Wichita sales tax proposal debated at forum

The city’s proposed sales tax to fund a variety of improvements for Wichita is either unnecessary and vague or is exactly what is needed to get the city moving forward.

People on both sides of the debate over the proposed sales tax, which will be on the November ballot, had a chance to air their views at a forum Tuesday night hosted by Young Professionals of Wichita. About 50 people attended the forum at the Wichita Marriott, 9100 Corporate Hills Drive. Most were members of the host organization.

The proposed sales tax, 1 cent on each dollar spent, is expected to generate about $400 million over five years to help fund a water supply, transit improvements, street maintenance and a job development fund. It would expire after five years.

Representatives from Coalition for a Better Wichita, which is against the tax, and Yes Wichita, which is for the tax, spoke for 15 minutes, followed by two minutes of rebuttal. Several audience members posed questions for the remaining 30 minutes.

Jennifer Baysinger, a business owner, spoke for Coalition for a Better Wichita. Jon Rolph, president of Sasnak Management, and Moji Fanimokun, a Wichita attorney, represented Yes Wichita.

Baysinger said the sales tax initiative is not the way to move Wichita forward. The city shouldn’t rush to make a water plan with broader plans from the state pending, she said. Transit could be improved through free-market solutions.

She called it ridiculous to mention a sales tax in connection with street improvements, which she said have suffered from mismanagement and which already receive tax money.

She said people’s perceptions are that the jobs portion of the measure is about creating a slush fund.

“These are perceptions based on past City Hall behaviors,” Baysinger said, “and these perceptions are going to take a long time to change.”

She also said incentives for companies don’t work. Entrepreneurs want favorable tax and regulatory climates. Large companies don’t need incentive money to grow, she said.

She also urged a separate vote on a water plan.

“If the city believes we’re in a water emergency, then why did they wait to tie it to a jobs fund, an incentives package that they know the citizens are wary of?” Baysinger said. “That’s suspicious to me.”

Rolph, meanwhile, displayed charts showing Wichita lagging peer cities in job creation.

“We’re getting left behind,” he said in arguing for the proposed tax.

He also said transit would be cut by 25 percent if the sales tax were to be defeated.

“This is our chance as young people in the community to have our voice heard,” Rolph told the audience. “This is about our home. No one else is coming to help us.”

Fanimokun said it was time for the community to be proactive instead of reactive. She said she watched Wichita State classmates leave the city because they didn’t feel Wichita was where they wanted to build their lives.

“I don’t want that to be the continuing practice of the young people of Wichita simply because we’ve chosen not to make the investment that we need to,” she said.

Anne Maack, a member of the audience, asked both sides to address her concern that a sales tax disproportionately hurts low-income people.

Rolph said the tax would end in five years, and alternatives such as raising water rates and cutting bus service would hurt low-income people even more.

“A ‘no’ vote would actually cost low-income people more,” he said.

Baysinger said low-income people don’t know a sales tax vote is coming up because they’re too busy trying to feed their kids.

“It’s extremely important that we make the best decision on their behalf,” she said.

Lamont Anderson, owner of ALA Enterprise, a marketing firm, asked whether it would have been safer for the city to remove the jobs portion of the initiative to ensure that the focus be on water, roads and transit.

Baysinger said she thinks there’s a “very strategic reason” jobs were bundled with the other measures, and that was to make sure the jobs fund gets through.

She called the proposed fund “extremely vague.” Companies would come to Wichita to take incentive money, use it for a few years and then head down the road to another city with a better deal, she said.

Fanimokun said the sales-tax initiative was the result of 100 community meetings in which residents established the priorities for the city. She said the jobs portion wasn’t intended as a “slush fund.”

In response to another question, Rolph said there would be several levels of oversight on the $80 million of the tax money targeted for the jobs fund, including a broad coalition of community representatives who would be chosen, and who would act, in the public light.

“This isn’t a slush fund. It isn’t about picking winners and losers,” Rolph said. “It’s about helping business grow, it’s about training people to help a business grow or attract a business here. We are in a war for jobs, and we’ve got to fight.”

This story was originally published September 9, 2014 at 10:36 PM with the headline "Wichita sales tax proposal debated at forum."