Every year, Kansas checks each county’s property values. Bourbon County failed again.
Commissioners heard the results Oct. 19 from Mike Dallman of the state’s Property Valuation Division, by speakerphone. A 2016 law, K.S.A. 79-1404b, requires that conversation in an open meeting whenever a county fails.
How the check works
The county appraiser values every property, and landowners get a notice by March 1. For most property, Kansas law says that value should be what it would sell for. Farmland uses a separate formula. A home’s taxable value is 11.5% of its appraised value.
To test the values, the state looks at properties that actually sold. If a house sold for $100,000 and the county had it valued at $80,000, the ratio is 80%. The state lines up the ratios and takes the middle one, the median. The target is 90% to 110%.
It also checks whether similar properties are valued alike.
What the state found
The study used 112 home sales and 19 commercial and industrial sales from 2025.
- Homes: The median was 77.7%, about 78 cents on the dollar. Home values were consistent. “It’s just a matter that the values are low,” Dallman said.
- Businesses: The median was 66.5%, and similar properties were valued very differently. Dallman said commercial is hard statewide, with few sales to compare.
The county must also follow about a dozen procedures, such as reviewing a sixth of all properties yearly. It earned 47 of 50 points. Five more came off because the yearly market-trend notice wasn’t published at least 10 business days before value notices were mailed, as K.S.A. 79-1460a requires.
With 21.1 of 50 points from the sales test, the total was 63.1 out of 100. Passing is 75.
Why it matters
Property tax is supposed to be shared fairly. When some properties are valued closer to their real worth than others, their owners pay more than their share. State school-funding formulas also use local values.
Low values don’t automatically mean lower tax bills. Each taxing body sets its rate by spreading its budget across the value in its area. When taxing entities vote to exceed the “revenue neutral rate” it means they will be taking more in taxes than they did the year before. All else being equal, that determines whether the taxes go up or down.
Not new
State reviews found the county out of compliance every year from 2021 through 2024. In August 2025, then-appraiser Matt Quick put the home ratio at 72.8% and said the county was last in range around 2019 or 2020. State and county officials have blamed a statewide jump in sale prices after COVID.
What’s next
The state isn’t ordering values raised. “Whether you want to raise them or not, we leave that between the commission and the appraiser,” Dallman said. But mid-year 2026 medians for homes and businesses are “considerably lower,” he said, and “most likely I’ll be talking to you this time next year.” He added that the Statehouse has been asking more about counties out of compliance.
Quick resigned this August. Dallman praised new appraiser Danielle Louk and said the state gives a new appraiser a year of leeway on steps that aren’t required by law.