WICHITA, Kan. (The Wichita Eagle) -- Sedgwick County Commission District 2 candidates Sarah Lopez, the Democratic incumbent, and Jeff Blubaugh, the Republican challenger, disagree about how the county should address affordable housing in Sedgwick County. But they both said they think county property taxes play a key role. Lopez said she plans to offer property tax relief by consolidating services offered by cities and the county but opposes a Republican proposal to cut property tax funding for all but the county's "core services" while funding everything else with sales taxes. Blubaugh voiced support for outright cuts to the county budget and called for changes to how the appraiser calculates fair market value to keep property taxes lower. The two candidates squared off at the Wichita Journalism Collaborative's housing forum at Friends University on Tuesday night. "If we want long-term, transformational change at local government, it's not going to come from a sales tax over property tax because that's just shifting the burden from one to the other," Lopez said. "But it's really going to come down to functional consolidation of services between the cities and the county. There's so much duplication of efforts right now." Jeff Blubaugh and Sarah Lopez prepare for the Sept. 24 forum at Friend’s University. The candidates discussed subjects such as new home ownership, zoning, taxes and more. (Kristy Mace / The Sunflower) "Right now, as I'm out door knocking, people are struggling," Blubaugh said. "Property taxes are the number one issue. I hear it time and time again. People point out to me ‘our neighbors are losing their house,' ‘we're behind on our payment' and it gets back to the property tax and the property tax assessment." Lopez defended her record, saying the county voted to lower its mill levy two years in a row while increasing pay for staff and hiring more county employees in vacant positions while Blubaugh said he favors freezing county spending and would vote against exceeding the revenue neutral rate, as he did on the Wichita City Council. "We were able to improve the services because we invested in our people, and our services are only as good as the people who provide them," Lopez said. Blubaugh said the public expects government to cut down on spending as the cost of living increases, and that he would. "If you look at what's going on in people's homes right now, whenever you hear about quality of life, quality of life starts at home," Blubaugh said. "Do you have groceries? Do you have gas in your car? Do you have enough money to pay your bills each month? That's where it starts. Everybody's tightening their belts on their houses, and they expect government to do the same." Lopez called the revenue neutral plan irresponsible given the county's recent initiatives to increase staffing levels and improve pay. "We have put so much effort into prioritizing our staff to then turn around and say, ‘Actually, just kidding, we're going to cut your job or you're just not going to get a raise for a while' — to expect anybody to stay is just not the reality of the situation," she said. Property taxes are calculated based on property valuations, set by the appraiser's office, and mill levy rates, set by local governments. Blubaugh said he would like to see lower property valuations. "We've got to have a fair assessment of value," Blubaugh said. "I'm a real estate broker, and usually when I look at the tax values, it used to be, well, you know, those tax values are well under the sales price right now. When I look at the numbers, you normally cannot sell those properties for what the tax value is, so we've got to ensure we have a realistic assessment value for property taxes." At one point, an audience member had to be cut off after he began shouting at the candidates and moderator about "corruption in the appraiser's office," accusing the appraiser's office of punishing taxpayers for challenging their tax appraisals. Blubaugh said he plans to ask questions of the appraiser's office to find out if there's any merit to the man's claims. "I will continue to ask a lot of questions," Blubaugh said. "I do know that, you know, it's just like police officers. Sometimes you have a bad police officer. And I know that there's some appraisers that go out there and target people. I don't know if it's just coincidence or not, but whenever I started raising flags about all this property tax issues, I look outside my window and there's a central county property tax appraiser sitting right outside my window this afternoon." Lopez said the County Commission has no business interfering with the Sedgwick County appraiser, who reports to the state of Kansas. "This almost sounds kind of conspiracy," Lopez said. ". . . The appraiser works for the state and not Sedgwick County Commissioners, so our hands really are tied when it comes to appraisal because we are not a part of that. That is a state and appraiser led deal. It is not a county commissioner thing." This article was produced as part of the Wichita Journalism Collaborative, which includes The Wichita Eagle and 10 other organizations and community groups, including KSN-TV.