WICHITA, Kan. ( The Wichita Eagle ) — Sedgwick County Commission District 2 candidates Sarah Lopez, the Democratic incumbent, and Jeff Blubaugh, the Republican challenger, disagree about how the county should address affordable housing in Sedgwick County. But they both said they think county property taxes play a key role.
Lopez said she plans to offer property tax relief by consolidating services offered by cities and the county but opposes a Republican proposal to cut property tax funding for all but the county’s “core services” while funding everything else with sales taxes. Blubaugh voiced support for outright cuts to the county budget and called for changes to how the appraiser calculates fair market value to keep property taxes lower.
The two candidates squared off at the Wichita Journalism Collaborative ‘s housing forum at Friends University on Tuesday night.
“If we want long-term, transformational change at local government, it’s not going to come from a sales tax over property tax because that’s just shifting the burden from one to the other,” Lopez said. “But it’s really going to come down to functional consolidation of services between the cities and the county. There’s so much duplication of efforts right now.”