NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — According to the Kansas Association of Counties, Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction (LAVTR) Funding has existed in Kansas statutes for many years, with the first formal introduction in KSA 79-2959 in 1965.
LAVTR in Kansas has not received any contributions since 2003. Reno County Commissioner Randy Parks explained that the underlying law is still on the books.
"It's actually still statutory," Parks said. "They're supposed to give us that money. I've been to a few meetings and I know we had a couple of representatives from the county commission, I believe Commissioner Hirst and Commissioner Bogner went to Topeka and met with some legislators up there to talk about what we could do to get that Ad Valorem back."
Per statute, LAVTR funds are calculated by a percentage of the total state sales and compensating use tax to local governments. LAVTR funding and distribution amounts are set by statute, 65 percent is distributed based on population and 35 percent is distributed based on property tax valuations.
"Statewide, if you've watched, there's been an excess of tax collections over the last several years that have left quite an abundance," Parks said. "I've talked to some representatives up in the state. They just seem like they've been kind of spend happy up there with money, It's money that, perhaps, part of that should be coming back to us."
The amount, if the old statute were funded, would be significant for Reno County.
"It would actually mean almost $2.5 million more money coming back to us, with about a 3.4 mill reduction," Parks said. "That's a big deal for Reno County. We'd like to have that back. We've had pretty good monies coming in the last several years. It enabled us to hold the revenue neutral, but I will say, there's some deep cuts that happened in departments and some other areas to be able to do that, to hold the taxes down. You don't want to become burdensome upon the people. That's who you're really working for, but, this LAVTR, that would be a great shot in the arm to keep that down and keep that under control."
An amendment to the budget was proposed and passed by the House to fund LAVTR in 2023, but ultimately the amendment failed to move forward in the Senate.
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