Park board OKs private management of Wichita’s public golf system; council vote to come

Wichita is one step closer to privatizing management of its public golf courses after back-to-back profitable years.

The city’s park board on Monday gave its stamp of approval to a five-year agreement that would shift management of the city’s golf system to an out-of-state private company.

Wichita city government would retain ownership of its four golf courses and pay Kemper Sports Management $200,000 a year to manage them. The city would be responsible for any losses.

The proposed contract would return all revenue from course operations, including greens fees and cart rental, to an operating fund for worker pay, course maintenance and improvements, said Recreation and Parks Director Troy Houtman.

The park board rejected a proposal to grant to the city 90% of profits on concession sales. Instead, it recommended 90% of concession income go to Kemper and 10% go to the city. In exchange, Kemper would agree to invest $150,000 in food and beverages at the courses.

The agreement has not been approved by the Wichita City Council, which has the final say in whether to move forward with the privatization plan. It’s expected to receive a hearing and a vote on March 1.

City Hall has been exploring privatization of Wichita’s public golf courses since the early days of Robert Layton’s tenure as city manager after the Great Recession. For about a decade, Wichita’s golf system experienced a decline in revenue.

To cut expenses, the city closed L.W. Clapp Golf Course and tried to sell off MacDonald Golf Course. The sale fell through after the city received only one bid that the park board did not accept because it was too low.

In 2019, the city golf courses lost a net of $477,892. But in 2020, the losses turned to profits, as golf proved to be one of the most COVID-friendly leisure activities.

Wichita’s golf courses had earnings of $468,664 in 2020 and more than $1 million in 2021. The city hopes the growth in popularity of golf continues.

“We are expecting that we will stay in the black and that those dollars will go back into the golf course,” Houtman said.

Tori Deatherage, the District 4 representative on the Park Board, celebrated the agreement as good for both the city, which has successfully managed its public golf courses for decades, and Kemper, an Illinois-based company that manages more than 100 golf courses around the nation.

“The city is not in the business of running golf, per se, so we have somebody that wants to do it for us, and we can be a partnership, I think that can be a win-win,” Deatherage said.

Several golfers said they favor the city-run model the city has operated under for more than 50 years.

“I ask the park board to look at this from the standpoint of we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our city assets, and I don’t think that this contract or this direction is fulfilling that obligation,” said Nile Dillmore of the city’s Golf Advisory Committee.

“I just don’t understand why we don’t take the $200,000 that we would be paying Kemper and find ourselves someone to run our golf program,” Dillmore said. “In the long run, the city is going to be much better off with its own management.”

He was also critical that the contract does not incentivize growing the number of golfers in Wichita.

“There’s nothing in this contract that requires Kemper to keep golf revenues where they’re at, let alone grow them. . . . They’re going to get their $200,000 regardless of whether there are 10 players that week or 1,000.”

Tom West, president of board of directors for Wichita’s chapter of First Tee, said his organization strongly endorses the agreement. First Tee is a national nonprofit whose board of directors includes KemperSports company president Josh Lesnik.

“Golf course management is a very specialized business that requires professional management skills,” West said. “Kemper brings all of those skills plus more than 40 years of best practices to all of the Wichita golf courses.”

Chris Pumpelly, the sole park board member to vote against the proposal, said he wanted the city to provide the park board with a comparison report showing how the city would operate under city management but did not receive it.

“I just don’t feel that I have been given the adequate answers that I was looking for, and for that, I cannot support this,” he said.