ESKRIDGE ? When local school board members decided in the 1970s to build a new high school outside this Flint Hills community, they angered a lot of people, partly because they raised property taxes.

The memories are still vivid for Dean Dunn, the 78-year-old owner of Dunn’s Home Supply, who served on the board at the time.

“I had manure thrown on the front door, wires ripped out of my car, skunks let loose in my house,” said Dunn, a businessman here since 1949.

Rising property taxes retain their power to anger Kansans and spook politicians. In 1992, when legislators wrote a new law for distributing state aid to public schools, they helped sell it as a big cut in local property taxes.

Since then, property tax levies have risen again, and school districts are relying on them to finance basic operations, which wasn’t supposed to happen. Tax rates in many districts are approaching pre-1992 levels.

“The erosion of that relief that’s appearing around the state is probably not a good situation,” said Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton.

Property taxes are likely to be a key issue for the Kansas Supreme Court as it reviews an education funding plan approved this year by legislators. While the plan increases the state’s annual spending by $127 million, it also allows large increases in local property taxes.

The court plans to hear arguments May 11 on the plan. Still pending is a lawsuit filed in 1999 against the state by a coalition of school districts, led by Dodge City and Salina.

In Eskridge, home to the Mission Valley school district, Superintendent Chuck Schmidt said new families, who have jobs in Topeka and Emporia, are moving into eastern Wabaunsee County, causing property values to rise.

That’s good news. Once bristling with commerce, this town of 600 has been reduced to Dunn’s store, a cafe, antique store, convenience store and gas station. Most of the school district’s tax base is tied to the rich farming and ranching lands that surround it.

But Schmidt would rather see more dollars from the state than additional authority for his board to raise local taxes.

“The bottom line is that it is supposed to be the Legislature’s responsibility,” he said. “They seem to continually want to turn that responsibility over to local boards.”

The 1992 law distributed money per pupil, using a formula to provide extra money for special needs, such as bilingual education or programs for children who are at-risk of dropping out.

The law also set a single, statewide levy to finance schools’ basic operations — 35 mills, or $403 a year on a $100,000 home. In a booming economy, legislators felt free to cut the levy to rely on other tax sources, reducing the school property tax levy by 1997 to $184 on a $100,000 home.

The 1992 law also said schools could raise local property taxes to supplement their state aid, up to 25 percent.

But local taxes began climbing as districts used their authority to keep pace with rising costs of teacher salaries, insurance, fuel and meeting the mandates of state and federal education policy. Taxpayers paid $1.6 billion in property taxes for the 2003-04 school year, the most recent figures available.

The relief provided in 1992 is slipping away. Mission Valley levied $65 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed property value in 1992.

The figure is now to $49 and would climb back to $65 if it the district used the full authority granted under this year’s legislation.

And some districts lose state aid as enrollments drop, creating more pressure to raise local property taxes.

“We’ve cut positions as we’ve lost students to keep that levy in a reasonable place, as have most districts that lost enrollment,” said Larry Lysell, superintendent of Belleville schools in Republic County.

Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, a watchdog organization, said property tax rates must be addressed if Kansas is to remain competitive with neighboring states.

“The property tax problem is the huge question that the Legislature and governor haven’t touched,” Peterjohn said.

Pressure to raise the cap on local property taxes has come annually from Johnson County legislators, who say residents realize that a good school system drives economic growth.

But critics see numerous problems. First, a property owner’s taxes can rise even if local boards don’t increase levies, as property values rise. Also, businesses pay the tax whether they have a good year or bad year.

Finally, districts with high property values can raise money more easily than those with lower values.

“We just can’t lean on property taxes,” said House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney, D-Greensburg.

Under this year’s education funding plan, all districts would get a share of the additional $127 million legislators appropriated.