Commissioner Lacey Cruse’s trip to Africa raises concerns from other commissioners

Sedgwick County Commissioners are calling for a new policy after not finding out the county paid for Commissioner Lacey Cruse’s trip to Ghana until she was already gone.

Cruse spent a week in Ghana to attend an appreciation dinner after accepting an invitation from Queen Mother Nana Aplam II, whom the County Commission honored during a visit to Wichita last summer.

The trip cost Sedgwick County $2,902.79. Cruse said she plans to reimburse the county through private fundraising.

During her visit, Cruse met with foreign dignitaries, visited a hospital and toured a chocolate factory. Cruse said the trip was legitimate county business.

“This wasn’t just Commissioner Cruse going over on a willy nilly vacation,” Cruse said. Instead, she said, it was a discovery mission to explore economic opportunities in Ghana, a country with the 71st largest economy in the world.

The way Cruse left and the payback arrangement have raised concerns for other commissioners, who say they plan to hold Cruse accountable for paying back the county.

“I don’t think there’s a single commissioner that thinks this is important for Sedgwick County and economic development,” Commissioner Michael O’Donnell said. “I haven’t heard anyone say that there’s any value to the county as far as day-to-day business, so why would we pay for that?”

Cruse left for Africa last month. Commissioners were told by the county manager that Cruse was paying for the trip herself. They didn’t find out the county had fronted Cruse the money until after The Wichita Eagle started asking questions about it.

O’Donnell said he’s not going to “raise a stink” about the trip unless Cruse fails to return the money to the county.

The Ghana trip underscores a growing concern that local elected officials have no rules in place when it comes to gifts, travel and disclosure.

Commissioner Jim Howell said it’s time for the county to beef-up its ethics policies, leaving less room for controversy. At the very least, a new travel policy should require commissioners to brief their colleagues on a trip before they leave, Howell said.

“The commissioners were not asked, the commissioners did not approve and there is not a policy (requiring that),” Howell said.

He said that should change.

“I think we need to be very careful to make sure that our expenditures are value added for the citizens of our county,” Howell said.

Unlike Wichita’s City Council members, Sedgwick County commissioners don’t need approval from a majority of the board to spend taxpayer money on trips. Under county policy, they don’t even have to tell the other commissioners where they’re going, why they’re going or what the trip will cost.

“I’m doing what I feel is the best representation for my constituents,” Cruse said. “I don’t have to ask other commissioners for permission to represent my constituents.”

Funding confusion

Commissioners Howell and O’Donnell said they learned about Cruse’s trip from County Manager Tom Stolz on the Friday afternoon before she boarded a Sunday flight.

Both commissioners said when they asked Stolz if the county was paying, he told them Cruse was paying her own way. If they had known the county was paying, they said they might have objected.

County Commissioners set their own schedules, but typically disclose out-of-state or overseas trips during Tuesday morning staff meetings. Cruse had county staff book her flight and hotel using the county’s credit card. The money came out of a $106,416 fund shared by Sedgwick County’s five commissioners.

That fund can be tapped for travel or training or other services without approval from the full commission on every expenditure, Stolz said.

“When they asked me the question on Friday — how is this being funded? — my answer to them was she’s going to raise funds for this while she’s over there and when she gets back,” Stolz said.

Cruse said she has already accepted “an anonymous $450 donation.”

“I think it’s reasonable to ask companies who may share in the benefits of this excursion to share in the expenses of these discussions. It’s about skin in the game,” Cruse said.

Like Wichita, Sedgwick County does not have gift limits for its local elected officials. Cruse is required to report gifts above $500 on her statements of substantial interest forms by state law. Because $450 doesn’t meet that threshold, disclosure would likely not be required.

“We need to work on developing a travel policy for commissioners, and maybe tie that to our effort to create a gifting policy for commissioners — what are our limits and how do those get recorded,” Howell said.

Discovery mission

Cruse said she saw a lot of potential for Sedgwick County in Ghana.

“The idea that we would wholly focus on the $2,900 of this trip, I think, is a real sad thing. I don’t want this to overshadow the opportunities about this trip,” said Cruse, who returned to Wichita on Tuesday.

She said she focused her efforts on economic opportunities related to aviation and education. She said she talked to Ghana’s minister of aviation about potentially establishing an aviation school and setting up an aviation maintenance shop at the Tamale International Airport in Ghana.

She didn’t make any formal deals on behalf of the county or any local companies. She said forming a trade relationship with Ghana isn’t something that can happen overnight.

“For someone to expect me to go over there and have all the answers right away I think is unrealistic,” she said. “This was about making connections. This was about presenting new and unique opportunities.”

“We have to look outside the box,” she said.

“What just happened with our aviation industry right now with all the workers that are laid off — I mean, we have a lot of things that we can do to diversify.”

Another industry Cruse explored was cocoa production.

“I got to go to the Niche cocoa processing factory, which is a Ghanaian-owned business in what’s called the Free Zones Enclave in Tema. They are the second largest producer of cocoa in the world. And so it relates back to Kansas, and opportunities for our industry here, as far as cocoa production goes.”

Cruse also said she has a list of projects given to her by the aviation minister’s office that could benefit Wichita’s aviation businesses.

Cruse plans to give a presentation on her trip to the rest of the Sedgwick County Commission on Tuesday morning on the third floor of the Sedgwick County Courthouse. That meeting will be open to the public and is expected to include more details.

“I’ve got nothing personally to gain from this other than representing my constituents to the best of my ability,” Cruse said. “I have no business opportunities there for myself. I am excited to share every little bit of this trip with everybody. I have nothing to hide.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2020 at 5:01 AM.