Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday approved their 2027 budget, which lowers the property tax rate, but most taxpayers will still see tax increases because of valuation increases.
The mill levy, or property tax rate, will be 40.286 mills. That’s a reduction of .383 mills from last year’s budget. But property valuations countywide increased an average of 5% this year.
County commissioners engaged in more than 18 hours of budget hearings and deliberations over the span of a week and a half in July, in addition to other budget discussions throughout the year. They heard from dozens of people representing area organizations and county departments, then spent multiple mornings coming to final determinations about various requests.
The average sale price of a home in Lawrence over the past two years is about $325,000, according to a housing study the city has in progress. The owner of a home valued at $325,000 will owe the county about $1,506 in property taxes in 2027.
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County property taxes represent about one-third of the total that Lawrence property owners pay, as they also pay taxes to the city, school district and state.
Wednesday’s meeting agenda broke the budget up into a few public hearing items and commission actions. Some of those items were “revenue neutral rate” hearings.
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The revenue neutral rate was codified into state law (KSA 79-2988) by the Kansas Legislature in 2021. It creates additional steps for any taxing entity that does not lower its property tax rates enough to offset increased property valuations. Governments already held public hearings on their proposed budgets, but now they hold two formal public hearings if their revenue is going to increase by 1 cent over the previous year. Locally, the hearings are typically held back to back during the same meetings, and they frequently receive much fewer public comments than budget discussions held earlier in the process.
Following the first public hearing in which a few members of the public did discourage the commission from exceeding the revenue neutral rate, Commissioners Gene Dorsey and Erica Anderson voted against the required resolution to exceed the revenue neutral rate. The resolution passed with a 3-2 vote. Neither voiced reasoning ahead of their votes.
Commissioners then held a discussion before voting separately on the overall 2027 budget and capital improvement plan.
Commissioner Patrick Kelly said he was disappointed in the results of the vote on exceeding the revenue neutral rate.
“I think that is politically popular — to make sure that we do not increase taxes,” he said. “We’ve heard public comment about that, and now we’re going to vote on a budget that we spent over two weeks working on together. We even discussed what it would take to reach revenue neutral.”
Anderson said she thinks the commission needs to pause, look at how they’re measuring, and consider their standards around the things they are funding.
“I think we have opportunities to not exceed revenue neutral, but I am going to vote for the budget because there are many different areas within the budget that I absolutely support, but I don’t necessarily support exceeding revenue neutral,” she said.
Dorsey, who lost his bid for reelection earlier this month, said that “I think we could fund the budget as presented and still be revenue neutral.”
County Administrator Sarah Plinsky said the county would need to cut $3.9 million from the budget in order to be revenue neutral.
Dorsey listed several suggestions and his estimates for how much money the county could save for each of them. He did say he planned to vote for the budget anyway.
Commissioner Karen Willey told those in attendance that they could refer back to the hours of recordings from the July budget hearings to listen to the commission’s discussions of the items Dorsey had listed on Wednesday and more.
“I thought it was a very healthy process,” Willey said. “Nobody got what they wanted. That’s how it works.”
Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve the $199.6 million budget for 2027, as well as exceeding the revenue neutral rate for Consolidated Fire District No. 1 and the fire district’s budget.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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