Should Wichita have a ‘strong mayor’? Some officials are talking about it

Should Wichita’s mayor have more power? Or should an unelected city manager continue to be the city’s most powerful official?

As it stands, the mayor is the only official elected citywide. But she has no executive powers and can’t enact her agenda without the support of three other council members, who represent smaller districts.

The city manager, who is appointed by the council, prepares the budget, chooses department heads and manages the daily operations of the city government.

Any changes in the city’s form of government could have big implications for tax rates, city services and city priorities. Voters would have the final say on any such change in government.

Wichita City Council members are talking about the possibilities after City Manager Robert Layton announced his plans to retire at the end of the year.

Some council members have expressed a willingness to discuss moving away from the council-manager system, where the city manager oversees the day-to-day operations of the city while the council drives policy decisions. Other council members have said they want to keep the current system in place.

Mayor Lily Wu and Council member Dalton Glasscock have signaled they’re willing to entertain a change that would give the mayor more power.

“We need to have that discussion whether we want a different type of government, whether we want to see a different type of leadership,” Wu said at her Thursday news briefing.

Wu has previously voiced frustration with the city’s “weak mayor” form of government where the mayor often absorbs public criticism but, beyond running council meetings and signing documents, has no special power. Her vote counts the same as the six council members elected by district.

“Everything’s on the table,” Wu said.

Towns that do have “strong mayor” systems typically give powers to the mayor to hire and fire city department heads, to set the budget, and to veto council actions.

“Weak mayor” systems — where the mayor does not have executive powers — are common in Kansas. Topeka and several cities in Johnson County operate on a similar system.

Kansas City, Missouri also gives power to a city manager, and its council recently voted to oust that manager.

The Wichita council is scheduled to discuss the city manager search process and potential changes to the form of government at its Tuesday meeting in what is sure to be a lively discussion.

Other council members — Brandon Johnson and Maggie Ballard — have moved to defend the council-manager system. Johnson posted on social media that any changes to the city’s form of government “would be a huge mistake” for Wichita, and Ballard attempted to limit Tuesday’s discussion to the search for a new city manager.

The agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting is labeled “City manager selection process and local government discussion.”

Ballard asked Layton at Friday’s agenda review what exactly “local government discussion” meant.

“I’m assuming it’s reflective of the discussion about options in term of our form of government,” Layton said.

“Is that something that we have four votes on to discuss?” Ballard said.

“Maggie, I think we’ll know after we discuss it pretty quickly whether there’s four votes or not,” Vice Mayor J.V. Johnston said.

Adopting the manager plan

The city of Wichita has had a city manager since 1917.

Its current system — a mayor elected at-large and six district-based council members overseeing the city manager — has been in place since 1989.

Under that system, all of the city’s department heads answer directly to a city manager, who runs the city like a CEO. The city manager prepares a budget and manages the daily affairs of city government.

The manager acts on the direction of the seven-member city council — including one representative elected from the city’s six districts and the mayor, who is elected at-large and chairs the meetings. The council sets policy as a board of directors would in a business and the CEO carries out their agenda.

The city manager is the only city employee the city council can directly hire or fire.

Before 1917, it had a commission system of government: a mayor chaired board meetings and the city’s four commissioners — all elected at-large — served as department heads.

The change to the manager plan — where a city manager would serve as the chief executive — came in response to a massive push by local newspapers, progressive Republicans and businessmen who argued that Wichita’s local government should be run like a business instead of a political machine where cops and other city employees were ordered around by politicians.

It was a familiar logic. Boosters had called for a more business-like approach to local government when they pushed for the adoption of the commission plan eight years earlier.

Before that, the city had an aldermanic system where council members elected by district were in charge of the affairs in their wards. The city was governed by a mayor and two councilmen from each of the six wards — or districts.

A similar reason — a turn away from corruption and towards government efficiency — was cited for changing to a commission system from the aldermanic system.

But the commission system proved just as political as the aldermanic system. Within weeks of the change, the newly elected mayor fired the police chief — who was also the chairman of the local Republican Party — and half of the police force and installed his own hand-picked replacements. The Wichita Eagle then spearheaded a recall election that ousted multiple commissioners who had just been elected.

This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 1:43 PM.