WYANDOTTE COUNTY, Kan. — Property taxes are the second largest source of revenue for the Unified Government (UG) of Wyandotte County/KCK, with sales tax being the first.
Since the UG listened to community pleas to stay revenue neutral, they won't have any new property tax revenue for 2025.
That contributed to a $12 million hole in the 2025 budget.
KSHB 41 Wyandotte County beat reporter Rachel Henderson has covered several stories highlighting how vocal the community has been in this budget process.
Most city and county departments are facing cuts in one way or another.
Many of them aren't receiving additional funding and numerous vacant positions are not being filled.
The budget that passed Thursday evening in a special session was not unanimous.
Some commissioners voiced their reasons for refusing to sign off on it.
"This isn't just gonna happen in 2025, it's gonna affect us in 2026, and we're gonna have to recoup," UG Commissioner Mike Kane said.
Commissioner Christian Ramirez said he could not support the budget with a clear conscience.
"This is a blow to our public safety, to all departments," Ramirez said.
The police department and sheriff's office declined to comment.
While there aren't any layoffs, police, fire and the sheriff's office are all having to make significant adjustments.
The fire department's funding is being reduced by $1.4 million, mostly by minimizing overtime and not filling 12 full-time staff positions until 2026.
Police department funding will be reduced by around $1.9 million, mostly by minimizing overtime.
The budget for the sheriff's office was reduced by $1.2 million.
They will have to minimize overtime and vacant positions for savings with the understanding that some overtime is necessary due to court cases, vacancies and jail/detention populations.
The sheriff's office will also get a partial funding increase of nearly $1.2 million, but they requested close to $2.2 million for increasing costs with inmate housing, medical and meals.
However, the budget stated adequate resources are not available in the county's general fund to fully fund the need.
Police/fire dispatch will have a $300,000 reduction by minimizing dispatch overtime.
The local fire fighter's union said while this will be an adjustment, they avoided having to close a fire station and losing a pumper.
"We’ve been down this road with a closure and didn’t want to go that way again," said Ryan Heim, vice president of IAFF Local 64. "The short term, we can make this work. It doesn't meet the national standard that's required for us manpower-wise, but we can tweak some things internally to make this happen."
He went on to say the fire department has recovered from hard budget hits before.
"We’re gonna run a little short on maybe some riggs, ladder trucks, maybe a rescue company — we usually run four," Heim said. "We’ll drop to three to assist the city with this budget deal that they were handed and the citizens wanted this and we’re gonna adapt to what they want."
Mayor Tyrone Garner emphasized all first responders will still be able to keep neighborhoods safe.
"Essential services are still intact" Garner said. "Police will still be responding, patrolling your neighborhoods as well as our fire department and EMS workers."
Garner said the police and fire chief have worked hard to make sure the UG remaining revenue neutral didn't have a significant impact on the services they provide the public.
In the big picture of the UG's financial decisions, he also acknowledged there is more work to do.
"Forty-four percent of our revenue goes toward debt," Garner said. "There are reports we're losing our population. If you look at the blight, a lot of those things that haven't been working. When you talk about policies of the past, you can't keep doing the same things and expect different results."
—
KSHB 41 reporter Alyssa Jackson covers portions of Johnson County, including neighborhoods in Overland Park, Shawnee and Mission. Share your story idea with Alyssa.