Where Sedgwick County’s zoo funding stands

The county’s funding for the Sedgwick County Zoo has become a point of contention in the western Sedgwick County Commission race.

Commission candidate David Dennis has criticized the County Commission majority for cutting the zoo in this year’s budget, which was approved last August. Incumbent Commissioner Karl Peterjohn says it wasn’t a cut and that commission critics are “being convenient with the facts.”

So why does one candidate say it was a cut and the other doesn’t?

“It depends on what you consider a cut,” Sedgwick County Zoological Society president Mark DeVries said. “It’s semantics.”

Here’s the explanation:

The 2016 budget allocated $5.6 million to the Sedgwick County Zoo. That was on par with what it got in 2015, excluding a one-time expenditure of $5.3 million for the elephant barn for the zoo’s elephants.

But it did not include a $388,302 increase for 2016 set forth in a funding agreement that commissioners canceled before the budget cycle. That agreement had called for gradual increases in zoo funding.

“The dollars are the same. It’s just the cost of the salaries, wages and benefits have increased,” DeVries said. “There was more to pay for considering the county-approved salaries.”

But there’s more:

The final budget did include an earmark of $150,000 in the county commissioners’ contingency fund for personnel costs if needed.

It’s unclear whether the zoo will get that money. Commissioners officially notified the zoo board it was terminating another agreement – the operating agreement – last year. The Nov. 18 resolution declared that the $150,000 would be “contingent upon the Board of County Commissioners and Society reaching agreement on a new funding and operating agreement.”

Those agreements are now being negotiated. Letters obtained by The Eagle suggest the two sides are nearing an impasse on the operating agreement. The county wants to boost its voting power on the zoo board, and the zoo does not want that.

County Manager Michael Scholes’ recommended 2017 budget sets aside $5.8 million for the zoo’s budget, all in personnel costs.

This story was originally published July 23, 2016 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Where Sedgwick County’s zoo funding stands."