City of Wichita to its hardworking golf division: Bah, Humbug

A local version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is playing out in Wichita’s City Hall.

City Manager Robert Layton plays the part of Scrooge. The role of innocent clerk Bob Cratchet and the adorable Tiny Tim are played by the 21 employees of Wichita’s golf division.

In this version, Scrooge vents his anger about dwindling golf revenue dollars by seizing one month’s salary from each of the employees. Pleadings from others (the Park Board voted against it 6-1) went unheard, not even getting a peep from the City Council.

Cruel on its face, the one-month furloughs of golf employees — four weeks over two consecutive budget cycles — became even more ridiculous when the division announced it would end the year with a $470,000 profit, a 13 percent margin on a $3.5 million enterprise fund. Those numbers were in stark contrast to earlier projections of a $500,000 deficit for 2020.

[Editor’s note: Layton said the golf division will end the year with a $300,000 balance, due to projected deficits in December. That contradicts what Parks Director Troy Houtman and Golf Manager Troy Hendricks told Park Board members on Dec. 14.]

The profit was the result of golf’s national rediscovery during the pandemic, but also because of the long hours and hard work of the front-line golf division employees who mowed the grass, manned the service counters and provided excellent customer service. Their task was made even more difficult by Scrooge’s early layoffs of golf division employees, placing a huge work burden on the remaining staff.

Undeterred by Scrooge’s insensitivity, the remaining staff held fast as record numbers of golfers flooded the local courses.

One might think that the year-end profit would play the role of the Spirit of Christmas Future, melting Scrooge’s heart and causing him to reverse the financial pain he had unfairly inflicted on his employees. It was easily affordable, as the furloughs represented only $90,000 of the nearly half-million-dollar profit.

But, alas, that is where the local version of “A Christmas Carol” takes a dark turn. Scrooge rejected the calls to reverse the furloughs, instead bringing forth the annual salary adjustments for himself and other city employees. Layton justified the 2.5 percent merit pay increase and 1.5 cost of living increase for city employees (including himself) by comparing Wichita to huge metropolitan areas such as Ft. Worth, Omaha, Kansas City and Oklahoma City. That absurd comparison is a little bit like a small child getting in line with the adults at the bar for a shot of whiskey.

But, wait, it gets even more absurd. Those salary increases automatically apply to the mayor and council, and, since they have no boss at City Hall, they get the salary increases without any performance review from anyone.

Old Scrooge seems undeterred. He can easily afford to do the right and charitable thing, refunding the furloughed salaries and awarding the time off as a performance bonus. But that doesn’t appear likely. In other words: Bah, Humbug.