The Kansas House and Senate gave final passage Friday to House Bill 2088, which modifies a property tax lid law they approved last year, with plenty of exemptions that will allow cities and counties to continue increasing property tax revenues from certain sources.

TOPEKA — The Kansas House and Senate gave final passage Friday to a bill that modifies a property tax lid law they approved last year, with plenty of exemptions that will allow cities and counties to continue increasing property tax revenues from certain sources.

House Bill 2088 now goes to Gov. Sam Brownback for his signature or veto.

Last year, lawmakers passed a bill that requires cities and counties to get voter approval before they could increase property tax revenues from one year to the next beyond the rate of inflation. That law is scheduled to take effect July 1, 2018.

The new bill moves up the effective date by one year, to 2017, but includes a number of exemptions that would allow cities and counties to increase revenues under certain conditions without voter approval.

Those include new revenues generated by new construction or improvement to existing property; annexation of new territory; the expiration of property tax abatements that were given for economic development reasons; and new taxes raised to pay for public safety functions, to pay legal settlements or to comply with state or federal mandates.

The Kansas Association of Realtors pushed hard for passage of last year’s bill, which was added late in the session to a larger tax bill. That group also pushed hard again this year, hoping to advance the effective date to July 1, 2016.

But organizations representing cities and counties pushed back this year, arguing that as the current law was written, it created a disincentive for growth because any new property value added to the local jurisdiction’s tax base would not generate new revenue, even though growth often brings with it higher costs for things like police and fire protection or street maintenance.

The compromise bill was worked out after lengthy negotiations, and while cities and counties said they still were not pleased with a new tax lid, they agreed the new bill would be an improvement over the existing law.

The final version of the bill passed 37-3 in the Senate and 112-5 in the House.

All six members of the Douglas County delegation voted in favor of the bill, including Democratic Sens. Marci Francisco of Lawrence and Tom Holland of Baldwin City, Democratic Reps. Barbara Ballard, Boog Highberger and John Wilson of Lawrence; and Lawrence Republican Rep. Tom Sloan.