KSHB 41 reporter Alyssa Jackson has been a part of a team covering the impact of the Panasonic electric battery facility in De Soto. She covers portions of Johnson County, including Overland Park, Prairie Village and Leawood. Share your story idea with Alyssa.
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Before construction began on the Panasonic electric battery facility, the City of De Soto had never seen the amount of revenue and simultaneous infrastructure projects.
Due to contractual agreements with the electric vehicle facility, De Soto has been able to maximize several streams of revenue, including franchise fees it charges the company, sales tax revenue it's capturing from people making purchases and interest accruing on money Panasonic is paying the city for infrastructure projects.
The city's budget was finalized in September, which gave a fuller picture of how De Soto is approaching the revenue it will capture from property taxes.
All of the extra revenue being collected allows city officials to lower the mill levy and try to mitigate the tax burden.
"Here we are in this kind of unique and enviable position of having this cash and so when you look at the mill levy impact, it's really a pretty small part of the picture when you look at the overall cash balance," City Administrator Mike Brungardt said.
The city's mill levy, which is a tax rate used to help calculate property tax, was reduced by 6.03% — going from 13.77 mills to 12.94 mills.
The average residential property's assessed value went up by the same rate, 6.03%.
With the current mill levy reduction, the average resident's city tax bill should remain level, according to the city's budget.
That doesn't mean taxpayers won't have an increase in taxes collected by the city, but they shouldn't notice a significant increase.
"It is good when you can do these budgets and see the real impacts and then translate that directly to quality of life stuff," Brungardt said. "We're building trail facilities. We're building parks facilities. We're increasing programs and we're giving tax back...so all of those things we think are kind of the reason why we do economic development."
Taxpayers can also keep in mind De Soto's value went up 120% since 2024. That's not a direct translation to a tax bill. However, it points to the direct impact of Panasonic because more than half of the increase is Panasonic's facility.
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