L&T staff report
After an executive session during Tuesday’s Seward County Commission meeting, the Seward County Commission voted 4-0 to authorize Seward County Counsel Forrest Rhodes to work with the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals to return to Revenue Neutral. Commissioner Todd Stanton abstained since he paid his taxes under protest.
Seward County has a pending case before BOTA involving filings from David Box and Earl Watt, who challenged the county commission on violating the process required by Kansas statute in increasing taxes.
The case was originally scheduled for a hearing in late January, but because of the resignations of three county commissioners in mid-December, the county could not conduct the case until there was a quorum of commissioners, and the hearing was rescheduled for Feb. 20.
But the three commissioners who voted for the 17-mill increase above the revenue neutral rate resigned, and the three new commissioners, Jairo Vazquez, John Mettlen and Clay Louderback, all voted not to pursue a defense of the tax hike along with Commissioner Steve Helm who did not vote for the original increase Sept. 15, nor did Stanton.
Without a willingness to defend the increase, counsel was directed to voluntarily return to the previous tax rate which will reduce the total tax collected by about $4.8 million.
The new commission will have to reduce the budget by that amount, and those who paid their taxes in full should expect a refund of the overage that was paid.
With the new direction, a status hearing is being sought by Rhodes with BOTA to explain the new position of the Seward County Commission and receive instruction from BOTA on how to return to RNR.
