Olathe has started its 2025 budget process this week with a preliminary conversation about budget-building principles.
The discussion on Tuesday did not include projected revenue amounts, proposed budget figures or any substantive numbers for the 2025 budget.
It does, however, follow previous conversations about budgeting for 2025. Those discussions have primarily been driven by Councilmember Kevin Gilmore, who is interested in setting a property tax revenue increase cap at 4%. He first floated the idea in March.
What would a property tax cap mean?
If the Olathe City Council would approve Gilmore’s resolution, it would mean the city would not be able to raise its projected property tax revenues in 2025 more than 4% over the property tax revenue collected in 2024.
The cap would apply only to property tax revenues and not put limits on revenues from other funding sources, like sales taxes or utility service fees.
“The onus was for us as a council to lead this community and say: this is the maximum it can be because we’re concerned about the property tax increases,” Gilmore said previously in April. “Let’s lead on this issue. Let’s put this limit out there.”
Gilmore also stressed that his resolution would only affect the 2025 budget, and he did not intend for it to be binding on future budget approval processes.
He also said he opposed a similar action proposed in Topeka that would mandate such a cap, calling it “an overreach.”
Olathe councilmembers so far unsupportive of revenue cap
- So far, no other councilmembers have supported Gilmore’s resolution.
- His motion at the April 2 city council meeting related to his drafted resolution failed for lack of a second.
- Still, Councilmember Matt Schoonover didn’t seem opposed outright to the idea of a cap, saying that he is “sympathetic” to the prospect and feels “it makes a lot of intuitive sense.”
- Schoonover, however, indicated he wanted to have more conversations about the language Gilmore was proposing in his resolution.
- Mayor John Bacon, too, seemed open to having the conversation about a cap, but he wanted to wait until budget workshops kicked off later in the spring to explore the idea further.
Olathe’s budget next steps:
- The conversation on Tuesday setting early budget priorities was the first step in a months-long process to build the 2025 budget.
- Later this spring and into the summer, the city will host a series of budget workshops and special meetings to study individual parts of the proposed budget.
- A series of public hearings are also required down the line.
- Finally, the city council will likely adopt a budget toward the end of the summer or in the early fall.
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