NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County Appraiser Michael Plank told Hutch Post it's important for property owners to remember how tax policy is set.
"Go to the meetings of the taxing entities and voice your concerns there," Plank said. "I'm always telling people you cannot protest your taxes with the appraiser, and that's a very important distinction. You can protest, you can come in and talk to me, and you can protest the valuation or the classification which can have tax implications, we all realize that, I think, but you can't just come into our office and complain about taxes. There's not much I can do about that."
It's also important to note that Reno County has a tax burden that is not out of step with the rest of the state.
"In 2023, the county's mill levy of 35.762 mills was the ninth lowest in the state," Plank said. "I'm just talking about the county portion right now, okay, so that's lower than Leavenworth, Butler, which is El Dorado, Ellis, which is Hays, Salina, Manhattan, Lawrence, Ford County, lower than all those, but that's just the county portion. The total average mill levy in Reno County, once you add in all the other taxing districts, city, schools, college, fire, townships all that stuff the average mill levy of 153 mills ranked 58 out of 105 counties so right in the middle, but still lower than Kingman, Sumner, Pratt, Wyandotte and Ford counties to name a few. I just wanted to take that opportunity to dispel the misinformation going around that Reno County has the highest property taxes in the state, it simply just isn't even close."
It's also important that people understand that appraisal is by class of property, it isn't changed because of who owns what.
"We don't see names or ownership or anything like that when we have to select a specific value for each specific property," Plank said. "When we're doing that like we don't see names or ownership or anything like that we're just looking at the numbers available to us and the information that we have on record for that specific property."
If you have questions for the appraiser's office, give them a call at (620) 694-2915.