Caelin Bragg
Advertising and Distribution Manager
Discussions spearheaded by the Kansas District 77th Representative Kristey Williams on whether Butler County citizens are paying a disproportionate amount in taxes to fund Butler Community College (BCC) are currently ongoing.
The debate is centered around that only 21 percent of the roughly 13,000 students enrolled at Butler Community College reside in Butler County, with just over 60 percent coming from Sedgwick County and the remaining students from elsewhere. Yet Butler County citizens are having to pay, in taxes, for all of Butler’s students.
“Recognizing a problem exists is the first step towards resolution of the problem,” Williams said in an article published by the Butler County Times-Gazette. “Indisputably, Butler County taxpayers are paying $14 million annually in property tax to subsidize 80 percent of BCC’s enrolled students that do not live in our county. For some, this is not a problem. However, for the vast majority of taxpayers who are not affiliated with BCC, it is a big problem.”
The solution presented by Williams would reduce Butler’s mill levy, the amount of annual funding from property taxes the college receives, from the current 20 to 15, which would result in a $3.5 million loss in funding. Williams has also stated that, if Butler’s mill levy was proportional to the amount of attending students from Butler County, it should be reduced to 5.44 equaling a $10.1 million loss.
Williams says a $25 per credit hour fee increase to out-of-county students would cover the loss and be fairer to in-county students, but Butler’s President Kim Krull says that fee increase would result in an eight percent loss in enrollment.
“We have a really good enrollment model that we look at when we’re studying tuition and fees and enrollment and all of that, and we can tell from that enrollment model that there’s a strong likelihood that, if there was a 25 dollar increase in tuition and fees for our students, we would see an eight percent decrease in enrollment,” Krull said.
BCC’s mill levy has remained at slightly over 18 mills until 2016 when a five-year capital outlay was approved by the Board of Trustees, which increased it to the current mill levy to help Butler upgrade its technological capabilities. Butler’s mill levy would return to 18 mills when the outlay ceased in 2021.
The cut by five mills to Butler’s mill levy that Williams is proposing would roughly equate to, if a citizen’s property value was $100,000, taxpayers saving 16 cents per day on taxes, or $58 per year.
“As a taxpayer, and I’m speaking personally, I would rather spend my 16 cents a day to support education,” Krull said.
There are concerns that a cut to Butler’s funding and an increase in tuition and fees could harm the college’s ability to compete with other community and technical colleges in the area, but Williams believes that the responsibility should not fall on the backs of the county citizens.
“It is not the taxpayers’ job to make BCC competitive,” Williams said. “It is BCC’s job to be innovative and competitive, not depend on taxpayers to make BCC competitive. The cost of out-of-county tuition should reflect the REAL cost, not the taxpayer subsidized cost. Being a steward of taxpayer dollars requires a sacred trust that takes only what is needed to meet the objective — and in our case, serving Butler County students. It is not the taxpayers of Butler County’s desire or responsibility to subsidize the education of Sedgwick County students that comprise 60 percent of BCC’s enrollment.”
Krull says that BCC is not ignoring the concerns being presented regarding the college’s mill levy, but she believes that the college’s mission is greater than just serving the county, and a solution to the mill levy controversy would be to look at the entire state of Kansas and the funding community colleges receive from the state. She says that, if the state funded community colleges at an appropriate level, Butler would not have to rely on funding from local taxes.
“We believe very strongly in our mission, and there’s story after story after story about students that wouldn’t be able to come to college, or wouldn’t have that opportunity, if they didn’t have some place like Butler to come to,” Krull said. “And if you shut down your county borders to say, ‘we’re only [going to] serve Butler County students,’ then I think about those students and lives that we don’t get to help, and I don’t think that that’s our mission, at all.”
The final decision on Butler’s mill levy will come from the college’s Board of Trustees, who are the governing body of the college.
“I will not speak for individual board members, but I will speak as a board,” Board of Trustees Chair Eileen Dreiling said. “I believe the board is very conscientious of the mill levy. Many conversations take place regarding taxes. … Today the mill levy is 20.063 and since 1999 (due to change in state legislation) Butler has not received out-of-county money. In 36 years the mill levy has increased only 8.589 mills and the last eight years prior to 2017 the mill levy has remained steady at 18 mills. Knowing that the 20.063 mill levy will sunset in three years back to 18 mills, and that when you do comparable studies/ research, I would have to disagree with Representative Williams’ assessment of the mill levy for BCC as being too high.”
According to Dreiling, the tuition and fees for the school year of 2018-2019 were set in March of this year and a change to Butler’s mill levy would likely not affect students or staff during the current school year.