The Kansas House came up short again Thursday in trying to pass a constitutional amendment that would limit rising property values.
The House voted 69-54 to pass a constitutional amendment, short of the 84, or two-thirds, votes needed for passage.
The amendment, if approved by voters, would have given the Legislature the power to impose property value limits in an effort to hold down property taxes.
The vote came hours after a newly formed conference committee that included House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson agreed on a new approach to limiting property values in an effort to keep property taxes in check.
The amendment considered Thursday would have allowed the Legislature to limit property value increases by law.
The amendment also would have allowed the Legislature to impose property value limits for any class or subclasses of property.
If approved by the Legislature, it would have gone on the ballot this November.
This was at least the third time this session that the House has taken a stab at passing a constitutional amendment limiting property value increases and failed.
It was unclear if lawmakers would take another shot at limiting property taxes before they adjourn for the year, possibly before Saturday.
A spokesman for the speaker didn’t immediately comment after the vote.
“There’s never anything perfect at all in what we do here,” Hawkins said during the floor debate in the House late Thursday afternoon.
“You can find a reason to vote against anything,” he said. “But we all have a reason this year to get something started on tax reform. People expect us to get tax reform done.”
Hawkins pitched the idea to the House as a simple approach to address property taxes.
“This is probably as simple as you can get,” he said.
A constitutional amendment that already passed the Senate and failed to get anywhere in the House would have capped the taxable assessed property value at 3% with several limited exceptions, including new construction or improvements.
For tax year 2027, the final taxable assessed value of the property would not have increased by more than 3% compared to the assessed value of the property for 2022.
Before the House adjourned its regular session on March 27, it failed to pass an agreement on a constitutional amendment that would have capped assessed values at 9% or less compared to the assessed value for property in 2024.
The proposal would have gone on the ballot this Aug. 4. It would have started in 2027.
On Thursday morning, Hawkins proposed a constitution amendment with “simplified language” that would have allowed the Legislature to address property taxes on a global level.
“We have voted on this many times. It still amounts to a valuation cap,” said Democratic state Rep. Tom Sawyer of Wichita, the ranking minority member on the House tax committee.
“Valuation caps are not good. Artificial caps are not the way to go,” Sawyer said. “We voted this down many time. I think we need to keep doing it.”
Sawyer said holding down property valuations only leads local governments to raise tax rates so they can offset the loss of rising property values.
He said some people might enjoy a tax cut with a cap, but others are going to see a tax increase. “It’s very unfair.”
The latest amendment proposed by Republican leaders, he said, would lead the Legislature to undo uniformity in how property is appraised.
“This isn’t really a property tax cut, it’s kind of fool’s gold,” Sawyer said.
“Some people’s taxes will go up, some will go down. It’s creates inequities over time,” he said. “It makes our tax system more unfair.”
The Legislature has another bill in the wings, one similar to legislation that Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed Wednesday.
The bill that Kelly vetoed set up a process where voters could sign a protest petition when local governments, including schools, spend more than they did a year earlier plus the Midwest consumer price index up to 3% more, whichever was less.
Typically, protest petitions are used to initiate elections. This type of protest petition would veto a local government budget outright if it’s signed by enough voters.
The bill allowed for a protest petition if it’s signed by at least 10% of the registered voters as of Jan. 1 in the taxing jurisdiction where the protest petition was filed.
On Thursday morning, House and Senate leaders agreed to revisit the bill that Kelly vetoed but would include some exceptions to the revenue limits that the House had wanted.
They generally agreed to exempt debt service payments on bonds, revenue from property that’s annexed, and the expiration of tax breaks when the property returns to the tax rolls.
They also agreed to set the threshold for a protest petition at 10% of the voters who cast a ballot in the last election for secretary of state.
The bill also would exempt school districts from the revenue limits.
“It’s not exactly the direction we want to go, however, we wanted to make progress so we accept,” Masterson said.
The exception for bond issues comes at a time when some cities and school districts are struggling to issue bonds because of the bill that Kelly vetoed.
Already, a school district and two cities in south-central Kansas have delayed plans to issue bonds after the bill Kelly vetoed Wednesday passed March 27.
There are believed to be 25 school districts and local governments that are now working on bond issues that could have been affected by the bill.
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