Everything you need to cover August 4.

What it costs you

This is a property-tax-backed general obligation bond, not a tax-free measure, and the ballot language says so directly: it authorizes the City to keep property tax rates high enough to pay the bonds off. What stays flat is the RATE. The City can issue these $100 million in bonds without raising the debt-service levy because roughly $200 million in older general-obligation debt is being paid off and these bonds take its place. So the honest framing is: no increase to your property tax RATE, but yes, this is debt repaid by the City’s debt-service property tax, not a cost-free program.

What it costs you

This is a general obligation bond backed by the City’s existing debt-service property tax levy, so it is not tax-free, and the ballot says so plainly: it authorizes the City to maintain property tax rates sufficient to pay the bonds until they are fully paid. The reason there is no projected rate increase is timing. The City plans to issue this $100 million (together with the $100 million housing bond) as roughly $200 million of older general obligation debt is being completely paid off, so the overall debt-service rate is projected to stay flat. You keep paying the rate you already pay rather than a higher one. The catch worth stating honestly: the ballot authorizes, but does not cap or prohibit, the levy needed to repay the bonds, and the $25 million planned for City Hall is only about half of the roughly $51 million in repairs staff have already identified there.

What it costs you

This is a renewal of an existing tax, not a new one. The one-eighth-cent (1/8%) sales tax has been collected citywide since 2017, with every dollar dedicated to development inside the Central City district. A YES vote keeps that rate exactly the same for 10 more years, so shoppers see no increase at the register. It is not a no-tax measure: if voters reject it, the levy simply expires after September 30, 2027, and the dedicated East Side development fund goes away. Unlike the water and sewer questions on the same ballot, this is a sales tax, not a bond, so it is not repaid from utility fees or property taxes.

What it costs you

No new tax and no tax increase. These are revenue bonds repaid only from the water rates KC Water already collects, not from property, sales, or earnings taxes, so they have no property tax impact. This is not a promise that your water bill never rises. Water rates are set separately by the City and the cost of this work is already factored into the utility rate plan. The honest framing: a YES funds work that has to happen anyway with the cheapest available borrowing, while a NO forces KC Water into pricier debt and faster rate increases.

What it costs you

No new tax and no property-tax increase. These are revenue bonds, and the ballot itself says they are payable solely from sewer system revenues, meaning the sewer fees KC Water already bills. That is the honest part: it is not a promise that your sewer bill will never rise. Sewer rates are set separately each year and have been climbing for over a decade to pay for the federally required cleanup. What a YES does is lock in the cheapest available financing for work the city is legally ordered to do. City staff say the cost of these bonds is already baked into current rates, and that rejecting them would force more expensive borrowing that drives rates up faster.