A citizen-led group says it found $75 million in savings in Wichita city budget

A citizen-led committee, created after a Wichita city council member suggested starting a government efficiency group, says it has found up to $75 million in potential savings for the city.

That’s nearly 10% of the city’s total budget last year. The group did not go into specifics about what those savings could be, but said it planned to present the potential cuts to the council this summer.

“We’re not city insiders, and so we’re just doing the best that we can with the time that we have to present … a numbers analysis,” committee member Michael Austin said.

Austin served as chief economist for former governors Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer and is in the Topeka area. The committee includes several prominent Wichita residents, including conservative talk radio show host and former Republican state legislator John Whitmer and Save Century II activist and auditor Celeste Racette.

Among other members are former Republican state legislator Carl Maughan, who was disbarred from practicing law in Kansas last year after he was found to have mishandled a murder case, and current Democratic state lawmaker Henry Helgerson.

Austin said the group found the potential $75 million in savings after it did a per-resident analysis of budget line items in the city’s budget with other cities the group said were comparable.

Austin would not disclose which cities it compared Wichita to, citing that its findings haven’t been finalized, but a survey the committee put together to get feedback from residents suggests it looked at city budgets in Tulsa, Springfield, Omaha and Sioux Falls.

“We picked about four to five cities out, and then we just made comparisons out of that four or five city group,” Austin said. “Which ones were lowest in certain spending categories, which ones were highest, and where did Wichita fall?”

The committee also looked at how much the city spends on outside contractors and vendors, and the city’s economic development policies. Austin wouldn’t go into specifics on the group’s findings, but the resident survey claims millions were spent without having matching contracts or purchase orders.

The city did not respond to claims made in the survey when asked by an Eagle reporter.

“We appreciate resident engagement around the budget and encourage residents to visit Wichita.gov/budget to find additional ways to engage with the budget process,” the city said in a statement.

The group will present its findings to the Wichita City Council sometime during the city’s budget season. The city had projected deficits for both 2026 and 2027 but — after learning property valuation increases were larger than expected — now expects surpluses of $2.6 million in 2026 and $2.3 million in 2027.

Council member Dalton Glasscock, who suggested the committee be formed but said it has been entirely citizen-led, said he’s looking forward to its findings.

“Sometimes the status quo works and sometimes it doesn’t work,” Glasscock said, “but when it doesn’t work for citizens and for taxpayers, let’s figure out a way to make it more efficient and more responsive to those that we are called to serve.”

Not all members of the council are sure of the committee’s findings.

Council member Brandon Johnson, who has favored raising the city’s property tax mill levy for several years now to address the budget issues, said although he’s glad that residents are engaging over the budget, he’s skeptical of the findings.

“It is highly unlikely that there is $75,000,000 in savings in our budget without significantly negatively impacting programs and services that Wichitans deserve and count on,” Johnson said in a statement to The Eagle. “I am sure there are items this group may not feel are important but that likely doesn’t align with the majority of Wichita.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2025 at 3:55 AM.