L&T OPINION
Tuesday night the Seward County Commission took a bold step forward by rescinding the outrageous 17-mill tax increase and voluntarily returning to the Revenue Neutral Rate.
This will save taxpayers about $4.8 million and will begin the process of regaining fiscal control over county finances.
While this move satisfies Seward taxpayers, questions will now remain unresolved at the State level. For one, can counties send out notices and completely abandon their own stated limitations, and two, can a county refer to the wrong date on its resolution and still be able to tax the wrong year?
By resolving this case now, those questions will remain without a judgement — all the more reason to support a constitutional amendment to make sure this abuse can never happen in Kansas again.
This move will be welcome to the citizens of Seward County who saw through the ruse of using the Conestoga case as a reason to increase taxes.
The fact is Conestoga has nothing to do with the massive increase. Arkalon Ethanol, the parent company of Conestoga, made public statements that they would not expect to be refunded immediately once a decision is made. They were willing to negotiate a payment plan. The majority of the commission prior to the recent resignations refused to reach out to Conestoga. Instead, they had administration present fear tactics of a “worst case scenario” of needing an additional $5.9 million.
It was a joke then, and it is a joke now, and the new commissioners didn’t buy this false narrative.
When the 25-mill proposal was reduced to the 17-mill cash grab, less than two of those mills were directed to the repayment of Conestoga while the rest was increased government spending.
This new commission also didn’t buy the false narrative that past commissions prior to the Taxing Trio were responsible for the need to massively increase taxes.
The previous commissions had built a $7 million surplus, something that has been eroded in the past three years as expenses outpaced revenues. Instead of cutting costs, administration and the Trio opted to shift the burden to the taxpayers under the disguise of the refund to Conestoga.
It had been said in that the commission has to make tough decisions, but massive tax increases was not a tough decision. That’s easy.
The tough call was made Tuesday night when the commission voted to return control to the people when they took an axe to the tax.
We should fully expect blowback from administration and even staff when expenditures have to be cut. Most people support cuts until it happens to their department.
The current benefits package exposed by citizen activist Carolyn Huddleston is unsustainable long term. Seward County auditor Dustin Ormiston has referred to the package as “exorbitant.” From ridiculously low deductibles like $200 and PTO buy back plans that far exceed any other reasonable plan, Seward County will have no choice but to make adjustments to these plans that align with most of the rest of the state and other local taxing entities.
The claims of mass resignations has been a scare tactic that has led to taxpayers providing benefits that they themselves could never receive. If government is supposed to be of, by and for the people, then the public employee benefits should align with the benefits received by the rest of the population doing similar jobs.
Making these adjustments could easily bring Seward County in line with its spending.
At one budget meeting, the statement was made that income had been “stagnant.”
Commissioner Steve Helm responded by saying, “If revenues are stagnant, then expenditures need to align with that.”
At that time, Helm was outvoted by the Trio who believed no matter how little the people had, county staff deserved to grow and expand despite the rest of the people not having any additional income to afford the massive increases.
Tuesday night, the commission spoke in one voice — “we will not defend this tax increase.”
The next test will be whether or not county administration will follow the lead of the elected officials and find the best ways to reduce the cost of government while also maintaining the highest quality services to the public. Will they represent the will of the commission, or will they undermine those efforts and continue to make false allegations that any reductions in operations will lead to massive resignations and unhappy staff?
The jury is still out on that.
Also, will the commission seek financial control with a position that more than pays for itself with a CFO or CFO-style staffer? This is a position that is desperately needed and can save the tax payers at minimum hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. The Trio and administration resisted this change. As stated by former commissioner Scott Carr, “If you want to know why we don’t have a CFO, just poll the commission. That’s why we don’t have a CFO.”
It’s time to poll the new commission the same question. It might take a restructuring of the entire management hierarchy. That conversation seemed to begin last night as limiting the ability of administration to hand out raises is now on the table.
Abandoning the questionable tax grab that did not follow RNR guidelines is a great first step and proves this commission is not the rubber stamp that it replaced.
Other decisions have to be made, and this commission seems ready to move forward. For now, they are off to a great start.
