Living Local - Do you ever wonder where your property taxes go?
Tamara Burton
Homeownership comes with the responsibility of paying property taxes on an annual basis. Your property taxes are determined by the value of your home as set by the County, the assessment rate (11.5% for residential) and the mil levy. Most of us pay this in 2 installments, one in December and one in May. Typically, if you have a mortgage on your home, your mortgage company makes the payment on your behalf from your escrow account (the account you feed each month with your mortgage payment that covers your taxes and insurance). If your mortgage provider doesn’t pay your taxes, it leaves you with the responsibility of making the trip to the County Treasurer’s office to write a check twice a year. There are plenty of misconceptions in real estate, one being what your property taxes actually pay for. I mean how often do you hear “I pay property taxes, my road should be perfect”?
In reality, your property taxes are split among 4 ‘entities’ Riley County (or Pott County), the City of Manhattan (which includes RCPD), USD 383, and the State of Kansas. Each of these entities go through an annual budgeting process to determine the mil levy required to support their operations. For example, there were a few years the voters passed a bond issue to make a number of school improvements in the community. The funds to pay off these bonds come via a higher mil levy the school district sets in its budgeting process.
But back to the City of Manhattan and those bumpy roads. Of every dollar of property tax you pay, only 33 cents goes to the City of Manhattan, and of that 33 cents only 11 cents funds day to day operations, including streets. There are other funding sources and grants (sales tax, state and federal funds) the City can leverage to improve roads, sidewalks and utility infrastructure, but very little of your property tax bill goes to fix or build these improvements. As you can see, there aren’t really funds available to make every road perfect, without drastically increasing property taxes. Homeowners may go through a relatively easy process of making 2 property tax payments a year, but as you can see, “how the sausage is made” is much more complicated.
To break it down as simple as possible:
Courtesy of cityofmhk.com
*Allocation of your property taxes for every $1 paid:
Riley County - $.27
City of MHK - $.33 ($.22 to RCPD and the Library)
USD 383 - $.39
Kansas - $.01
*The County sets your property value (not the City…another misconception).
*Riley County (or Pott County), the City of Manhattan, USD 383, and the State all set their own mil levy. In 2023 the City mil is 52.154, Riley County mil is 42.292, USD 383 mil is 61.645, and Kansas mil is 1.5.
*We pay our property taxes in arrears, for example; 1st half of 2023 taxes are due December 2023 and 2nd half 2023 taxes are due May 2024.
Tamara Burton l tamara@thealmsgroup.com l 913-484-0808
