Pushback on county budget warranted
Sedgwick County’s proposed 2016 budget is a provocative document born of ideology more than any dire fiscal reality.
So county commissioners should not be surprised by the strong response – including the city of Wichita’s re-evaluation of services it provides or shares with the county, and the lengthy and emotional public hearing on the budget at Wednesday’s County Commission meeting.
Tuesday’s City Council workshop served as a not-so-subtle reminder that Wichitans are 75 percent of the county’s population and property tax base, and that the county’s backing away from city partnerships may have unintended consequences.
The city also has its own 2016 budget to pass next month. At the very least it deserved more consultation about the county’s intentions to shift costs to it totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars related to area planning and the handling of nonviolent offenders, and to end or slash funding for arts, attractions, economic development and community health.
The county should have expected city leaders to push back, including by pointing Tuesday to the funding disparities that favor the county in city-county partnerships involving the fire station at 143rd Street East and non-city emergency calls as well as animal control, law enforcement and senior programs.
The next day brought the full-throated reaction of citizens to the county budget, at the first of two public hearings. Most of the speakers found fault with the proposal, which would use an array of cuts in county spending to enable a new strategy of avoiding debt to fund road and bridge construction projects.
The hearing also offered the ugly moment when Commission Chairman Richard Ranzau blasted Spirit AeroSystems for daring to have a company representative ask the county not to cut funding to the Wichita Area Technical College when Spirit had earlier reduced its contractual support for WATC. Ranzau called it “insulting” that Spirit would criticize the county for not supporting WATC and the aircraft companies, but it was Ranzau who came off as judgmental and unresponsive to the needs and concerns of the largest employer in Wichita and the largest private employer in Kansas.
Credit Commissioner Jim Howell with saying, at the end of the 4 1/2-hour hearing, that he at least will consider Commissioner Dave Unruh’s idea of spending less on roads next year to avoid some significant spending cuts. Howell’s statement provided a glimmer of hope that there might be three votes to improve the budget before its approval Aug. 12.
The majority commissioners tried to minimize both the potential impact and the county’s responsibility for the affected organizations and services, but the hearing illuminated the risks the budget poses to the community’s health, economic growth and cultural life.
And just as the city-county partnerships were born of desires to streamline and improve services and, in some cases, save tax money overall, the weakening or collapse of such cooperation now seems likely to be costly and inefficient.
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Pushback on county budget warranted."