By Gene Meyer 

(KansasReporter) TOPEKA, Kan. - State Rep. Steve Brunk of Bel Aire and more than a dozen of his fellow Republicans introduced a Kansas property tax reform proposal Thursday that they say is intended to rein in spiraling tax increases.

The measure, House Bill 2630, would require local government leaders to offset higher appraised property values with a corresponding drop in the base mill rates used to calculate tax bills, to keep property owners' total tax bills unchanged from year to year.

The proposal would not affect a statewide 20 mills, or $20 tax per $1,000 property value, that is collected for schools or a similar 1.5 mills collected for the state building fund, Brunk said. But otherwise, any city, county or local government that wanted to increase tax revenues would need voter approval to raise taxes, he said.

Brunk and other cosponsors said this plan to restore stability and transperancy to the property tax system would both provide tax relief for low- and fixed-income taxpayers and help support the development of small businesses in Kansas.

Under the current system, in which local governments multiply mill rates times appraised values to reach specific budget targets, Kansas property taxes have risen approximately 92 percent, or three times faster than inflation and nearly 12 times faster than the state's population.

"That is a stealth tax," Brunk said. "Governments say they haven't raised your taxes, but your property taxes keep going up.

Many of the changes proposed Thursday also were part of a more complex piece of tax legislation known as Proposition K that Brunk and many of the current cosponsors introduced unsuccessfully last year. That proposal also called for setting base lines and using fixed formulas to help set property values.

"That was good legislation, but it was complicated," Brunk said.

The current slimmed down version is far more transparent and easier to understand, he said.

Even so, opponents of Proposition K and similar plans expressed skepticism.

Larry Baer, assistant counsel to the League of Kansas Municipalities, declined to comment specifically on the latest proposal because he hadn't seen its details yet.

"But we generally oppose plans such as these because what they tend to do is simply shift taxes to other kinds of properties," Baer said.

And unless backers write their proposals carefully, such shifts may run into conflicts with constitutional requirements that Kansas property tax assessment policies treat all taxpayers equally, Baer said.

Nonetheless, Kansas taxpayers want relief, said House Speaker Pro Tem Arlen Siegfried of Olathe, who joined Brunk in sponsoring both the current proposal and Proposition K last year.

"In the three elections I've walked my district, no issue causes more comment or more angst than property taxes," Siegfried said. "Nobody likes higher property taxes."