How local leaders are addressing spike in property valuation

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — At the beginning of this week, the Sedgwick County Appraiser’s Office had three appeals. As of Wednesday afternoon, that number jumped to 98 appeals (with an anticipated total of more than 5,000 this year).

“I have spoken with friends and neighbors and real estate clients that have had 15-20 percent or more tax evaluation increases in one year,” Realtor Toni Titus said.

Titus says in her 22 years as a realtor, she’s never seen Sedgwick County property valuations increase by this much.

“Our elderly, senior citizens, a lot of them are having to determine: groceries…[or] own a home?” Titus said.

Sedgwick County Appraiser Mark Clark says in addition to inflation, interest rates and a hot housing market, a metric determined by the KDOR’s Property Valuation Division played a major role in this year’s spike.

Each year (because the SGCO Appraiser’s Office consists of appointed, not elected, officials), the KDOR grades the appraiser’s office on how close the office’s estimated value of homes in a sample study was compared to what those homes actually sold for.

In 2022, the office’s median ratio for the sampled homes was 76 percent. However, to keep in statistical compliance, that number must be at least 90 percent. The result was a massive spike in property valuations to meet the requirement.

“The market walked away from us—I mean it ran from us, I mean, it was hard to keep up, so, I mean, this ratio is way low,” Clark said.

However, Clark argues the sampling size the state uses is too small. In 2022, the number of residential transactions (homes sold) in Sedgwick County was 12,000. However, the state only sampled 215 homes sold between April to early June.

“It’s a little irritating because I want to be able to tell you, I want to tell property owners, I want to tell everybody, you know, what’s going on, and with this here, I can’t,” Clark said.

Wichita District 4 City Councilman Jeff Blubaugh says he’s had many constituents share concerns they will be priced out of their homes.

“That’s a very common response I’m getting, especially individuals who are on fixed incomes,” Blubaugh said.

Blubaugh says property taxes are a key issue in the City of Wichita’s 2023 state legislative agenda.

“It’s something we need to reach some common ground on,” Blubaugh said.

Sedgwick County Commissioner Ryan Baty of District 4 agrees.

“I think it’s a fair conversation that we need to have with the state of, of how are we doing this, is this a correct sample size, a broad enough sample size to really issue a fair market analysis of property?” Baty said.

Baty says property tax relief will be a top priority as the county prepares to adopt a budget this August.

“If we’re not careful, If we’re not wise stewards over this budget, we’re going to put people in danger,” Baty said.

Clark says the KDOR’s Property Valuation Division is re-evaluating how it determines the metrics for its sales ratio.