April 15 may be the day that frequently gets circled on calendars as tax day, but when it comes to local taxes, the real action happens during the summer season.

Cities, counties and school districts are all now crunching numbers to determine what property tax rates will need to be for the coming year. It is budget time, and there is no shortage of big-ticket items looming that could have major property tax implications.

At Lawrence City Hall, there’s talk of a $30 million police headquarters building, at the Douglas County Courthouse a multimillion-dollar public safety radio replacement program is under discussion, and at the Lawrence school district, leaders have been figuring on a potential bond issue for school improvements. With all that, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at how Lawrence and Douglas County stack up when it comes to matters of property taxes. Here’s a look at several issues, with most numbers coming from a report compiled by the Kansas League of Municipalities:

Cities

There are 13 cities in the state of Kansas with population totals of 30,000 people or more. Here’s how Lawrence’s city property tax rate stacks up: (And remember, a mill is $1 in property tax for every, $1,000 of assessed valuation. But don’t worry, we’ll talk about that more in a bit.)

1) Overland Park: 12.814 mills

2) Leawood: 24.393 mills

3) Olathe: 24.689 mills

4) Shawnee: 24.732 mills

5) Salina: 26.272 mills

6) Lawrence: 28.612 mills

7) Lenexa: 29.635 mills

8) Wichita: 32.360 mills

9) Topeka: 32.928 mills

10) Hutchinson: 41.412 mills

11) Manhattan: 42.156 mills

12) Kansas City: 45.267 mills

13) Leavenworth: 49.373 mills

Counties

For our county comparison, we look at the five largest counties in the state, plus Riley County, home to Kansas State University.

1) Johnson County: 17.7 mills

2) Sedgwick County: 29.428 mills

3) Riley County: 34.782 mills

4) Douglas County: 35.773 mills

5) Wyandotte County: 36.399 mills

6) Shawnee: 43.165 mills

School districts

When it comes to property taxes, it is a fact school districts are the big players. State law essentially makes property taxes the only funding source available to school districts, while cities and counties both can rely on sales taxes. That makes property taxes for school districts a frequent complaint for property owners. But just how does Lawrence’s school property taxes stack up against other large-city districts? Well, we just happen to have this list:

1) USD 345 Seaman Topeka: 51.237 mills

2) USD 450 Shawnee Heights Topeka: 52.004 mills

3) USD 437 Auburn Washburn Topeka: 53.152 mills

4) USD 512 Shawnee Mission Johnson County: 56.153 mills

5) USD 501 Topeka: 56.307 mills

6) USD 259 Wichita: 57.017 mills

7) USD 203 Piper Kansas City: 57.988 mills

8) USD 497 Lawrence: 59.438 mills

9) USD 500 Kansas City: 68.248 mills

10) USD 202 Turner Kansas City: 69.463 mills

11) USD 233 Olathe: 69.924 mills

12) USD 229 Blue Valley Johnson County: 72.828 mills

Total tax rates

We could make you get out your abacus and add all this up, but that seems mean. Here’s a look at the total mill levies — meaning city, county, school district and other miscellaneous property taxes — for the 13 largest cities in the state:

1) Overland Park: 118.841

2) Wichita: 120.906

3) Salina: 124.614

4) Shawnee: 124.646

5) Lawrence: 125.160

6) Olathe: 129.779

7) Leawood: 130.090

8) Lenexa: 130.418

9) Manhattan: 131.686

10) Leavenworth: 144.677

11) Topeka: 151.270

12) Hutchinson: 165.022

13) Kansas City: 178.402

The Average Joe test

Here’s the thing about property taxes: They’re all relative. Your total tax bill depends on both the mill levy rate and the value of your house. Property values, obviously, vary quite a bit from community to community. But beyond those factors, there’s also the average wages in your community, which help determine how much most folks can reasonably pay in taxes. So, this test tries to combine all those factors. What we’ve done is take the average home price for each city as determined by the 2010 American Community Survey, which is a product of the U.S. Census Bureau. We then looked at the average wage paid to people in each community. With wages, we used American Community Survey data that represents the average earnings of full-time, year-round workers. That’s our attempt to try to factor out the large number of student workers in Lawrence, who normally are paid quite a bit less than full-time workers. The dollar numbers below are the taxes paid on an average-valued home. Then we calculated how large of a percentage those taxes are compared with an Average Joe (or Jane’s) annual earnings. Here’s a look:

1) Wichita: $1,547 in taxes; 4.0 percent of earnings

2) Olathe: $2,884; 4.3 percent

3) Salina: $1,572; 4.5 percent

4) Topeka: $1,638; 4.5 percent

5) Hutchinson: $1,639; 4.9 percent

6) Kansas City: $1,938; 5.1 percent

7) Lenexa: $3,226; 5.2 percent

8) Overland Park: $3,043; 5.5 percent

9) Shawnee: $2,846; 5.6 percent

10) Leavenworth: $2,066; 5.7 percent

11) Lawrence: $2,488; 5.8 percent

12) Manhattan: $2,480; 7.1 percent

13) Leawood: $5,753; 8.3 percent