Iola property owners had a pleasant surprise when tax statements arrived this week.
Levies, and tax bills, were lower than a year ago, mainly because of additional state aid for school districts’ local option budgets.
When the Supreme Court forced the Legislature to increase spending on schools earlier this year, state aid to support LOBs was ordered to be increased from 78 percent to 100 percent of what is dictated by school finance equalization. That is a component of school finance from the 1992 law that made the state responsible for all general fund revenue.
LOBs are an offshoot that give boards of education opportunity to enhance general fund spending with locally raised revenue supported by state aid. LOBs are determined by a percentage of the general fund, which now may be as much as 32 percent. USD 257’s LOB is at 30 percent of its general fund. With the change in state funding, the district’s levy went from 52.389 to 44.426 mills, including a 20-mill statewide levy all Kansas property owners pay to support general funds of all districts and 8 mills for the district’s capital outlay fund.
Taxpayers elsewhere in the county had similar reductions in tax bills.
What that did for Iola taxpayers was help lower their overall property tax levy from 183.97 to 174.991 mills.
The school district’s nearly 8-mill reduction was the largest among taxing entities that affect Iolans.
Allen County’s levy dropped 3.065 mills; Allen Community College’s went down .018 of a mill; the Extension Service district’s dropped an additional .068 of a mill.
The only taxing unit to have a levy increase was Iola, which raised its levy by 2.135 mills, largely because the city’s assessed valuation dropped from $31.2 million this year to $29.75 million for next year’s budgets, or nearly 5 percent.
To put this all in perspective, a house valued at $100,000 is assessed for tax purposes at $11,500. Consequently, a tax of 1 mill results in a tax of $11.50. Advantage is that the first $2,300 of assessed valuation is exempted from the statewide 20-mill school finance levy.
Within Iola, residents will pay nearly $547,000 less in property taxes this year than in 2013. Last year’s total for Iola — for all taxing units — was $5,701.969.60. This year’s total is $5,155,210.98.
Iolans realize break in property taxes
