Each week during the 2023 Kansas legislative session, we will provide Shawnee Mission area lawmakers the opportunity to share their thoughts about what is happening in the state capitol.
Below is this week’s submission from Democratic Rep. Rui Xu of Kansas House District 25, covering the northeast corner of Johnson County, including Fairway, Mission Hills, Roeland Park, Westwood, Westwood Hills and parts of Mission and Prairie Village.
I’ve received several calls over the past several weeks as property appraisals have gone out about how concerned constituents are about high appraisals and how that will affect their ability to stay in their homes.
Unfortunately, this is mostly an effect of simple supply and demand.
In our area and in most of Johnson County, there are simply too few houses and too many interested buyers.
There are many reasons for this:
- Johnson County has a very high quality of life with incredible public schools, so there will always be people looking to move here.
- Housing construction slowed considerably after the 2008 financial crisis and has not gotten back to its previous levels.
- We’re seeing more institutional investors and LLCs buying up housing.
The first point is obviously a positive one and one we want to keep.
The third point is a much larger issue that the state and federal governments are taking a deeper look at.
However, on the second point, the legislature has taken action. Last year, the governor signed HB2237, which I’ve written about in this space before. This will not be an immediate fix, but hopefully, this will balance out the supply and demand for housing.
There have also been several measures proposed to lower the overall tax burden of property taxes even with rising property values.
I’ve cosponsored HCR5009, which calls for a constitutional amendment to lower the assessed value for residential property from 11.5% to 9%. In 1992, residential assessed valuation represented 35% of the tax base statewide. It is now 54%. This constitutional amendment is aimed at rebalancing our tax system to be less reliant on homeowners.
The state also has a Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction Fund that has not been funded in 20 years. The explicit purpose of this is to provide funding to local units of government to provide property tax relief.
HB2366 provides this funding. Right now, the state budget is quite strong and now is the perfect time to provide broad tax relief, like this bill and removing the state sales food tax.
These are just a few ideas that have been proposed, but I know that the readers of this article could have many more!
As always, please feel free to reach out to me by calling or texting at 913-535-8691, emailing at [email protected] or finding me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at the handle @RuiXuKS.
You can also sign up for my newsletter here.
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