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Minutes for HB2740 - Committee on Taxation
Short Title
Increasing the statewide property tax levy for schools.
Minutes Content for Tue, Mar 6, 2018
Scott Wells, Senior Assistant Revisor provided an overview on HB2740 which concerns the 20 mills that are currently being levied for schools. HB2740 would increase the levy beginning in school years 2018-2019 to 26.76 mills, school year 2019-2020 to 32.82 mills and in school year 2020-2021 to 38.43 mills. Mr. Wells stood for questions from the Committee.
Chairman Johnson stated the key effort in HB2740 was to find a way that would fund $659.9 million which was the Board of Education's recommendation on educational funding. This gives an idea of the magnitude using property tax. In years past we have had discussion on both income and sales tax. To date, we have not had discussion on property tax.
Chris Courtwright, Legislative Research Economist, provided information on the school finance statewide property tax (Attachment 1). He stated when the bill was constructed, numbers were provided to the revisors that would produce $659.9 million of additional money for schools from the property tax levy phased in over three years. The school finance model is developed as an ancillary part of the consensus revenue estimating process that Legislative Research participates in with the Division of Budget and the Department of Education. There are some assumptions with regard to how much assessed valuation is going to grow statewide in the out years as well as property tax delinquent assumptions which are not seen visibly. Mr. Courtwright stood for questions from the Committee.
Edward Penner, Legislative Research Analyst provided an overview on Historic USD Levy and Taxes (Attachment 2) which gives the USD levy assessed value in the state as well as the state-wide levy tax. Mr. Penner stood for questions from the Committee.
Steve McCloud, Kansas Farm Bureau testified as an opponent for HB2740 stating Kansas Farm Bureau understands the difficult choices Legislators must make concerning K-12 education (Attachment 3). Mr. McCloud stood for questions from the Committee.
Ken McCauley, Kansas Corn Growers Association testified as an opponent for HB2740 noting it is disappointing that nearly doubling the state wide mill levy to fund schools is being considered as an option to address the K-12 funding issues facing the State (Attachment 4). Mr. McCauley stood for questions from the Committee.
Eric Stafford, Kansas Chamber testified as an opponent for HB2740 stating this would put about $600 million property tax increase on Kansas businesses which is a significant concern (Attachment 5). Mr. Stafford stood for questions from the Committee.
The Committee requested the survey mentioned in Mr. Stafford's testimony regarding which tax business owners think should be increased.
Daniel Heady, Kansas Agricultural Alliance and Kansas Association of Wheat Growers testified as an opponent for HB2740 (Attachment 6) and (Attachment 7). Mr. Heady stood for questions from the Committee.
Patrick Vogelsberg, Kansas Association of Realtors testified as an opponent for HB2740. He noted the housing market needs to be fluid and robust (Attachment 8). Mr. Vogelsberg stood for questions from the Committee.
Randy Stookey, Kansas Grain & Feed Association, Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association and Renew Kansas testified as an opponent to HB2740. Mr. Stookey stood for questions from the Committee (Attachment 9).
Lucas Heinen, Kansas Soybean Association testified as an opponent to HB2740. Mr. Heinen stated he farms approximately 1,500 acres and owns a small percentage of it and rents the remaining. The way economics works, he pays the tax which is built into his lease. His average taxes on a tillable acre in Brown County is $26.32 or so on the 1500 acres in 2017. Tthe property tax amounts to $39,000 (Attachment 10). Mr. Heinen stood for questions from the Committee.
Mandy Roe, Kansas Cooperative Council testified as an opponent to HB2740 (Attachment 11). Ms. Roe stood for questions from the Committee.
Daniel Murray, National Federation of Independent Business testified as an opponent to HB2740 stating bill represents a 92 percent increase over the next three years (Attachment 12). Mr Murray stood for questions from the Committee.
Mike Beam, Kansas Livestock Association testified as an opponent to HB2740 (Attachment 13). Mr. Beam stood for questions from the Committee.
Jeff Glendening, Americans for Prosperity testified as an opponent to HB2740 noting it would have a dramatic effect on Kansas taxpayers (Attachment 14). Mr. Glendening stood for questions from the Committee.
Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute testified as an opponent to HB2740 (Attachment 15). Mr. Trabert stood for questions from the Committee.
John Donnelly, Country Farm Bureau Association testified as an opponent to HB2740 providing written testimony from 60 counties in Kansas that strongly oppose the bill (Attachment 16). Mr. Donnelly stood for questions from the Committee.
Written testimony was submitted as an opponent to HB2740 by the following:
Gary Oborny, Occidental Management, Inc.(Attachment 17)
Andrea Krug Krauss, Russell, Kansas (Attachment 18)
Rob Gillian, Kansas Association of School Boards testified as neutral to HB2740 and spoke on behalf of Mark Tallman (Attachment 19).
Written testimony was submitted by Heidi Holliday, Kansas Center for Economic Growth as neutral to HB2740 (Attachment 20).
In response to a question from Representative Francis, Mr. Gilligan will provide information of why the state receives considerably less dollars from the federal government than other comparable states.
Hearing closed on HB2740.
