Blog Archives

t-n-t and budget notice

8/12/2021

At its August 10th regular meeting the St. Marys City Commission approved the publication of the "Notice of hearing to exceed revenue neutral rate and budget hearing." So in addition to the regular budget hearing there will be a so-called truth-in-taxation (TNT) hearing. This is required because the new budget law prevents a municipality from levying more dollars than was levied the previous year, without taking steps to alert the public and offer an opportunity to comment on the proposed increase.

The TNT hearing is first, and if the city commission were to decide to tax more than it did the last year it would have to conduct the hearing and then adopt a resolution declaring such. Regardless, after the TNT hearing is closed, the regular budget hearing is conducted - which gives the public an opportunity to comment on the expenditure of all the funds - not just a proposed increase.

The notice/image below is for the city's 2022 Budget, and it will be published in the August 19th edition of the The Times-St. Marys pages. (You may need to click on the image below to make it legible.)

Spoiler Alert: the most likely scenario is that the total dollars taxed will not be increased from last year, since the current year's sales tax revenues have been coming in higher than the budget numbers. So why publish a notice that indicates that there is the potential to increase taxes? That answer lies in the new budget law...since the proposed revenue neutral rate, which is expressed as a mill levy, is tied to the city's assessed valuation. And from time-to-time property owners successfully challenge their property's assessed valuation and doing so would lower the property's assessed valuation and thus simultaneously lower the estimated revenue collected by the city from said property taxes. (Once published, the city may only decrease its budgeted numbers.)

The city's final mill levy has always been set by the county - as the city commission was only required to submit a levy amount ($) to the county by August 25th and they would then calculate the actual mill levy based upon the final assessed valuation.

(The new budget law also requires the hearing notice to be posted on the municipality's website - assuming they have one.) In Kansas, "Municipality" means and includes county, township, city, school district of whatever name or nature, community junior college, municipal university, city, county or district hospital, drainage district, cemetery district, fire district, and other political subdivision or taxing unit, and including their boards, bureaus, commissions, committees and other agencies, such as, but not limited to, library board, park board, recreation commission, hospital board of trustees having power to create indebtedness and make payment of the same independently of the parent unit. (K.S.A. 12-105a)