their use of gravel roads.
Ney said taxing out-of-county drivers more would violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
“We can’t put a poll up at the county and say, ‘Are you from out of county or in county’ and charge out-of-county people more,” he said.
Near the end of the meeting, Dan Smoley raised his property tax letter in the air and said, “This is Biden economics.”
The way property values are assessed is controlled by the Kansas state government’s legislature and the Kansas Constitution.
The Republican Party has a super majority of seats in both the Kansas House and Senate. Giving the Republican Party near full control of tax policy as Republican legislators can override Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s vetoes.
Eventually, crowd members voiced that nothing would change and left the building before the end of the hearing.
By the time the budget was approved, fewer than five people remained in attendance.