Sedgwick County staff say proposed tax lid, HB 2043, would complicate budgeting and election work

Sedgwick County staff briefed commissioners on April 21 about House Bill 2043, a proposed property-tax lid that would cap levy growth at Midwest CPI or 3% (whichever is lower), add several adjustments for new construction and other factors, and treat the revenue-neutral-rate (R&R) mailer as a protest-petition form. The bill was enrolled and sent to the governor the previous day; staff said the governor has 10 days from enrollment to act, meaning the county will not know the bill's fate until April 30.

The county's finance presentation, led by Lindsey, used last year’s figures as a working baseline and showed the mechanics staff expect under the bill: a 2.9% Midwest CPI plus roughly 1.8% in allowable adjustments would permit about 4.7% growth in the county’s property-tax levy. Under that calculation, Sedgwick County’s permitted levy would be about $217.8 million, compared with the county’s current financial forecast of about $216.4 million — a difference of roughly $1.5 million.

Why it matters: staff said the technical changes to the R&R notice and the addition of a protest-petition mechanism would substantially increase administrative complexity for county offices and local governments. Lindsey said the protest process “is going to add some complexities to this in terms of execution and also validation,” noting that the bill ties protest eligibility to Secretary of State precinct lists, which do not align neatly with municipal, township or special-district boundaries.

The clerk’s office and election office raised timing and workload concerns. Angela John, Chief Deputy Clerk, told commissioners that the county’s voter-notice software would need new programming and testing after the state issues a final form, and that the development and validation window is compressed: “The compressed timeline is the concern because it is very complex and to be honest, they probably will not start working on it until they have a form,” she said. Angela estimated adding the petition-related page and associated processing could cost about $15,000 in the county’s mailing program.

Election Commissioner Laura Rainwater said signature validation would be a heavy operational burden because counties would have seven days to validate protest petitions, potentially while preparing for a general election. Rainwater warned the workload could hit hundreds or thousands of parcels across dozens of taxing jurisdictions and described the approach as “a nightmare. It’s a logistical nightmare.”

The bill’s eligibility rules also drew pointed questions. Staff explained the protest mechanism requires the signer to be both a property owner for the parcel listed and a registered voter, and that a returned mailer would need sufficient handwritten name, address and signature information to be validated against voter rolls. Commissioners asked what would happen for commercial parcels, property owners registered in other precincts, households with multiple voters, and renters who receive mailers but are not eligible to sign.

Officials also flagged policy and legal concerns about the threshold the bill sets for petition-driven reversals of adopted budgets: one commissioner described the 10%-of-Secretary-of-State-voters trigger as creating a risk of “tyranny of the minority.” Staff said it was unclear how courts might treat the mechanism and that the provision is atypical compared with prior law.

Staff recommended preparing for both scenarios: the county would need a budget that assumes it stays at the cap and a parallel budget that exceeds the cap if the commission chooses to adopt a levy above the threshold and a petition is later validated. Lindsey said that would require producing multiple budget scenarios “so that depending on what happens, we know what to do.”

The meeting did not include any formal motions or votes regarding HB 2043; staff framed the session as informational and preparatory. Commissioners asked staff to circulate the valuation and certification timeline and to map the county’s appraisal calendar against the new R&R/petition schedule if the bill is enacted.

The county will await the governor's action and the final state form before making operational decisions about mailer design, vendor development, and budgeting changes.