Dave Rau moved out of his Garden Plain, Kansas, home because he couldn’t afford the property taxes.
So, in 2023, he and his wife found a $267,000 home in Wichita. That home is now valued at $440,000.
“We were able to take advantage of homestead tax relief for some of our taxes, but now, we don’t qualify for it. Please help!” Rau wrote to lawmakers. “I am 100% disabled (veteran) and unfortunately not employable.”
Rau isn’t alone.
One Wyandotte County resident has watched every one of his neighbors move because of sky-high property taxes. Another Kansas homeowner, Debbie Detmer in Johnson County, is paying $150 more a month now than she did two years ago. She’s cutting back to stay in her home.
That’s why Kansas lawmakers made passing property tax relief their top priority this session. But with the session over, Republicans and Democrats alike are frustrated by a lack of action.
The Legislature did pass a small 1.5 mill reduction, the equivalent of $1.50 per $1,000 in assessed value. As a result, a homeowner with a $230,000 home saves $39 and a $500,000 home is $86 less expensive.
The average home cost is $227,854 in Kansas, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported, meaning the average Kansans will save less than a week’s worth of groceries on a year’s worth of property taxes.
“I’m just disappointed that we end up at the end of this session with no real relief for those homeowners who are facing selling their home or paying their property tax,” said Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican. “We’re going to have to explain to people what we didn’t get done and why. It’s going to be a hard sell.”
Broken promises on tax relief
Thompson and other Republicans are hoping to deliver more property tax relief next year, as promised before the 2025 session started.
The push for property tax relief gained momentum in June 2024.
Kansas lawmakers passed multiple tax plans in 2024 that were vetoed by Gov. Laura Kelly. These tax plans were wide-ranging, with income, Social Security and property tax relief included. But Kelly worried the proposed tax plans were too expensive and talked lawmakers down to a smaller tax cut package.
But after the more than $1 billion tax cut was signed, lawmakers promised more action.
“Rest assured, when the Legislature returns in January, we will immediately get to work providing further tax relief, especially much needed broad-based property tax reform,” said Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican.
That momentum continued on the campaign trail where multiple lawmakers said property tax relief was the top issue among voters. Republicans dominated the 2024 election and increased their supermajority in the Kansas Statehouse, due in part to making property tax and cost-of-living issues central to their campaigns, House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, told The Topeka Capital-Journal.
“Our folks, our candidates, did a really good job of staying on message,” he said. “Our message was spot on … Their (Democrats’) message was wrong.”
Just days before session, property taxes remained key when Hawkins said everyday Kansans don’t have time for the Legislature to drag its feet on property tax relief. Republicans even criticized Kelly for suggesting she might veto property tax cuts.
“Unfortunately, the governor has at this point pledged to block property tax relief in 2025,” Masterson said in January. “I sincerely hope she will reconsider and join us in bringing more tax relief to Kansans.”
Kansas property tax: What happened in 2025?
Despite promises by both Republicans and Democrats, limited relief came in 2025.
Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican, is chair of the Senate Committee on Assessment and Taxation. She said lawmakers did deliver on their promise of property tax relief.
Tyson has been trying for around four years to cut the 1.5 mills. It finally happened this year.
“Things don’t happen overnight up here,” she said. “I am doing everything I possibly can to try to get property tax reform. There’s 165 legislators and different opinions. It just takes time and effort.”
Tyson was also one of the lawmakers spearheading a constitutional amendment to cap home valuation increases at 4% a year — one of the most significant property tax proposals this session. Property taxes could still raise more than 4% per year, but the appraised value of a home could not.
She said Kansans are getting double-digit valuation increases each year. Capping the increase would prevent massive increases and could help people like Rau and Detmer. The proposed amendment barely passed in the Senate before dying in the House.
Only 37 House lawmakers supported it.
Some worried that it did nothing. Counties could still raise property taxes as high as they’d like. There were concerns that the proposal would cost so much that education funding would be at risk. And others worried it shifted the tax burden to other areas, like motor vehicle taxes.
“There’s a lot of things wrong with this,” said Rep. Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat. “It’s kind of fool’s gold.”
The chair of the House Committee on Taxation, Rep. Adam Smith, a Weskan Republican, said the 1.5 mill reduction is $81 million in property tax cuts. That’s about as much relief as homeowners have seen in the past three years.
“I’m not sure what campaign promises exactly were made,” he said, “but I know we’ve done as much as we can.”
Smith said he was interested in other tax relief. One idea was a fund to reward local governments for low taxes. The fund would work like this: Local municipalities that keep taxes low would get money from the state. The fund would have $60 million for all 105 counties.
That proposal passed the House without a veto-proof majority on the final day of the session, but the Senate adjourned before ever taking up the idea.
Aside from the property tax cut, one bill to cut taxes passed. The newly passed law automatically reduces income tax if the state has enough surplus funds, but that doesn’t guarantee any tax relief.
Some House lawmakers blame the Senate for killing tax packages. Some Senate lawmakers blame the House.
Sen. Ethan Corson, a Fairway Democrat, said the Senate worked hard to pass a constitutional amendment on property taxes that the House never really had interest in.
“I felt like we just spent the bulk of the session spinning our wheels on the Senate side,” he said. “The House was always clear and straightforward — just saying, ‘We don’t like this.’”
Democrats could have joined Republicans to pass a plan, but every Democrat in the statehouse voted against the proposal. Corson said that’s because the Senate’s major proposal just wasn’t good enough.
Senate Democrats did propose their own plans, such as increasing exemptions on home values, but some say Republicans didn’t try to work across the aisle.
“Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues refused to join us in that effort,” said Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat. “Republicans promised Kansans they would deliver property tax relief, but they failed to make good on that promise.”
There’s still interest in property tax relief, even if that promise rings hollow to Kansas homeowners.
Detmer told The Beacon in February that property taxes are hurting her retirement. She’ll have to wait until 2026 for additional help that was already promised.
Detmer supported the Senate’s property tax proposal. She said it was a good start and something needs to be done. She doesn’t want to keep watching her home get more expensive.
“I have three children and all the grandchildren come (to my home). They’re here all the time,” she said in February. “I’ve got nine grandchildren. If I have to move and leave, (that takes) me away from the family.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
