(The Sentinel) — What was probably the last attempt to put an assessment limit on the ballot this year to protect taxpayers from exorbitant, unaffordable valuation hikes failed yesterday, with 33 Democrats and 20 Republicans voting against it.
Those voting “No” did so for one of two reasons: they didn’t have enough time to understand the changes, or they sided with local government over taxpayers. They also effectively told taxpayers that they don’t deserve to vote on the proposed constitutional amendment.
House and Senate leaders negotiated a compromise Thursday morning, based on what they thought was needed to pass the House, which had to vote first: a constitutional amendment to authorize a future Legislature to “provide for valuation limits for any classes or subclasses of property.”
The Senate previously passed a 3% limit on taxable value increases, which the House rejected, while the House passed a rolling-average concept but provided no other details. Unable to resolve their differences between a fixed-rate limit and the rolling-average concept, House and Senate leaders believed that what is basically a permission slip for the next Legislature to work out the details would pass.
After all, 75% of voters want an assessment limit, so one might think that legislators would at least acknowledge their willingness to do something.
After the vote, some Republicans told me the rushed process didn’t allow enough time to understand the changes. House members were also bombarded by pressure from the Kansas Farm Bureau to reject any form of assessment limit, which may explain why some rural Republicans voted against their constituents’ wishes.
(For the record, the Kansas Deere Dealers Association says a lot of farmers are thanking them for fighting for an assessment limit, even though the Farm Bureau board is opposed.)
Legislators tend to vote against something they don’t completely understand, and some may have given the benefit of the doubt to the Farm Bureau. However, a growing number of Republicans and almost all Democrats consistently put the interests of school districts and other local governments ahead of taxpayers.
A lone House Democrat – Lynn Melton, representing northern Wyandotte County – voted for SCR 1603. Two Senate Democrats – David Haley, also from Wyandotte County, and Patrick Schmidt of Shawnee County – voted for the Senate’s 3% assessment limit.
The rest vocally opposed what Democratic voters want by a margin of 66-18.
It’s also noteworthy that two House Republicans, Rep. Allen Reavis and Rep. Lon Pishny, formed a bipartisan Local Government Caucus this year with about 40 members (the list isn’t published) to help fellow legislators understand “the unspoken impact state laws and regulations have on city and county governments,” according to the Kansas Reflector.
A few Republicans on the House Tax Committee regularly expressed concern about the impact of assessment limits and mill rate limits on the cities, counties, and school districts that caused the property tax crisis, with hardly a thought given to people being taxed out of their homes.
Their reasons may vary, but the message from those who voted “No” on allowing people to vote on whether to have an assessment limit is clear: taxpayers don’t deserve to vote on whether to allow legislators to create an assessment limit.
