Commissioner’s trip to Africa may be legit — but we should know who’s paying for it
Sedgwick County Commissioner Lacey Cruse didn’t violate any policies or protocol when she took a seven-day, $2,900 trip to Ghana on the taxpayers’ dime.
And that’s a problem.
The trip is another glaring example of the need for specific, accountable ethics policies for local elected officials. As it stands, neither Sedgwick County commissioners nor Wichita City Council members have clear rules in place when it comes to travel, gifts or disclosure.
Cruse, who joined the commission last year, said the trip was legitimate county business, a mission to explore economic opportunities in the west African nation. She met with foreign dignitaries, visited a hospital and toured a cocoa processing factory.
She’s not the first local elected official to travel to Africa. Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and former Vice Mayor Lavonta Williams traveled to Ghana in 2011 and again in 2014 to explore trade, education, aviation and government exchange opportunities. Those trips were approved by the City Council in advance and paid for personally, not with city funds, according to Wichita Eagle reports at the time.
Cruse’s trip last month understandably raises questions because commissioners were told by the county manager that Cruse was paying for the trip herself. They didn’t find out the county had fronted Cruse the money — from a $106,416 fund shared by the commissioners — until after The Eagle started asking questions about it.
Cruse said she plans to reimburse the county through private fundraising, asking “companies who may share in the benefits of this excursion to share in the expenses.”
But she hasn’t disclosed who made a $450 donation to the cause — and that’s troubling as well. Similar to campaign contributions, donations to an elected official’s foreign travel should be open to public scrutiny.
Whatever you think about the benefits of trade trips, economic or otherwise, it’s clear there needs to be a better process in place to guide travel by elected officials. Commissioners and the public should know about any planned out-of-state trips and precisely who’s paying for them.
Ethics and transparency became central issues in the Wichita mayoral election last year, after The Eagle published an article showing that former Mayor Jeff Longwell steered a multi-million-dollar contract for a new water treatment plant toward his friends and golf partners.
An Eagle report found that, compared to similarly sized cities, Wichita has one of the loosest ethical codes governing elected officials’ conduct. There’s no limit to the gifts Wichita elected officials can accept and few ways for the public to know who’s trying to influence the local political process.
Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple has called for an ethics overhaul, saying government business “shouldn’t be about being wined and dined.”
Whipple should, as promised, get right to work on ethics reform at City Hall. And so should the Sedgwick County Commission, as the latest example involving commissioner travel illustrates.