12/01/2025
Property Tax Statements hit mailboxes this week. A few quick clarifications to common questions I receive this time of year — with some added commentary!
➡️ The County Treasurer sends out the bill on behalf of all taxing jurisdictions. After collecting tax payments, the Treasurer distributes the revenues to each taxing jurisdiction. That does NOT mean that Sedgwick County Government is the sole property taxing authority. We only control the budget and mill levy rate for the County portion of your bill. As you can see, your bill is made up of several different taxing jurisdictions — mine has 11 total including State, County, Park Township, USD 266, etc, etc. The County makes up about 20% of your property tax bill.
➡️ Property Taxes fund large portions of local government functions like public safety, roads, and schools. For the County, property taxes represent between 45% of our revenues to perform these services. The rest of our budget is funded through fees for service, state grants and sales tax. If I were starting the system from scratch, this would NOT be how I would draw it up. I’m not a fan of property taxes for a lot of reasons, but I also understand that they are reliable, stable sources of revenue for local governments that perform core services.
➡️ My job as a County Commissioner is to find a balance between our ability to perform core services with the cost of the services. If we get out of balance either way, people’s lives are impacted — lack of resources means poor public service outcomes, and too high of taxation to fund government means people are financially limited. That principle isn’t hard to understand, but building a budget that finds that balance is no easy task and it’s a job we take very, very seriously at the County Commission.
And now here is the opinion that frustrates some of you…..
Increases in property taxes the last 5 years are hurting our working class families and our people on fixed incomes. It’s a fact. Inflation in housing values has led to increased taxes and insurances, and when you couple that with general inflation in goods and services, people really are stretched.
Inevitably, I am going to get people messaging me that I’m a tax zealot that wants to defund local government. That’s simply not true. Yes, the County has lowered mill levy 3 years in a row and has reduced our dependence on property tax revenues. You can look at the County line item on your bill and see the difference between 2024 and 2025 levy and % changed. Also, yes, the County has invested in our services, compensation, and workforce stability — and every metric we measure has improved. We did BOTH.
That’s leadership. We CAN modernize local government while finding that balance between property tax reliance and effective services we provide. I will continue pushing, alongside my colleagues, for lessening our dependence on property tax revenues so that our people can find relief. They need it.
If you have questions about property taxes… I’m happy to help!
