Wichita’s 2025 budget proposal showcases sharp divide over priorities. 5 things to know

Mayor Lily Wu is navigating her first budget cycle with a new conservative majority on the Wichita City Council after campaigning on the idea that wasteful city spending has unfairly burdened taxpayers.

On Tuesday, City Manager Robert Layton unveiled the city’s $764 million recommended budget for 2025-26 along with the $3 billion 10-year capital spending plan.

Wu and council member Dalton Glasscock were the only members to vote against preserving the city’s option to collect more in property taxes than last year, a move that would require the city to trim $12.4 million from the proposed budget.

If adopted as written, employee salary and benefits spending, which account for 75% of the city’s general fund expenditures, would grow by another $15.3 million in next year’s budget on the heels of a $33.6 million increase from 2023 to 2024.

Despite recent conversations about scaling back public safety personnel spending, the Wichita Police Department remains by far the largest line item in the 2025 proposal. WPD would see its departmental budget increase to $132.1 million, almost $10 million more than in the budget adopted by the council last summer.

The city will hold three budget hearings on Aug. 8 at 6 p.m., Aug. 13 at 9 a.m. and Aug. 20 at 9 a.m. — the same day the council is set to adopt the proposal.

Here are five takeaways from Wichita’s 2025-26 recommended budget:

Looming deficit

Next year’s budget is balanced, but thanks to the expiration of American Rescue Plan Act funding, slower-than-expected revenue growth and an anticipated decrease in interest earnings, the city’s financial forecast for the following three years is less favorable.

Wichita is facing a $3.6 million projected general fund deficit in 2026, a $9.3 million deficit in 2027 and a $10.2 million deficit in 2028. In anticipation of a fiscal cliff, the council voted last year to transfer roughly $26 million of surplus money to the reserve fund.

“If necessary, the Permanent Reserve could be used in 2026-2028 to provide stability as the organization implements a budget framework that will result from ongoing resident engagement about the budget,” the budget proposal states. “If necessary, this fund will be appropriated in 2026.”

In remarks Tuesday, Wu expressed dissatisfaction with the way officials characterized the city’s financial position under her predecessor, Brandon Whipple.

“It really frustrates me that a budget deficit has not been the main rhetoric in our community over the last two years,” Wu said. “It’s been an aside, and that aside has been disingenuous to community, thinking we’ve been in a great position when in reality we’re not. Part of being transparent and communicating is being honest.”

Vice Mayor Maggie Ballard, one of four current members who served on the previous council, pushed back against Wu’s critique.

“It’s frustrating to hear you constantly talking about the old council keeping things in the dark, not being transparent,” Ballard said. “I understand that you weren’t at all of the meetings over the past couple years, but we have talked about how ARPA was going to be getting us through the next two years and that the coming budgets we would have to make some hard decisions . . . Insulting past councils, I don’t think that’s the way to go.”

Mill levy debate

The budget proposal calls for the city’s overall mill levy to stay flat at 32.743 mills, although seven-tenths of a mill would be transferred from the general fund to the debt service fund to allow the city to cash-fund some capital projects and avoid debt, Layton said.

Property taxes used to support the city budget are calculated by taking a proportion of a property’s assessed market value — 11.5% for residential properties — and multiplying that by the city’s tax levy rate (mills divided by 1,000).

Based on an estimate provided by the Sedgwick County Clerk, the assessed value of all Wichita properties is expected to grow by 8.1%, generating an additional $12.4 million in property tax revenue for the city in 2025.

“I do want to see a proposal where we would cut the $12.4 million if we didn’t exceed revenue neutral,” Glasscock said. “I know that $12.4 million is probably a challenge. That may not be possible but if there is a few million dollars of cuts that we can make, I would like to see where that could come from, or even if it’s not cuts, how we can give back some of our revenue in terms of user fees for different parts of our system.”

Council member Brandon Johnson said he would prefer to see the council go the other way and consider raising the mill levy. He asked staff to prepare a proposal for the council to evaluate a one- or two-mill increase that would net an extra $5 million or $10 million, respectively, in property tax revenue.

“We have to be competitive in public safety, and looking at a mill levy increase is a way to stabilize public safety, reduce services the least amount over time, and yes, it would be an increase . . . but at some point we’re going to have a government that only does core services and gives you barely anything or we’re going to have to increase something,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to be able to cut our way into better services.”

Park master plan

The city’s capital improvement program (CIP) proposal includes $250,000 in 2025 for the development of an updated park master plan for the city’s 144 park properties.

“Once the updated Park Master Plan is complete, projects that enhance or expand the park system will be considered during the development of future Capital Improvement Plans as funding allows,” the CIP states.

Wu suggested that the city may have too many parks to adequately fund them all.

“As I was looking at the CIP, it said that the master plan would be for enhancements and expansion. I also would like to challenge a reduction in the number of parks so that we can be much more focused maybe on some parks and make greater investments towards parks that more people can get attracted to,” Wu said.

Ballard adamantly disagreed with that idea.

“When the mayor is directing staff to look into things, I just want to make sure that — that’s not necessarily the direction of the council,” Ballard said. “So I just want to make sure when she’s talking about potentially cutting parks and things like that, I don’t agree with that.”

Layton said the scope of the park master plan will have to be determined by the council before a request for proposal is sent to potential consultants.

“I believe it’s important to bring the RFP to the council, so that we’re following a direction that’s consistent with what you want to review,” he said. “And it may be multiple options. In the scope, we may talk about expansion of the system, contracting the system. I’m not going to presuppose at this point.”

Street paving and maintenance

Another area of emphasis in the CIP is street maintenance. The 10-year plan calls for spending a total of $149 million, starting at $13 million in 2025 and increasing to $16.5 million by 2034.

The plan also includes $20 million specifically for addressing older concrete streets in residential areas and $39 million for paving dirt roads with a focus on roads near schools and in low-income neighborhoods.

Glasscock said he doesn’t see the dirt road pavement plan as essential.

“I’m also interested in terms of eliminating the dirt street program and redirecting that $3-$4 million every single year in residential streets and residential maintenance and how much further we can get with that instead of the dirt street program as presented,” he said. “I’m confident that we can get more bang for the buck in terms of residential streets instead of dirt streets.”

Mike Hoheisel, a Democrat whose south-central district includes the most unpaved roads of any council district in the city, called on his colleagues to be mindful of the impact trimming public services can have on people’s lives.

“Cutting the services has an impact on the day-to-day lives of a lot of our residents,” Hoheisel said. “Everybody’s perspective is their own. Everybody’s intent is their own. But I would just urge you to temper that a little bit because we don’t know what the revenue’s going to be in the future and these cuts have a major impact — we’re down to essentially street sweeping once a year.”

Convention center

The CIP also includes $400 million for a new convention center space to “complement the continued use of the current Century II facility” but does not identify a funding source.

“Although a funding source is not available within current City resources, staff propose a community engagement process to identify potential funding sources and the appropriate model for a new convention facility that serves the community for decades into the future.”

In the meantime, the CIP proposal calls for spending $3.5 million over the next two years on aesthetic repairs to the city-owned promenade that connects the Hyatt Regency and the Bob Brown Expo Center space at Century II.

“We continue to lose business to not just venues and cities our size but to smaller communities as well. We’re losing statewide conferences, we’re losing regional conferences,” Layton said.

“What we find, unfortunately, is that when meeting-planners work with Visit Wichita, as soon as they step out of the Hyatt, into our promenade area, they’re turned off and it’s really hard to turn them around in terms of selling our space.”

The Hyatt is in the process of updating its own lobbies and meeting space and asked the city to invest in matching decor, including carpet, wall coverings and fixtures that will extend between the hotel and convention space.