If your driver’s license is suspended, there’s new help for you to get it back in Wichita

A plan to help people who have had their license suspended get back to driving legally won approval from the Wichita City Council on Tuesday.

The city will pay the nonprofit law firm Kansas Legal Services $157,561 in 2023 to provide pro bono legal support through the Wichita Area Restoration Program (WARP), which aims to serve at least 1,000 residents annually.

“We have so many people that spiral just off of a simple ticket,” council member Brandon Johnson said. “They have so many fines, and then because we want people to be responsible, they want to go to work. But then if they drive to work, there’s a problem there.

“I’m really excited about the impact this could have.”

Roughly 50,000 of the 200,000 Kansans who have a suspended driver’s license live in the greater Wichita area, municipal court Administrator Nathan Emmorey told the council.

Kansas Legal Services plans to keep a WARP representative on-site at the municipal court at least three days a week to help suspended license-holders navigate the system, including filing for fee, fine and court cost forgiveness, program documents show. KLS will also create a “roadmap document to driving legally.”

“We’ve been doing some volunteer driver’s license events around Wichita and always get huge numbers of people who participate,” KLS Executive Director Marilyn Harp told The Eagle. “The suspension process and the reinstatement process is difficult to figure out.”

An informational page on the Wichita Racial Profiling Advisory Board’s website provides a step-by-step process for getting a suspended driver’s license reinstated.

This story was originally published December 20, 2022 at 11:05 AM.