KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
—
The Board of Commissioners of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas have not adopted an official budget for 2026.
Commissioners say that's because of multiple factors.
The beginning
Initially, the date to approve the budget was set for August 28.
Plans changed after the death of Kansas City, Kansas police officer Hunter Simoncic.
The commission began its ongoing discussion of the budget in January and has hosted several budget workshops since then for the public and commissioners to attend and learn more about what's in the budget.
“We’ve tried very hard to give lots of opportunities for people to learn and for them to also provide their input,” said Dr. Shelley Kneuvean, the UG’s Chief Financial Officer. “Everything from community surveys to special sessions.”
Revenue neutral
Last year, the commission voted not to collect more property tax revenue and adopted a revenue neutral budget.
That had its consequences.
“Last year, we saw potholes go unfilled, essential services cut and critical improvements were delayed,” a Wyandotte County resident said at a July public hearing.
There have been mixed reviews from residents who’ve expressed a desire over the past year to maintain and improve essential services like filling potholes, but don't want an increase in property taxes.
“The community has said 'no more taxes,’ a Wyandotte County resident said at a hearing. “None. We're done.”
It’s a difficult balance, Dr. Kneuvean explained to KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson in July.
She said the commission voting to remain revenue neutral would be ‘catastrophic.’
A balancing act
Months later, the commission is considering the possibility of exceeding revenue neutral, but says it wants the tax rate, or mill levy, to be as low as possible.
That’s given the County Administrator and his staff a difficult assignment.
“It was a struggle to even reduce it to this point, but we did,” County Administrator David Johnston said at Thursday’s budget workshop.
The commission has repeatedly asked Johnston to lower the proposed mill rate increase.
The proposal went from 5 mills for the city and 5 mills for the county, then down to three mills.
"The commission can still go up to three mills," Kneuvean said. "I do not believe they’ll do that because they’re very much working hard to keep those down to be respectful of the taxpayers that are saying, ‘we can’t afford these higher taxes.’"
Now, it’s down to 1.5 for the city and 2 for the county.
One mill is $2 million worth of total revenue the Unified Government gets.
With the latest proposal, that equates to an additional $14 million worth of property tax revenue from residents.
Last year, the UG lost out on $14 million in revenue by not exceeding revenue neutral.
Accountability v.s. obligations
“We’re not going to have access to the chance to experience the growth of revenue that we should have because of the poor planning and the lack of maintenance and the misappropriation,” said Commissioner Tom Burroughs, who’s been vocal about the benefits revenue neutral brought to the county, like sales tax growth.
It’s something Kneuvean spoke to Monday.
“We’re very glad for that,” she said.
She says the city’s sales tax revenue is higher than the county’s because it doesn’t have to split between surrounding cities like Lake Quivira, Edwardsville or Bonner Springs.
That subsequently creates more revenue for the city to use to address critical services.
“Our commission's had a lot of discussion about discretionary funding,” Kneuvean said. “Unfortunately, discretionary does not mean unimportant. It means it's not required statutorily.”
An example of a discretionary fund would be a warming shelter, something in high demand, but not required.
There’s also been lots of discussion on decreasing waste and making cuts, similar to discussions happening on a federal level.
“There's not that much more that we can comfortably recommend many more cuts,” Johnston said.
Kneuvean says not reducing filled positions, adhering to union contracts and inflation are all costly variables.
Curbing misinformation
“I think sometimes the rhetoric gets pretty inflamed,” Kneuvean said.
She’s referring to accusations made during meetings of fraud or abuse, similar to what occurred in the Wyandotte County District Court last week.
“There might be impressions that there’s theft in situations like what just came out certainly do not help that, although I’m very pleased that there’s action being taken,” Kneuvean said. “I think there’s a general perception that government is wasteful, and that just hasn’t been my experience in 30 years in government.”
Kneuvean says the UG has implemented several new systems over the past few years to be more efficient, like a new financial management system to make paper processes electronic.
Within the past three months, they’ve implemented an early alert system that looks at payroll, P cards and accounts payable to pinpoint anomalies or fraud.
Still, she welcomes any concerns from community members or internally.
“We take it very seriously,” Kneuvean said. “Because we know we’re the stewards of the tax dollars. This is not our own money. This is everybody’s money.”
Public pressure to cut costs and reduce the mill rate combined have contributed to the longer timeline of an adopted budget.
Remaining timeline
"It’s a really difficult issue," Kneuvean said. "I know our commission has talked about maybe going to the state and asking for a sales tax that we don’t have to share with other cities."
It’s one that needs to be decided soon, as the budget must be filed with the County Clerk by October 1.
Before that can be done, there’s a large amount of paperwork staff must fill out.
Once the clerk gets the budget, she files information for all taxing districts with the state, the state puts it into their system and tax bills are sent out in December.
“Nothing's getting done, we need to give her a budget, and we've had enough information over these months,” Commissioner Bill Burns said at Thursday’s special session.
Kneuvean says there’s no right answer, but there are results residents can calculate on their own.
“You take your assessed value, times your mill rate and divide it by 1,000, and that’s how much you’re going to pay,” Kneuvean said. “We focus a lot on the mill rate, and people talk about the assessed value, but it’s an important point that people understand how their taxes get calculated. And that’s true for all the taxing districts they fall within.”
We want to find a good balance, the best balance we can find, she said.
The commission has yet to set a new date for the budget adoption, but it will hold another budget workshop on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the fifth-floor conference room of the Municipal Office Building, 701 N. 7th Street, Kansas City, Kansas.
