Editor’s note: This is the second of two stories about last week’s Great Bend Chamber of Commerce Coffee, which was hosted by the City of Great Bend to promote a three-quarter cent sales tax. The first story, which ran in the Sept. 5 edition of the Great Bend Tribune, described how one-quarter cent would be used for rehabilitating the city’s Wastewater Treatment Facility. In today’s article, we look at how the remaining half-cent could be used.

Paying for improvements to the city’s Wastewater Treatment Facility is only one piece of the proposed three-quarter-cent sales tax that Great Bend voters will decide Nov. 3. City Administrator Logan Burns has been making the rounds at community events to explain the other two pieces: property tax relief and a STAR Bond project at the Expo Complex.

Property Tax Relief

“The other component of this would be property tax relief,” Burns told attendees at last week’s Great Bend Chamber Coffee, hosted by the city. Officials estimate that portion of the tax would bring in around $1.3 million.

Burns noted the city has held the line on property taxes since 2024, staying revenue-neutral and not increasing the dollar amount requested through local levies. Those levies generate just shy of $6 million a year, funding core services like fire, EMS, police, water and sewer.

“With our budgets being tight and us collecting the same amount of tax dollars since 2024, I think everybody realizes how far that dollar goes at this point,” Burns said. “So that would give us some relief in our budget.”

The STAR Bond Project

The third piece of the proposal centers on a STAR Bond project the city has been developing for roughly three years, with plans evolving along the way. The project would fund upgrades to the dragstrip and expand offerings at the Expo Complex.

Burns described the current dragstrip viewing experience as bare-bones. “If you’ve been to a race and you’ve sat on those stands, it’s not a very comfortable seat — you’re just sitting on some wooden benches,” he said. The plan would add covered seating along with amenities like restrooms and concessions, aimed at improving the experience enough to keep people coming back.

The other half of the STAR Bond project is an athletic complex. Four courts are currently scheduled, but Burns said the city hopes to grow that number to at least eight. “It’s hard to have a tournament filling four courts,” he said, noting the goal is to make the complex big enough to actually host tournament play.

Burns said the city may also find savings within the dragstrip portion of the project that could be shifted toward the athletic complex. “That’s going to bring families with ball tournaments, cheerleading, wrestling, basketball,” he said. “There’s all sorts of tournaments that we could then host in Great Bend at that point.”

That is the reasoning behind combining the projects into a single ballot question rather than pursuing them separately.

Flexibility Built Into the Plan

Burns emphasized that the city council retains control over how much of the STAR Bond project to pursue and when. The council could choose to move forward with just the dragstrip component, both components, or neither.

To help shape those decisions, Mayor Alan Moeder said the city plans to form a committee that includes city officials as well as at least four members of the public.

“We want community opinion, and there will be things thrown out,” Moeder said, encouraging residents to watch the newspaper for updates. If the sales tax passes, the city will hold meetings and publish ideas for public feedback once the committee gets underway.

How the STAR Bond Funding Works

Under the ballot language, a maximum of a quarter-cent of the sales tax could go toward STAR Bond obligations. Burns said the estimated bond payment, if the city moves forward with both the dragstrip and athletic complex, would run around $1.3 million annually.

If the STAR Bond project performs well enough — through either the dragstrip or the athletic complex, or both — to cover its own operations plus that bond payment, the sales tax revenue set aside for the STAR Bond would no longer be needed there. At that point, Burns said, the money could be redirected to water infrastructure.

That need is significant. Burns said the city is facing roughly $137 million in water infrastructure work in the coming years, a figure that includes replacing capacity lost when a well was taken offline due to nitrate contamination and tightening federal PFAS regulations. Burns said the city met with the Kansas Department of Agriculture to discuss water rights as part of that effort, and he expects PFAS limits to only get stricter over time.

“If this is something that we can roll that money into the infrastructure at that point, that’s kind of the legacy aspect that we’re talking about,” Burns said, “and we’re not in this situation 30 years from now.”

Great Bend voters will decide the fate of the three-quarter-cent sales tax proposal on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.