The Path to Repeal

The specific constitutional process, and what's actually been tried recently

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The Legal Path to Full Repeal in Kansas

Kansas's Constitution, Article 11, Section 1, currently requires the legislature to tax property: it directs that the legislature "shall provide for a uniform and equal basis of valuation and rate of taxation of all property subject to taxation." Because this requirement is written into the constitution itself, a simple statute cannot eliminate property tax outright — the constitution itself must be amended.

Kansas has only one route to amend its constitution: a legislatively referred amendment. There is no citizen ballot-initiative process in Kansas, unlike some other states.

The process works as follows:

  1. A resolution is introduced in either the House or Senate proposing to amend Article 11.
  2. Two-thirds of the members elected to each chamber must approve it in the same legislative session — a minimum of 84 votes in the 125-member House and 27 votes in the 40-member Senate.
  3. The Governor's signature is not required. A constitutional amendment resolution goes directly to the ballot regardless of the Governor's position. This trips people up, since it's the opposite of how an ordinary bill works — a regular bill does need the Governor's signature (or can be vetoed by one). Article 14, Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution lays out the amendment process separately, and the Governor doesn't appear in it at all.
  4. Kansas voters then decide at the next statewide election (or a special election, if the legislature calls one). A simple majority (50% + 1) of those voting on the question is enough to adopt it.

This is a high bar — 84 House votes and 27 Senate votes represents a genuine supermajority — but it is achievable and has been reached before on other constitutional questions (for example, past amendments on property classification and valuation, and various election-related amendments).

It's worth distinguishing this from the more limited bills the Kansas Legislature has debated in recent sessions, below — those are statutory changes that cap or slow property tax growth, not amendments that remove the constitutional taxation requirement itself.

What Kansas Has Actually Tried Recently (2025–2026)

Recent legislative sessions are a useful case study in how difficult even partial property tax relief has been, let alone full repeal:

  • House Bill 2745 (2026) would have replaced the existing revenue-neutral-rate system with a hard 3% annual cap on how much most local taxing jurisdictions could increase property tax collections, subject to a citizen protest-petition process. It passed the House but was reworked repeatedly in the Senate before ultimately being vetoed.
  • House Bill 2043 (2026), a revised version of the same concept, passed both chambers in the final days of the session but was vetoed. Because the legislature had already adjourned, there was no opportunity for an override vote.
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 1616 proposed a constitutional amendment capping annual increases in assessed value (not the tax rate itself) at 3%, resetting values to 2022 levels. It passed the Senate 30–10 but failed to pass the House.
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 1603, an earlier related attempt, proposed capping annual valuation increases at 9% starting in 2027; it also failed to pass the House.
  • House Concurrent Resolution 5008, another constitutional amendment approach, failed in the Senate.

None of these bills would have eliminated property tax — they were aimed at slowing its growth or shifting a small piece of it. The fact that even growth caps have repeatedly stalled or been vetoed illustrates how contested even modest, incremental changes to Kansas property tax have been. Legislators and the public alike tend to ask the same question about any proposal that reduces this revenue: "If not property tax, then what pays for schools, roads, and public safety?" That question is examined directly in The Replacement Revenue Math.

Two Alternatives That Surfaced in 2026 — Neither Advanced

In May 2026, several senators floated the idea of a special session to eliminate the statewide 20-mill school levy, funded by raising the state sales tax by 0.75 cents (from 6.5% to 7.25%). This proposal illustrates, in a very concrete Kansas-specific way, what a "tax swap" for even just the state's smallest property tax component would look like — and it did not advance, partly on concerns that a sales tax increase falls disproportionately on lower-income households.

Separately, Governor Kelly proposed her own three-part relief package in April 2026 — a one-time $250 vehicle tax credit, incentives for local governments to slow spending growth, and increased state cost-sharing for schools — as an alternative to the legislature's levy-cap approach. It did not advance in that form either.

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This guide reflects publicly available legislative and government records as of September 2026. Bill status, vote counts, and program details should be verified against current session records before republishing or citing specific figures. See Sources for citations.