Facts regarding Wallace County Tax Hike

Perhaps you’ve seen the recent letter to the editor by a gentleman named Imtiaz Stephen from Sharon Springs. The letter has been shared on social media quite a bit and I’ve received a lot of questions about the valuations, mill levies, and property taxes in Wallace County because of it. If you haven’t seen it, I’ve included a copy here. You should be able to click on the thumbnail to view an enlarged, readable version of the letter.

While residential property taxes have went up for most, if not all, homeowners in Wallace County, the substantial increase for Imtiaz Stephen and his wife, Debbie, on their recently purchased home was far outside the ordinary. Anytime I see something that isn’t normal, I want to ask what happened that caused the anomaly because we can’t create solutions until we completely understand the problem.

In response to the questions I’ve been asked, I thought I would share the additional facts I discovered when I dug around to find out exactly what happened.

First of all, appraised valuation and tax data on specific real property is public record and can be requested. Information like purchase price, mortgage rates, etc. is private and NOT public record. The valuation, mill levy, and tax data I’ve included are from the county appraiser and county clerks office. The market information was obtained by a search on Zillow.com.

According to county records, the property tax on this parcel was $6,670.70 in 2024 and $11,929.30 in 2025 which is a 78.83% increase in taxes. 

The main reason for the large increase was that the appraised value in 2024 was $203,290 and in 2025 is was $439,070. 

That is a 115.98% increase in appraised value in one year! That is NOT normal! Why in the world did that happen?

I checked the historical county records and discovered that there was a substantial construction/renovation project adding a garage and living space with construction that began back in 2015 with previous owners. However, it was never fully added to the property’s appraisal when it was completed. The property’s valuation in 2015 was about $63,000 prior to the start of the project.

When a property is up for sale, most buyers will typically will call and get the property taxes on the property. Unfortunately, they often assume those tax amounts are based on an appraisal somewhat in the ballpark of the listed price of the property rather than taking the extra step to ask about the assessed value. I’ve made that mistake before myself! The appraised values are set January 1st each year, so if I read Mr. Stephen’s letter correctly about when they purchased the property, the 2025 value had already been set at the previously stated $439,070. This new appraised value wasn’t in response to the sale of the property as it appears to have been set prior to the sale, however the prior year’s property taxes owed on the property would have reflected the old valuation.

Since I don’t know (and couldn’t legally disclose that information even if I DID know) what was paid for this property, I went to Zillow to check out the market information.

According to Zillow, which lists their source as “KSMLS” (Kansas Multiple Listing Service used by real estate professionals), this property was listed for sale in 2024 for $495,000. That’s a huge discrepancy between the 2024 appraised valuation of $203,290. The most current value on the property, according to Zillow.com/KSMLS, is $469,900 on 4/21/2025. The current appraised value of $439,070 appears to be fairly close to the current market value of the home.

The first question I always ask when someone is upset about their property taxes is if the appraised value, or fair market value, is about what they would list the property for if they wanted to sell it.

If the answer is yes, then we need to focus on the mill levies that are being applied to the property that are resulting in the high tax bill. If the answer is no, that’s when we need to start the appeals process to protest the valuation.

Since the specific property in question appears to be within the accepted range of market value for valuation accuracy, let’s take a look at the local mill levies.

This parcel actually falls in two different tax districts – a part of the property inside the city limits of Sharon Springs containing the home and the majority of the parcel’s valuation, and another part of it outside the city limits containing small acreage and ag building. Looking at the total mill levies (including county, school, city, township, extension district, fire district, library, and state) the city limits side had a total mill levy of 246.462 in 2024 and 226.039 in 2025. So the tax RATE actually went down. The same was true for the portion outside the city limit – it went from 181.330 in 2024 to 170.938 in 2025.

I spent some time researching and compiling the actual property tax increases for each taxing entity in Wallace County, because sometimes one goes up and another goes down, and it is essential to understand how each entity changed if you are wanting to get to the bottom of why your taxes went up. That is not something you can discern from just looking at the total combined mill levy changes. By law, the county acts as the single tax collection agency for all tax districts and then distributes the payments to each entity proportionately. The taxpayer writes one check to the county, but the county certainly doesn’t keep it all. That is why it is important to understand WHO raised your taxes and by how much.

Total countywide valuation went up 11.01%, so entities with fixed mill levies increased taxes by 11.01%. In Wallace County, this would be the state’s 1.50 mills and the 20 mills levied by the state for school finance. Don’t fall for the argument that no increase in the mill levy means no increase in property tax! Some local officials and legislators will claim this, and it’s NOT correct! With fixed mill levies, any increase in your valuation is a direct increase in your property taxes! As valuations go up, there should be a corresponding reduction in the mill levy to keep your taxes relatively stable. As you can probably guess, that doesn’t always happen!

Here’s a breakdown of all taxing jurisdictions in Wallace County, according to the 2025 Mill Levy sheet.

Note: these numbers are not found on the levy sheet directly, I used the valuation and mill levy data to calculate the total property taxes for each entity.

A couple things to know – the statewide 20 mills is applied to all property, but residential property receives a homestead exemption on the first $75,000 of your home. So if your home is appraised at $75,000 or less, you should pay nothing for the 20 mills! If your home is appraised at $150,000 or more, you are getting a $345 automatic discount on your taxes. Commercial, agricultural, oil & gas, and public utility property are the most by the statewide 20 mills with higher assessment factors and no exemptions in place.

Looking at this chart, the largest dollar increase was the county at just under $300,000 which represented about a 7% increase in the county property taxes. USD 242 had the largest decrease at about $33,000 in funding cuts that represented a 7.76% tax cut. As a percent of their total budget, the state’s 20 mills for USD 241 was the largest at 18.23% that represented a nearly $80,000 tax hike by the state. I have been trying to cut the 20 mills in the state legislature for several years, and will try again this coming January, because we set this rate in state law – the local schools cannot lower it even if they wanted to do so. By the way, if you’re wondering why the USD 241 statewide school levy is so much different than the other USD’s, it’s because USD 241 has a substantial amount of residential and commercial property compared to the others that mostly have ag land as the majority of their tax base. With ag land values at their lowest point in nearly 20 years, that has a drastic impact on the total valuation.

This is certainly not a comprehensive look at the entire property tax picture in Wallace County, but hopefully it helps anyone who reads this understand what has happened in the case of Imtiaz and Debbie. No one should ever be blindsided by taxes like this. I am going to have discussions with local officials and legislators on how to treat errors like this to avoid such a sharp impact to the taxpayer. The values need to be accurate to follow constitutional uniformity, but there could be a buffer program at the state or local level in place to soften the impact in these situations! This property was incorrectly appraised and the previous owners had been inadvertently been getting a substantial tax break for a number of years. That is no fault of the current homeowner, yet they are the ones paying the price.