By ALLEN DINKEL
City Manager, Junction City
We have all heard that taxes in Junction City are high. In fact, if you read comments on social media, you realize there are those who believe we have the highest taxes in the area, state and the "nation." Sometimes I think there are those that would say we have the highest taxes in the "world" or even perhaps the "universe." Of course, when we talk about taxes, most look at the property taxes that are paid.
I recently received the 2023 Edition of the Kansas Tax Rate & Fiscal Data that is published by the League of Kansas Municipalities. Call me a “Nerd” if you wish, but I wait for this publication each year to see what is happening with other local government units. This includes 625 cities, 105 counties, 286 Unified School Districts, and 19 Community Colleges. The publication shows the tax rates for the 2022 property taxes. Remember the 2002 property taxes fund the 2023 budgets. I will make mentions to the other units of local government, but I will mostly focus on cities. As City Manager I have some input for a City budget but not for others. Now, I know it is somewhat dangerous to compare cities for tax levies as we often don’t know the “Rest of the Story”. In other words, other cities did not have the debt issue this City has been moving through for the past 15 or so years, but there also may be a “Back Story” in other communities. Some cities have a municipal electric utility and profits supplement property taxes. However, it is good to know where one ranks, and we often have to defend ourselves from the believers that Junction City has the highest taxes ever levied.
So, to get started let me layout some ground work. A mill is 1/10% of each $1,000 of property taxes. Also, in Kansas homes are assessed at 11.5% of the property value set by the County Appraiser and business buildings are assessed at a 25% level. So, if your home is appraised at let’s say $200,000 it is assessed at $23,000. A business that is appraised at the same amount is assessed at the $50,000 mark. I won’t go into farmland assessments as that is a whole different ballgame. Now before you think that I am throwing the County Appraisers “Under the Bus” as they follow various rules and standards they are required to use. They don’t just pull numbers out of the air. Yes we can complain about our valuations, but there is nothing with your investment of property increases in value.
Since a mill is 1/10% of $1,000 you can simply divide the $23,000 by 1,000 and you will see that for each mill of a mill levy you will pay $23.00. For ease of math, let’s say that the mill levy is 150 mills. Multiply 150 by 23 and the property taxes owed would be $3,340 using this scenario.
Your property taxes in Junction City are a total of 4 sources. The State of Kansas levies a total of 1.5 mills for two building funds. The other 3 are the City, County, and the School District. However, in other cities in Kansas there are other taxing entities. In the nearby City of Abilene tax payers have a mill levy for a Cemetery District and some cities may have a mill levy for a District owned Hospital.
Then we have the 19 Community Colleges. They have a mill levy that is paid by tax payers in that district. We all know that Cloud County Community College has a campus here in Junction City. Since their main campus is in Concordia, the property owners in Cloud County paid a mill levy of 29.105 mills in their 2022 taxes. The $200,000 home I mentioned about would pay $699.42 more in property taxes. However, for us in Geary County that have the campus here, there are no property taxes paid for the Community College. Then we have Washburn University in Topeka for those property owners in that City. This is the only 4-year institution that receives local property taxes. Most of the 3.451 is used for capital outlay.
For the 2022 taxes the mill levy in Junction City was 48.311 mills. Manhattan levied 52.154 mills. Abilene to our west levied 50.162 mills. Newton, a city of about 4,000 less people than Junction City levies 70.383 mills. Liberal a city of our size in far Southwest Kansas levied 55.625 mills and the City of ElDorado about 80 miles south of here was at 58.664 mills. These latter 2 cities also have levies for Community Collegesas well.
Yes, there are cities of our size that have a lower mill levy. The lowest in our population range would be the City of Hays with 25.247 mills. Yes, there are small cities in this state with very low levies, but they don’t have a swimming pool or playgrounds or paved streets or many other things. I think you get it.
Yes, there are some cities with the city mill levy over 100 mills. Yes, you can argue that the value of their homes is less, so the total amount of taxes is different. However, that community has little chance of growth at this time.
We you can compare all we want, but it boils down to what is right for your given city. In my 34 years of City management, I have yet to figure out how to do more but do it with less dollars. I don’t think I will live long enough to ever do that.