Wichita State, City Hall craft rescue package for troubled Urban League

Two months after Wichita State University President John Bardo took office as chairman of the Urban League of Kansas, the university and the city of Wichita are joining forces to help rescue the financially troubled organization.

On Tuesday, the City Council will considering spending $300,000 to buy out the bank mortgage on the Urban League headquarters building at 2418 E. 9th St., and selling it back to the League on more favorable terms.

But city staff is recommending the building bailout wait until WSU and the Urban League can finalize an agreement to provide job training and other services at the building.

The 63-year-old organization was once a cornerstone of Wichita’s African-American community, fighting for economic opportunity, civil rights and housing fairness for black citizens. But in recent years, its funding and status declined.

Last year, after losing funding from United Way, the Urban League laid off its entire staff and suspended its programming.

That was necessary “so we could go back, reorganize and look at how we could start rebuilding the programs,” Melody McCray Miller, former state legislator serving as the organization’s interim director.

Under the plan, WSU would move staff and classes to the Urban League building and develop a recruitment program for job training. WSU would pay the Urban League for some classroom space, job training and community outreach for the university.

The proposal will come before the Urban League board in January, McCray-Miller said.

Bardo took on the volunteer job of chairing the Urban League Board in October. He recognizes he has a conflict of interest, so the negotiations are being handled by Marche Fleming-Randle, WSU’s vice president for diversity and community engagement, said Andy Schlapp, the university’s director of government relations.

Because a final deal has not been reached, it is unclear whether an agreement between WSU and the Urban League would meet the financial threshold to require approval by the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees the state university system, Schlapp said.

Schlapp said the proposed agreement would be part of the university’s ongoing attempt to leverage its investment in the Innovation Campus to benefit the economy of the urban neighborhoods surrounding the campus.

“We’ve been in conversation with the Urban League to figure out how we could partner with them ... of how we can provide the training and research necessary to the constituents of the Urban League, so the Urban League would have the power of WSU behind it and they could help with outreach in the 67214 and other communities to help bring people onto campus,” Schlapp said.

This year, the Urban League graduated two classes of certified nursing assistants and is working with Pratt Community College on offering other health-care courses. The Urban League also is working with new partners on a low-interest loan program for rural communities outside Wichita and a science training program for second- and third-graders, McCray-Miller said.

Right now, the organization has only two employees, McCray-Miller, the interim CEO and president and Frankie Kirkendoll, vice president of programming. They expect to hire at least five more as the workforce development and housing programs ramp up, McCray-Miller said.

The city’s mortgage deal is “not a handout, it’s a hand up to help them get back on their feet,” said City Council member Lavonta Williams, who will leave office early next month and is hoping to join the Urban League board. “This gives them the opportunity to get their strength back.”

The 30-year loan will be repaid annually by the Urban League; payments will be 75 percent of the organization’s surplus cash after operating expenses, the city report said.

“We’re looking at it from the perspective of another building that could be empty at the corner of 9th and Grove,” Williams said. “And a staple that would be lost out of the community if that were to be the case. Some people losing the opportunity to be exposed to programs that could result into employment. Programs that are involved in helping our at-risk youth and programming that’s been around since the 50s.”

This story was originally published December 18, 2017 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Wichita State, City Hall craft rescue package for troubled Urban League."