Property-value poor
Friday, August 3, 2007
EMPORIA and Lyon County residents are between a rock and a hard place this summer when it comes to property values and tax levies.
Until Thursday, county and city officials wanted to hike property taxes to fund 2008 budgets by up to 4 mills each. The county revised that to 1.261 mills, so a likely increase of up to 5 mills for an owner of a home in Emporia valued at $120,000 would cost at least $69 more a year. (Emporia homeowners pay both city and county tax.)
That’s a sum few in Emporia want to pay and with good reason — fixed incomes, family finances, not enough good paying jobs and tax fatigue immediately come to mind.
For starters, it’s a small turnip for trying to squeeze blood out of.
Lyon County’s total assessed property values per capita (per person in the county) were among the lowest in the state in 2005. Data from the Kansas Department of Revenue’s annual report ranked Lyon County the 11th poorest in Kansas out of 105 counties.
Compare that to neighbor Coffey County at $52,043 per capita thanks to Burlington’s Wolf Creek nuclear plant, and Lyon County looks downright property-value poor.
The county may rank so low because of officials granting too many tax exemptions for land or property or both, a lack of industry on the property tax rolls or agricultural land that is appraised too low. The culprits need to be examined because Emporians can’t continue to shoulder the bulk of the load with their homes.
Our property values are low but our average countywide levy isn’t. Lyon County ranked 43rd in the state per $1,000 of assessed valuation in 2005 at $134.71. The turnip is getting squeezed good.
Another statewide low for Emporia and Lyon County stems from our sales tax rates — currently 5.8 percent in the county and 6.8 percent in Emporia.
Nine cities closest to Emporia in population all charge consumers more, ranging from 7.3 percent in Pittsburg and Newton (both with fewer than 20,000 people) to Leawood’s 7.9 percent for its nearly 31,000 residents.
And Lyon County’s sales tax rates? Extremely low. At 5.8 percent, it’s just slightly above the state minimum of 5.3 percent.
Sales taxes are the largest single revenue source for state and local governments in Kansas. Ours need to reflect that better than they do today.
Emporia gets 300,000 visitors a year, says a civic leader. Athletic events and Emporia State University are the biggest draws and those visitors add to our sales taxes just by being here.
But it’s going to be a delicate process to right all of these property value and levy imbalances and not turn off visitors or homeowners.
We’ll have to look at anything and everything that can help fund local government including such things as increasing sales taxes, privatizing services, annexing land, getting the Kansas Legislature and Congress to stop shortchanging cities and luring businesses here without further eroding the tax base.
It’s a critical time in Emporia and Lyon County.
V V V
Counties with the lowest assessed property values per capita in Kansas
1. Labette $5,026
2. Geary $5,331
3. Neosho $5,432
4. Bourbon $5,639
5. Allen $5,699
6. Cowley $5,703
7. Chautauqua $5,729
8. Crawford $5,776
9. Riley $5,841
10. Cherokee $5,976
11. Lyon $6,108
Source: Total Assessed Value of Property Per Capita, 2005
Kansas Department of Revenue
Jennifer Roblez may be reached by e-mail at newsroom@emporiagazette.com.
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
Agreed that we need to reassess how we collect taxes. For too long we have relied upon property taxes as the only method. Now, that is simply being squeezed too hard. Would you come to Emporia to build a large, expensive home? I kind of doubt it. Our taxes keep property values low and high paying jobs out of town. Why would a well paid staff member at the university live in Emporia to pay high property taxes when he/she could live in a place with many more amenities and pay lower taxes?
This should be the beginning of an important discussion in Emporia.
August 5, 2007 at 6:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
netloafer (anonymous) says...
I hope the city commission sees the light on this. I think it's our most significant problem.
The Federal Reserve banch in Kansas City put out a white paper about six months ago. One of the interesting findings was that small bio-science, bio-tech, and IT firms are interested in smaller communities versus big cities. It seems that the type of talent they typically recruit is interested in small town life. The one inhibiting factor they cited was the high real estate taxes in cities like Emporia that drive them away. Also cited was the preponderance of tax breaks given to large manufacturing firms that makes re-locating to smaller towns un un-even playing field, since these firms don't get any breaks at all.
The beauty of these types of firms is that they require little if any brick and mortar or infrastructure investment.
Why the city cannot see this is beyond me.
August 5, 2007 at 7:55 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
Emporia is distant from larger cities with all of the things cities can have which small towns cannot. But, as you point out, our property taxes are very high and unlikely to go down soon. We encourage the growth of a manufacturing base, but most of the growth is in low paying jobs which do not support the kinds of things those high tech firms would want for their highly educated and high-earning employees.
Moving back to higher paying jobs is difficult and Emporia has numerous roadblocks to get through. We should remember, too, that in the past, the railroad was the major blue collar employer. They paid very, very well by comparison to most other job types - then and now. Moving Tyson's meat cutters from their low pay jobs into higher ones will take a generation.
Any ideas?
August 7, 2007 at 10:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
netloafer (anonymous) says...
The distance can be as much of an advantage as it is a disadvantage.
The Federal Reserve in Kansas City did a white paper some time ago about the "new economy." One of the things they cited was that smaller towns have some distinctives that should make them quite attractive to those potentially employed in this new economy. One example I can think of is in areas like I.T, e-commerce, supply chain management, bio-sciences, etc. Believe it or not, Emporia has many of the things that these types of professionals find attractive. When you look at the new developments going up around the country you see that almost all of them are building places with wrap around porches and the amenities that call to community. That's one of the things these folks are looking for. Well, we've got lots of places with front porches just crying out for rehab. With some hard work, we could make it attractive for small companies like these to come here. There's also a new generation of retirees, far different than those who live on fixed incomes. They've worked in this new economy, invested in 401K's, got good pensions, and are now looking for a place to invest some of the money they've saved. They come armed with disposable income and no one has to provide a job for them.
Getting from where we are to where we'd like to be is difficult and will take time, especially since we've concentrated so long on manufacturing while the global economy was changing radically. Some of the things we need to do are - make the inner city vibrant. I've heard it was once; I've even heard we had an opera house at one time, find creative ways to attract retailers or business other than the huge incentives we are giving to manufacturers, partner with the university to find ways to pipeline students graduating from our technical college and E.S.U into becoming entrepreneurs here in Emporia rather than losing them to other citiies. Some small cities create incentives for medical professionals to come to them. Why not create some sort of incentives for young graduates to sink their roots down here.
In terms of taxes, I've lived in places where rather than providing tax abatements to prospective businesses the municipalities create other business incentives. One way is to lower the sales tax on purchases for companies relocating and hiriing local people to do the construction and also those operating the business on a day to day basis. I lived in one place where the sales tax for these businesses was reduced by 50%. They got no other incentive. In the long run they did more business because their volume increased. The municipality's revenues also increased. It was a win-win-win situation.
I think if we start exploring possibilities rather than staying on the treadmill we're currently on we have a chance. Will it be difficult? Very! Is it worth it? Yes!
August 8, 2007 at 5:37 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )