By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Tax season has arrived as local taxing entities begin to finalize budgets for 2023. But the new budget season has its own special kink: Senate Bill 13 and revenue-neutral rates. A complicated issue is compounded by fluctuating property valuations, inflation, and mill levies. The Barton County Clerk's office recently sent out a mailer to virtually all county residents on the subject. Barton County Commission Chair Shawn Hutchinson simplified the matter: the county has no plans to raise taxes.
"So, from our perspective, we are going to remain revenue neutral," he said. "We aren't going to collect more in property tax dollars than we did last year; we'll collect slightly less. But we still have to send out a notice, thanks to the state, that says we intend to break revenue neutral just in case the valuation fluctuates a little bit and we end up with a dollar or two or 10 more, then we have to refund that money equitably to 26,000 residents in Barton County."
Per Senate Bill 13, taxing entities must express an intent to collect more taxes than they did a year ago. If an entity fails to express this intent and collects more dollars, that excess amount must be refunded to the taxpayers in that district. In other words, if Barton County collects just two more dollars than it did a year ago, and it did not express an intent to exceed revenue neutral, those two dollars must be divvied up to thousands of county residents: a lot of time and money for a check worth a few pennies.
Hutchinson said last year the commission was able to cut taxes for the first time in approximately 10 years. With fuel prices and the costs of goods up, the commission still has no plans to raise taxes, but the dollars are spread a little thinner.
"This year, we would have loved to reduce them more, but we got hit with double-digit inflation on a lot of things," he said. "Just our road oil for next year, if we would have budgeted for it today, would have cost us $575,000 more to do one-fourth of the county roads next year."
Based on the mailer required from the county clerk's office, taxpayers were notified that many taxing entities would exceed revenue-neutral rates, including most cities and school districts in the county. While some of those entities have no real intent to raise taxes, many do. And that's another reason the county is limiting its reach into the taxpayer pocketbook.
"All the other taxing entities have to operate a little bit more lean when there's another taxing entity because, if they didn't and we were all taxing the maximum we could, then people would be taxed out of their homes," Hutchinson said. "I'm not sure we're far from it."