Leawood tax helps streets, storm water

By: Peggy Dunn, Guest Columnist

Surveys of Leawood residents’ values have long indicated that public safety, parks and green space along with well-maintained infrastructure, including both streets and storm water systems, are their highest priorities for city services.

It was approximately seven years ago when the city of Leawood began an accelerated street reconstruction program. Reviewing the millions of dollars of street work backlog, the City Council and I realized that we would never catch up in our lifetimes. Therefore, we decided to initiate a multi-year bond program that would proactively reconstruct our streets. Since street reconstruction is many times more expensive than street maintenance, this accelerated program made good economic sense for our residents. We will soon undertake a similar multimillion-dollar plan for needed storm water improvements.

A number of years ago, enabling legislation was passed in Topeka to allow for a voter-approved infrastructure sales tax. While a number of Johnson County cities have implemented this tax, I’m proud to say that Leawood’s voters have twice overwhelmingly approved this one-eighth-cent sales tax for a five-year period. The tax will generate an average of $750,000 per year over the five years of the renewed tax authority. Its use will be split equally between streets and smaller storm water projects that are not eligible for county funding.

Leawood residents take great pride in their homes and beautiful neighborhoods. Reinvestment in our aging infrastructure ensures that streetscapes are revitalized and home values remain strong. We believe that it is important to be proactive rather than reactive. The use of this sales tax revenue allows us to pay cash for smaller projects and thereby augment what we are currently doing with our accelerated program. Again, this saves our taxpayers dollars.

One final positive that has made this sales tax appealing to our voters in the past is the fact that non-Leawood residents who choose to shop and dine in Leawood will also assist in paying for our infrastructure needs. This fact probably contributed to the recent sales tax election approvals in Overland Park and Lenexa as well.

The Leawood governing body takes our fiscal responsibility very seriously. It was only a few months ago that Leawood received a bond rating upgrade to Aaa from Moody’s Investors Services. This identified Leawood as one of just two cities in the state of Kansas with this extraordinary recognition, and it was a major accomplishment and affirmation of our fiscal policies.

I firmly believe that the renewal of this infrastructure sales tax makes prudent economic sense for our community. I encourage you to vote on this very important matter on Aug. 5. Thank you very much.

Peggy Dunn serves as Leawood mayor.