Wichita mayor, council members explain why they want a sales tax election

The Wichita City Council voted to hold a special election in March seeking a 1% city sales tax to raise $850 million over seven years.

Despite four hours of significant pushback by a throng of disgruntled voters who oppose the sales tax election for a wide range of reasons, the council voted unanimously to approve putting the tax hike on the ballot two weeks after the plan was unveiled and less than 24 hours after the group proposing the tax — Wichita Forward — held its first public presentation.

So why did they vote for it?

Below is a brief overview of what’s on the ballot, followed by the city council members’ full explanations of their votes, in their own words, from Tuesday’s meeting.

The proceeds from the sales tax would be used to upgrade and expand the city’s convention center ($225 million), build a new performing arts center ($75 million), fund fire and police department projects ($225 million) and establish a fund for future operating costs at the city’s center for homeless and housing services ($150 million).

The City Council would ultimately decide how much gets spent and how it is spent on specific projects within those broad categories. The city would not be allowed to use more sales tax revenue than what is authorized by the sales tax ballot language, but they could spend less.

The proposal would also provide up to $150 million in property tax relief over seven years. Up to $25 million would be set aside for Century II renovations.

Here’s the council’s comments on the plan after hearing largely negative public comments about it:

Mayor Lily Wu

I want to also say thank you to individuals who care about these various needs in our community, from housing our unhoused to homeless individuals seeking services at Second Light to Century II that holds a special place in my heart as I’ve held multiple events at that facility, to just the future of our community. I just really appreciate that there are concerned citizens that want to make sure that our community is responsible and that this council is transparent and is also listening to our community members. And so I’m just very grateful to each and every person who chose to spend time today, from morning until now, 3:10 in the afternoon, to speak about the future of this community. I know that I’ve heard those comments from our community of whether or not people should have a say in the future of the city. And I always want people to be engaged – first informed – engaged, and then go out to vote. And in this situation, I know that the hearts of these people are for the betterment of our community. All of us want Wichita to get better, but how we do it is probably where we differ. And so I am so grateful that you chose to spend time to come to city council, also sent emails to the entire council. We’ve heard you guys, and we are trying our very best to really adapt to what you’re wanting. Do you want to have a say in the future of Wichita? And so, again, I’m just grateful that you all chose to come here today and say many things to not just the council, but share your stories, especially our individuals facing homelessness. Thank you for sharing your stories and sharing your testimony.

Council member Dalton Glasscock

I have a few comments, and then I’ll make a motion. We can have discussion on the motion. I believe that Wichita is at one of the rare moments where we get to choose the future instead of just settling on one by default. And I support today’s ask because I believe in investing ourselves in safer neighborhoods, stronger infrastructure and the kind of spaces and opportunities that make Wichita home. I believe that a 1% sales tax finally relieves the burden on Wichitans and invites visitors and people from outside of our community to pay for things that we rely on every day by nearly 20 to 30%. That means we can stabilize funds for public safety, we can move forward on projects we’ve talked about for decades, and we can create room for property tax relief. And I want to say I hear concerns about trust in this body. I, too, have a healthy distrust of government, and I think I’ve exhibited that from this bench over the last two years that I’ve served in this position, but that also can’t paralyze progress, and we’ve been paralyzed for decades. One of the speakers talked about specifically, since 2006, that they’ve seen multiple proposals come forward with no movement. I think that’s failed hopes and failed aspirations. For Wichita, the last time the city passed property tax relief and funding transformational projects, I was not born. My parents were not even together, and my entire life has been filled with questions about the east bank, about challenges we face as a city. And I believe that we can finally show leadership, we can cast a vision, and we can give voters the choice. And I think that matters the most. If the voters come back and reject this, the voters make a determination for Wichita, and I think we’re empowering them with that. So I believe that Wichita is worth investing in. I believe that our best days are ahead, and I think this is just one step on how we can get there together as a community. And we’ve had this conversation, and I’m glad for a group that has stepped up to push this forward, to bring this before council, and I think now it should be in the hands of the citizens to determine whether or not we will take a generational step forward. So with that, and I know there’s more discussion to be had as well, I would make a motion that the city council place the ordinance on first reading and approve the appropriate notice of special question election. (Seconded by council member Brandon Johnson)

Council member Mike Hoheisel

I got a lot of concerns with this. I do have concerns with the timeline and the speed of this. I’m curious if the rest of my colleagues up here on council have any of those concerns and are thinking about possibly delaying it till August. (No response). OK, I will have more comments later.

Council member Brandon Johnson

I seconded because I agree with council member Glasscock. More importantly, over my time on city council, if you go back to I think it was a workshop in 2018, I suggested some form of additional revenue for local government. At the time, I said a sales tax. I’ve also been very vocal about increasing our mill levy, which did not happen. But these are projects that could be funded, that are necessary. I have continued to say we need to invest in ourselves, and I think this gives voters an opportunity to say they want to or they don’t. I believe that folks should have that right to a vote. The investments in public safety and the infrastructure there, I think also frees up opportunities for the future council to discuss other projects in the CIP that would be worth investing in, and I look forward to those debates with council at that time. This isn’t perfect. It’s not everything I would want. I won’t get specific, but there are some things in here that I think could be in other spaces, but we never get everything we want in one of these opportunities. There’ll be some things that we like and some things that we don’t like, but I think that this is, overall, a really good step forward, and especially when we look at convention space. We’ve been talking about that for a while, and we know the challenges we face with convention space right now. This offers an opportunity to improve those things. That offers an opportunity to improve public safety. Homelessness is something we’ve continued to talk about. And again, this is an option that was given to us to put on the ballot. I would encourage Wichitans to engage. Look at Wichita Forward. Engage with those folks. Let’s have these conversations. Talk to us about what you think is good or not in there. But if this were to pass, I would just hope for continued engagement over the next several months. I do agree with having one item on the ballot, and it does not get diluted with everything else. That’s why I love our local elections. We don’t have to deal with too much national politics. This gives everybody an opportunity to vet this one thing. Let’s talk about that one thing and then vote on that one thing. So that was why I second it. That is why I’ll be supportive today. And again, I have long said we need to invest in ourselves, and this is one of those ways we can do that.

Council member Becky Tuttle

Thank you. I, of course, want to thank staff for your work on this. I want to thank Wichita Forward for your effort on this and your leadership. And I, again, want to reiterate, I’m being a little redundant, but thank the community, not only for being here today, for attending last week, again, next Monday, there’s one more session at 5:30 p.m. at the Advanced Learning Library. The people who’ve you know, emailed, called, texted, stopped me in the grocery (store) – all the ways, just to let us know what they think. I truly appreciate it. We’ve done this before. We had a dedicated sales tax for the Intrust Arena, and it changed the core of our city. Everything that we are loving about Wichita, the Biomed (Center), and all of the new growth and development started because of Intrust Arena, and we saw that it was successful. I was on a panel last week, and somebody asked me if they thought this project was going to be MAPS 1 and one of my colleagues, an elected in another municipality, said MAPS 1 was Intrust Arena. This would be considered MAPS 2. The other thing that’s a concern for me is Wichita is not growing. We’re not growing as quickly as our peer cities. One of the speakers mentioned that, and I appreciate it. I’ve had conversations with folks in Topeka, not just legislators, but also with Kansas Department of Transportation, and when they’re looking where they’re going to allocate their treasure, one of their concerns is Wichita is not growing, but other communities are. Should they continue to put as much money in our community? And that’s just transportation. There’s other departments that feel the same way. I’ve said this a million times from the bench, and I’ll say it one million and one: we can’t cut our way into prosperity. We have to invest in ourselves if we want to grow, and this is an incredibly unique opportunity to ask the residents of our great city what they want for the future of Wichita. You’ve got seven people here. We obviously are invested, but this is a chance where we can say to Wichita, what do you want to do? So again, today we’re not deciding if this is going to happen. We’re deciding if the residents of Wichita get to vote, and they tell us all the time, even though we’re a representative for public, they wish they had more opportunity to be engaged and to share their voice. So today’s the opportunity to do that. One last thing, I do think that there are the five areas that are relevant to what we are hearing in the community. The community survey tells us that public safety is one of their top priorities. We know that homelessness is something that we hear about every day and have invested significant time and treasure. We hear from the middle class that property taxes are too high. So all of the things that are in this, I think, are relevant that our community deserves to have a voice in. Thank you.

Vice Mayor J.V. Johnston

I reiterate what Councilman Tuttle said. I think this is a coalition – a collating of what the community has been telling us for a long time, and I would add Century II to that also. So I think it has been talked about for a long time. I think there is a need to fund Second Light, and that is coming to a head – will be coming to a head this fall. Personally, I would like more property tax relief. I’ve said that before. I’ll say it again. And as Councilman Glasscock and Hoheisel and Johnson tell me, local government’s about compromise. So it took me a while to get that message, but I’m finally getting it. So, yeah, finally. You know, Lou Holtz has a saying, which I always love. He said, ‘When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.’ And I think Wichita has been doing that for way too long. We need to do something, so I will be supporting it.

Hoheisel

I have a lot of concern here, a lot of concern. I also see this as probably going through and being the one chance that we have at funding homeless services, affordable housing and public safety, which are important to me. So I will be voting for it today, but I will also be putting on the council member agenda at the end of this meeting, for next week, a rebate program policy that we can vote on before second reading, because I have to make sure that we’re not going to be hitting people over the head who can’t take it. Also an outline for an affordable housing board, the process that gets set up for that and whatever policy we can garner to ensure that the property taxes are sunset at the end of the seven years.

Council member Maggie Ballard

When Representative (Henry) Helgerson said that he looked at – what he saw when he looked at his peer cities, he’s right when he said other peer cities are doing laps around us. Sometimes, Wichita feels like they say ‘No’ to everything, and we’re actually stunting our own growth. Is this perfect? Absolutely not. Do I still have questions? Of course. But I feel like we should put this on the ballot and leave it up to the public and let them tell us. I know we had an opportunity where, you know, some people have shown up today. Nine o’clock on Tuesday mornings is not convenient all the time for everybody to participate. So I know there’s going to be lots more engagement, as there should be, but some of the initiatives that are listed are core initiatives that have been ignored for far too long. So, like I said, I still have questions. I will be supporting. I will be supportive of this and asking the public what they think the future of Wichita looks like.

Tuttle

Sorry, it’s been a long day. Council member Hoheisel, may I ask you a question. So . . . the policy is for, you said, a rebate for grocery?

Hoheisel

Groceries or necessities.

Tuttle

And who will fund that? That’s what we’re going to lobby for, for the state?

Hoheisel

Since we are taking money out of the CIP to spread around as far as public safety goes, I think that would be a reasonable avenue to pursue.

Tuttle

And may I ask another question to clarify? You are going to bring it up, so a policy will be drafted by next week? And we’ll have the chance to provide input on what necessities are.

Hoheisel

Yep.

Tuttle

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying.

Hoheisel

OK, and just another clarification. If that’s not passed, I’m – I can’t vote for the second reading.

Wu

I would ask that the second reading, if this passes, actually gets to new council business and not get buried in the consent agenda. I would want more individuals – and I think that would allow for even more time for staff – for Wichita Forward to address a lot of the questions that have been asked from community members. And so I would encourage – actually, no, I think I can have – if council is OK, if this passes, then I would want to – we should want to see it on the council agenda in new business, not in consent. I don’t see any objection.

Johnson

I was going to say, we don’t need to add that to the motion. That can be council directed to staff.

Johnston

I just think we should make Bob’s last – one of his last meetings the absolutely longest we possibly can. I think we’re accomplishing that.

Wu

I’m just going to add a couple of comments. The budget deficit has been on my mind since day one when I took office, and knowing that the budget deficit is incoming, and it’s partially because we need to pay fairly our police officers, our firefighters, our public works workers, the city staff in the city of Wichita. Here at the city of Wichita, I believe that the minimum wage is $15 an hour. My dad just started making $15 an hour not too long ago before he retired. So I’m really grateful that the city of Wichita wants to provide a living wage for individuals, and $15 is still higher than the minimum wage – the federal minimum wage. And it does require often more than one income. My mom’s a hair stylist, and it really depends on if people come to her to dye their hair or cut their hair. And together, the two of them, their income actually helps them just survive. However, they have two children that they raised, and they wanted to make sure that they would be able to help them out when they got older, which is what I do. And I’m really grateful for my parents. So every time these conversations regarding property taxes and sales taxes come, I think about my parents. It is very difficult because I know how difficult it is to be on a fixed income. That’s what my dad is on. I was just talking to him about insurance just yesterday, and yes, the rising costs are real, but paying people fairly is also real. And so the budget deficit comes around because we have to pay people what they’re worth and their skills and the value that we give them for the services they provide. And so the budget deficit is coming, not because of irresponsible spending. I can’t speak on the other councils, but I can speak on behalf of this council. We are trying our very best to make sure that we are looking at all expenses. And for the first time in recent history, this council voted to reduce the mill levy in nearly 40 years. And so I know that I can speak about these individuals, that we are going to try our very best to make sure that we are responsible and that we are transparent, and that we do question bureaucracy. And so I can only speak on these – of these people, but again, it’s causing me a lot of pause, because I know that it does mean that it will be difficult for some, which is why I’m so grateful that Representative (Henry) Helgerson and Representative (Nick) Hoheisel have said that they want to talk about a grocery tax exemption, which then would help the individuals that this would be a possible burden on. The other thing that causes me pause is homeless services. Being on the board of Second Light with Council member Ballard, I know that it’s difficult to raise funds right now. Every organization wants to help individuals, and there’s no funding source right now for operating Second Light. This would be a funding source to help Second Light. The other is property tax relief. There would be another mill levy reduction, but only if the sales tax passes. And last but not least, cash funding public safety facilities. That would mean that there would not be debt incurred by the city, so interest rates – and so these are all things that I’m considering. However, I can only speak for myself. And so I know that what our community wants is to have a say, have a say and have a public vote. And so my vote in favor of this is to let the community make the decision, letting the community have a voice of whether or not this passes. This will allow individuals to really vet if this is the best idea. And so I’m in favor of letting the community make that decision, of having a public vote. And so, with that, we have a motion and a second, and I see no further individuals wanting to speak so City Clerk, can you please open the roll? Motion passes 7-0.

Additional motions

At the end of Tuesday’s 8-hour council meeting, Hoheisel proposed three different initiatives related to the sales tax proposal: placing a rebate program policy outline for anyone making below the median household income, anyone with disabilities, seniors and those who make below half the median income on next Tuesday’s City Council meeting agenda; a policy that would automatically increase property tax by 4 mills after the sales tax expires in 2033; an outline for an affordable housing board to help direct spending from the sales tax.

Hoheisel ultimately withdrew his motion on the rebate program and changed it to direct “that staff come up with policies that would help alleviate the burden from those most needy with any potential sales tax increase by next Tuesday.” It passed 6-1, with Johnston voting against it. He agreed to move the mill levy increase discussion to January 20. It passed 7-0. Hoheisel also agreed to move the affordable housing board discussion to a city council workshop in January where the council will talk about how it would allocate the sales tax funding to homeless services and affordable housing.

The staff has since proposed a $50 annual rebate for families who meet certain income guidelines. The council will consider that proposal Tuesday.

This story was originally published December 12, 2025 at 1:03 PM.