One thing that stood out in our post-mortem of the Legislature’s failure to pass property tax relief this year was a knowledge gap on a variety of property tax issues, including the effectiveness of property tax limits in other states and some basic facts.
Our new policy paper, “Examining the issues and options for property tax relief in Kansas,” addresses those and many other important issues.
Section 1 lays out the basics of property taxes, including how they are calculated, how revenue distributions among taxing authorities have changed over time, assessed valuation trends, and how Kansas compares with other states. Section 2 examines the main forces driving property tax increases: assessment ratios, how much governments rely on property taxes, and how much local officials choose to spend.
Section 3 explores policy options to limit tax increases and explains why none became law in 2026.
Agricultural interests fought hard against assessment limits, fearing a limit would increase the burden on farmers and ranchers. However, new research in this paper shows that Oklahoma farmers have tremendously benefited from an assessment limit. The taxable assessed value of Kansas ag land increased by 89% between 2012 and 2024, but a 5% assessment limit in Oklahoma resulted in taxable values only rising by 9%. As a result, property taxes on Kansas ag land jumped 91%, while they rose only 17% in Oklahoma.
A 3% assessment limit on residential property in Oklahoma resulted in taxable values increasing by 62% over the same period, compared to 99% in Kansas. Also, residential and agricultural property in Oklahoma saw their share of the overall property tax burden decline.
Finally, there is growing voter demand to eliminate or dramatically reduce property taxes, so Section 4 examines options to do so.
Taxpayers demand property tax relief
There is near-universal agreement among taxpayers on the need for substantive property tax reform in Kansas. In addition to unnecessary tax increases that are forcing some people to sell their homes and prompting small-business closures, the property appraisal and appeal system needs a complete overhaul.
Some local officials insist that the appraisal process is accurate, but the fact that 87% of the claims taken to the Board of Tax Appeals between 2019 and 2025 were granted or partially resolved in taxpayers’ favor demonstrates otherwise.
Any change that limits property tax increases will affect municipal governments. The question for taxpayers and state and local elected officials is one of reasonableness. Most taxpayers likely agree it is reasonable to expect local government officials and staff to dig deep into budgets to find efficiency opportunities and eliminate unnecessary spending. Those budget reviews will likely force elected officials to make difficult decisions between meeting voters’ desire for affordable services and what their staff wants, but leaders must be willing to do that.
Any budget that hasn’t faced that level of scrutiny can be trimmed without cutting necessary services. Those in charge must set firm taxpayer-focused decision-making parameters, such as:
- Would most citizens be willing to pay higher taxes to avoid trimming this expenditure?
- Taxpayers, not government employees, decide whether a service is necessary.
- Taxpayers, not government employees, decide whether reducing the cost of a necessary service diminishes its quality.
State legislators must also decide, through a reasonableness lens, whether taxpayers, lobbyists, or local elected officials get the benefit of the doubt.
History indicates that it will likely take years to resolve all property tax issues, so taxpayers are best served by a medical triage approach: addressing the most severe situations first and urgently implementing interventions to keep patients alive.
