The city of Prairie Village is in the beginning stages of building out its 2025 budget, and there are still plenty of opportunities for the public to get involved.
City staff projects to receive higher revenues — particularly with property and sales taxes — in 2025, hitting a nearly $30 million mark.
But Prairie Village, like all cities working on their 2025 budgets, is still months away from adopting an actual budget.
Here is what city staff is projecting for Prairie Village’s 2025 budget so far, and what discussions still need to happen before anything is finalized.
Prairie Village projects nearly $30M in revenues
The city will have a 5% increase in property tax revenues compared to 2024 numbers, according to early 2025 revenue projections from Finance Director Jason Hannaman in a presentation to the Prairie Village City Council on April 15. This percentage accounts for an additional $555,000 in city revenues.
Hannaman said the projected property tax revenue increase is based on two key points: Holding the mill levy rate flat at 18.325 in 2025, and the Johnson County Appraiser’s Office projecting a 5.2% increase in total assessed values.
Prairie Village is anticipating “limited growth” in sales and use tax revenues in 2025 and seeing no change to franchise fee revenues, Hannaman said.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the city saw a spike in sales and use tax revenues in 2021 and 2022 — but that rapid growth is starting to level off, Hannaman said. During the pandemic, those revenues had tapered off compared to previous years due to business shutdowns.
Hannaman said Prairie Village is on track to gain a 1.6% increase in the 2024 budget estimate compared to 2023. In 2025, the city is projecting a 2.1% increase from 2024.
“We’re projecting fairly small growth for 2024 and 2025 over what we have seen the last few years, and most of that is due to just the phenomenal growth in sales and use tax that we saw in those years, and anticipating that that will plateau,” Hannaman said.
The finance committee is considering several budget additions
Each year, Prairie Village city staff and governing body members are allowed to submit requests for budget changes in the form of decision packages at the beginning of the budget process.
Decision packages are requests to add money to an existing or new program or to cut funding somewhere in the upcoming budget. Last year, approved decision packages included a one-mill reduction and $50,000 to explore a sustainable management program (which led to the city’s own climate action plan).
The finance committee discusses these requests. This year, the following eight decision packages were submitted to Hannaman:
- A $12,000 request from Mayor Eric Mikkelson and councilmembers Terrence Gallagher and Inga Selders to implement the Prairie Village Youth Council’s 2024 proposal to equip city restrooms with free feminine hygiene products
- A $300,000 request from Gallagher to increase streets funding in the capital improvement program budget
- A request from Councilmember Lori Sharp to reduce the mill levy rate by one mill, which would result in a revenue loss of approximately $632,000
- A request from Sharp to amend the staff compensation program
- A request from Sharp to keep department budgets the same, other than the police department
- A request from Sharp to “re-examine climate action plan,” referring specifically to the city exploring Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards
- A request from Sharp to “reduce contract expenditures,” specifically legal and city planner fees
- A $25,000 request from Councilmember Greg Shelton to increase the tax rebate program funding
The finance committee will consider all of the decision packages at its May 14 meeting. The meeting starts at 4 p.m. at city hall, 7700 Mission Road.
Watch the council committee of the whole’s discussion of decision packages online here, starting at 2:27:15.
Next steps:
The city of Prairie Village’s budget timeline is as follows, according to city documents:
- May 6 — The city council will discuss the capital improvement program and the annual road condition report
- May 14 — The finance committee discusses the first draft of the 2025 budget as well as decision packages
- May 23 — A continued discussion from the finance committee
- June 17 — City staff share a preliminary 2025 budget with the city council
- July 15 — The city council considers, if necessary, a resolution to exceed the revenue neutral rate (basically, the city will declare it plans to generate more revenue than it did in 2024, more information on how that works here) and permission to publish the 2025 budget
- Aug. 10 — The county notifies the taxpayers if the city is exceeding the revenue neutral rate
- Sept. 3 – The city council hosts a hearing for the 2025 budget and considers adoption
Keep reading: Facing ‘tight’ budget, projections, Johnson County mulls where to cut
