Wichita mayor, council clash over property taxes, budget cuts. How it affects you

Wichita’s City Council has adopted a $761 million budget for 2025 — a nearly 27% increase from pre-pandemic levels — with one dissenting vote from Mayor Lily Wu.

Wu was also the lone vote against collecting more property tax money than the city did the year before. The previous year’s total property tax collection is called the “revenue-neutral rate,” and taxing authorities are required to vote if they want to exceed that amount.

The city of Wichita has not increased its property tax rate, or mill levy, in decades. But the majority of property tax bills have continued to increase along with property appraisals, which have soared for residential properties in recent years as houses sell for more money in a historically hot housing market.

Less than a third of property taxes for Wichita residents are levied by the city of Wichita, with more going to school districts. Sedgwick County and the state of Kansas also levy property taxes.

The city’s total budget has grown by $161 million from pre-pandemic levels. Property tax collections have increased by 41% or $47.8 million, from $117,392,576 in 2019 to $165,174,045 in 2025. As property values have increased substantially, so has the cost of doing business as a city, including wages and goods, City Manger Robert Layton has said.

Council members, including some of the council’s most fiscally conservative members, clashed with Wu during her first budget cycle and defended the city’s increases in taxes and spending.

“I really don’t understand,” council member JV Johnston, a west Wichita Republican, said. “What — I’d like to hear some ideas what you would cut.”

“That’s what I would challenge staff to provide,” Wu said. “ . . . I want to see more options. I think you have heard me from this bench say we should have recommendations from staff that are more than just one, just like the downtown parking plan. You ask for more options, so then we can have a more informed decision moving forward.”

Layton’s proposed budget was balanced. But the council approved a list of cuts put forward by council member Dalton Glasscock to save an additional $2.9 million to “accelerate” a plan to trim down the budget for 2026-2028.

Glasscock’s proposals included $100,000 cuts to both Century II and the Wichita Ice Center. Council member Mike Hoheisel was the only one to vote against the cut to Century II. The vote for cuts at the ice center was unanimous, as was a vote to more aggressively to sell the naming rights to city parks and cultural facilities to bring in an additional $500,000 next year.

By a narrow majority, the council also voted to freeze staffing levels across three departments: public works and utilities facilities to save $350,000, park maintenance to save $250,000 and street maintenance to save $650,000. They also approved locking in staffing levels for middle-management positions to save $250,000. Wu joined Republicans Johnston, Glassock and Becky Tuttle to vote for those cuts while Democrats Hoheisel, Maggie Ballard and Brandon Johnson voted against them.

The council also shifted $34.7 million away from an initiative to pave dirt streets in residential neighborhoods. That vote split along party lines, too, with Libertarian Wu joining Republicans and Democrats voting against it.

Glasscock said the cuts were meant to put the city in a better position for the future.

The city is bracing for a revenue shortfall starting in 2026, based on projected growth in spending and estimated decreases in interest earnings and other revenue streams that are out of the city’s control.

It’s unclear what the actual budget deficits will be. Tuttle cautioned the rest of the council and the public not to be alarmed about the projected shortfalls.

“I’ve been on this bench since 2019, and every year we’ve made cuts,” Tuttle said. “And I think every year when we look at future budgets, we always, I think, we’re extremely cautious, which is great, and we predict as best that we can what our deficit will be. I don’t think I’ve ever been here where we didn’t say there’s going to be a deficit in forthcoming years, and usually we’re able to get that down.”

The city has a $49.1 million general fund reserve and a $35.3 million stabilization reserve fund, both of which could be used to off-set revenue shortfalls. That doesn’t include an additional $3 million surplus the city is planning to transfer to the stabilization fund at the end of this year.

What would get you to yes?

Council member Ballard sought to clarify exactly what Wu wanted changed in the city budget.

“I’m just curious, with the 2025 budget, it is balanced, so I’m just curious what would get you to yes to support the budget?” Ballard said. “I know that there were several cuts made today. I wasn’t supportive of some of them.”

Wu said she would have supported raising property tax collections by 3% to adjust for inflation, not the 8.1% that was ultimately approved to fund the budget based on increased property valuations. She said she was frustrated that Layton did not present two competing budgets — one reflecting a smaller increase in property tax collections alongside the one that was ultimately approved that the council had been workshopping for nearly nine months.

“I would have been comfortable voting yes to exceed RNR if it was to keep up with inflation,” Wu said, “which is what many of your — our — families are doing, keeping up with inflation, in addition to knowing that we have new construction, and so that’s new tax dollars coming into our rolls, I would want to capture all of that.”

Johnston continued to push back.

“Mayor, you keep talking about 3 percent inflation,” Johnston said. “However, our employees were way behind the curve; we couldn’t fill spots for public works. If we gave them a 3-percent raise, that still wouldn’t fill the spots. So we gave them basically 8.5 percent this year and 8.5 percent next year . . . to get them to where we can fill those spots.”

Johnston said the city is already operating efficiently and that it was necessary to raise property taxes to fund essential government services.

“So, just to be clear, if people don’t want us to do that, they’re going to have to accept less service from police, fire and public works,” Johnston said.

Wu has come under intense scrutiny over the past few weeks as she has floated that the city should look into reducing the number of parks it owns and diverting arts funding from capital projects. She later backed away from both statements but said they should be considered as possibilities to save money in the future.

Wu said she believes the city should continue to adequately fund police, fire and public works without raising taxes. That move would require massive cuts to several city departments.

“I think I’ve been very clear to this community that police, fire and infrastructure are the core services of the local government,” Wu said. “Police and fire, I’ve already asked the city manager not to touch. So, if we’re not going to touch those, and we’re going to save, we have to find other ways.”