City asks for joint meeting; county ‘respectfully declines’

Amid talks of budget cuts, the Wichita City Council requested this week to sit down with Sedgwick County Commission members in an en banc – or joint – meeting.

The response?

The “Commission respectfully declines,” according to an e-mail to city staff members from an assistant in the commission office.

Mayor Jeff Longwell asked city staff members to arrange the meeting ahead of finalizing the county and city budgets in coming weeks. The two government entities jointly fund several departments and arts and cultural programs. The biggest joint venture is the Metropolitan Area Planning Department.

An agreement between the city and county for 2015 said both would pay $740,341 for the planning department, and the city was planning the same amount for next year. The planning department has 18 employees who work on the 10th floor of city hall.

But during the City Council meeting Tuesday, City Manager Robert Layton presented the 2016 proposed budget and told council members his biggest budget concern – other than funding the city’s struggling transit system – was the potential to lose at least $150,000 from the county for the planning department.

“It’s my understanding, based on staff recommendations for the county budget, that the county is considering a unilateral reduction in that budget not reflected in ours and, I believe, inconsistent with the agreement that has been approved by both jurisdictions,” Layton told the council.

In an interview, Commissioner Richard Ranzau said he’s not sure the city and county need to have a joint meeting because the leadership from both the council and the commission plan to meet Thursday in a closed session.

Ranzau said he wasn’t sure what the purpose would be for the proposed joint meeting.

“I’m not sure we need to have (an en banc),” Ranzau said. “We’re going to talk with them tomorrow. ... We haven’t normally done this for budget.”

But Longwell says that a closed, private meeting among himself, Vice Mayor James Clendenin, Ranzau and Commissioner Karl Peterjohn isn’t the same as a joint meeting of the two governmental bodies.

“It doesn’t come close to serving the same purpose of an en banc, which would be an open meeting to allow people to weigh in and take public comment and have a little more understanding,” Longwell said.

City documents say the “preliminary county funding level will cause significant impact on service levels in 2016” for the planning department. The department plans for long-term growth of the area and handles everything from zoning issues to historic preservation.

If the county and city had an en banc, it would be the first over budget issues – at least as far back as Longwell can remember.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had an en banc strictly for budget,” Longwell said. “If we’re going to do some functional consolidation with these departments, to me it makes sense.

“We have so many opportunities to work together with the county as we consolidate departments, and we’re hearing rumors that they want to pull back funding from this department or that,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just have an en banc? ‘What are we going to fund?’ ‘What’s the budget look like for you?’ And ‘what impact is that going to have on us?’

“We just want to get a feel for what kind of impact their decisions will make on our budget.”

The Sedgwick County Commission will hold its budget hearings at 9 a.m. on July 29 and 6 p.m. on Aug. 6. The budget will be adopted on Aug. 12.

The Wichita City Council will hold its budget hearing at 9 a.m. on Aug. 4. It will approve the budget on Aug. 11.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 6:23 PM with the headline "City asks for joint meeting; county ‘respectfully declines’."