GUEST COLUMN, Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute
The Wichita City Council seems poised to rush a proposal to the ballot for a 1-cent sales tax to raise $850 million over seven years for several new projects. That at least implies that imposing a new tax is the only way to fund “public safety projects, property tax relief, and revitalizing Century II and the surrounding area, among other things” without having first (or ever) doing a thorough performance-based budget review.
If the measure goes to the ballot, we’ll dig into the specific proposals over time, but property tax relief is a non-starter. It looks good on paper, but it won’t happen. The State Legislature gave money to cities and counties for theoretical property tax relief with its Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction program. The Legislature last funded it in 2003, when the average county tax increase was 7.6 percent. LAVTR merely gave local officials more to spend. Without LAVTR, county property taxes averaged a 3.8 percent increase over the last five years.
Like most cities and other government entities, Wichita doesn’t have a real, taxpayer-focused budget process. The staff proposes more spending and higher taxes, and elected officials approve it without much change or taxpayer-focused analysis.
The process should start with elected officials giving direction to the City Manager, like, “Present us with a budget that does not raise taxes and doesn’t cut a service, unless you believe the service is no longer necessary.” Elected officials should also require a robust, annual performance-based budget process to ensure that necessary services are provided efficiently and effectively.
A taxpayer-focused budget process prevents spending and tax increases from getting out of control, and, having just hired a new city manager, this is a great time to examine spending. The adjacent table shows budgeted General Fund spending for 2026 is 66 percent higher than in 2012, while inflation was 40 percent. Spending would be about $54 million less if it had increased for inflation, and that’s just the General Fund.
Wichita needs spending reallocation before doubling the local sales tax
Pay and benefits are up a whopping 79 percent – double the rate of inflation. The argument for outsized increases in pay and benefits is that government needs to be competitive with the private workforce, but City Council shouldn’t place an undue burden on taxpayers. Unfortunately, that’s what took place, with a 73 percent increase in General Fund property taxes.
Unaffordable tax increases are the result of not having a real budget process.
Cities can fairly compensate employees AND protect taxpayers with a budget process that eliminates unnecessary spending.
The City of Wichita also has unnecessarily high cash reserves – another hallmark of not having a taxpayer-focused budget process.
The ending General Fund cash reserve in 2012 was a little over $23 million, which was 11 percent of expenditures. If City Council had increased spending by inflation and maintained an 11 percent reserve, it would be $32 million at the end of 2026. Instead, council members approved an ending balance of almost $50 million.
A one-cent sales tax may not sound like a lot, but it would double the current local sales tax that Wichitans pay, and as many elected officials reminded us when they wanted to eliminate the state sales tax on food, sales tax hurts lower-income families the most.
On the point of this process being rushed, a group of citizens and businesses presented the proposal on Nov. 25, the week of Thanksgiving, and the City Council is planning to discuss it on Dec. 9 before voting on Dec. 16. There have been promises of townhalls of one sort or another for public feedback, but a proposal of this consequence being acted on in a matter of weeks during one of the busiest times of the year certainly raises timing concerns.
We encourage City Council members to hold off on proposing any new taxes until the new City Manager conducts a comprehensive spending review. Even then, City Council members should certify that, in their opinion, the City is operating at peak proficiency and has no choice but to increase taxes.
