Kansas veteran says he’s being priced out of home due to property value increase

19 May 2023

GARDEN PLAIN, Kan. (KSNW) — Roughly 80% of Sedgwick County homeowners received a notice of an increase in their property valuation. It includes Vietnam veteran David Rau, a resident of Garden Plain his entire life. He’s owned his current house for roughly 14 years.

As the Sedgwick County Appraiser’s Office finalizes property valuation determinations this weekend, Rau says he and several other veterans are being priced out of their homes. He says he’s already begun the process of house-hunting.

“There’s houses that aren’t near like mine that are worth $350,000 or more,” Rau said. “It’s hard to find a house unless it’s a dump.”

Rau suffered life-threatening injuries during the war, which left him 100% disabled.

“If you’re disabled and your house is worth $350,000 or less, you qualify for, like, 75% of your taxes back,” Rau said.

However, he says he’s no longer qualified for that tax relief due to the value of his home skyrocketing.

“This year, it went from $330,000 to $403,000,” Rau said.

State Sen. Caryn Tyson says a push to increase the max property value from $350,000 to $500,000 failed in the last legislative session.

“We would have even better policy to help our disabled veterans and our senior citizens, but it was vetoed in CCR-8, Conference Committee Report-8,” Sen. Tyson said.

She also says she’s disappointed HB 2036, which would have exempted retired and disabled veterans from paying property taxes, never even made it to the Senate floor (despite passing in the House 123-1). She says the bill made it to her committee during veto session.

“Committees can’t meet after that unless they have special permission from leadership,” Sen. Tyson said. “As a state senator that is the chair of tax, we hadn’t even had a hearing on it, we didn’t even know we were getting it.”

Although Rau says he and his wife can manage if they need to move, he’s concerned for many of his elderly friends (several who are veterans), whom he says are facing much worse.

“I fought this war because I thought my freedom and everybody else’s freedom is worth a lot, and you find out how much it’s really worth,” Rau said.

The Sedgwick County Appraiser’s deadline for those final determinations is this Saturday. He will then certify those values to the county clerk on June 1.

Need help?

If you need support, please send an email to [email protected].

Thank you.