Wichita leaders approve new budget with some changes

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The Wichita City Council approved the 2025 budget on Tuesday. City Manager Robert Layton said the budget is balanced and makes cuts to prepare for a budget deficit next year. There is no mill levy increase.

But Layton and the council went into the meeting with concerns about the 2026 budget being over $3 million short and future years that could be upward of $10 million in the hole.

Multi-agency center funding

The 2025 budget includes $8 million in the capital budget for the multi-agency center (MAC). The facility is intended to be a “one-stop-shop” for people experiencing anything from homelessness to domestic violence to human trafficking. The MAC will be in the former Park Elementary. The goal is to have multiple agencies at the center to speed up the process of getting people back on their feet.

The $8 million includes funds to get the emergency shelter up and running this winter and remodeling Park Elementary.

The city is also budgeting $500,000 each year to help run it. But Layton says that leaves a funding gap of about $4 million. He hopes to decrease that with support from Sedgwick County and community non-profits.

“That’s ambitious because that means the providers and other folks involved in the space need to come up with close to $2.5 million of in-kind services or services to help offset costs,” Layton said.

The council is taking $6 million in funding that had been planned for a southside pickleball complex to fund the MAC.

Last-minute changes

Council member Dalton Glasscock came to the meeting with some items he said would save the city money. Some of his suggestions included:

• Selling the naming rights for some parks and facilities – something that was already in the works for 2026, 2027 and 2028.
• Using the increased revenue from the new animal control dog licensing that the council approved last week.
• Centralize and automate accounts payable.
• Save money on the Public Works and Utilities fleet by reducing vehicles or deferring maintenance on vehicles that are not being used due to unfilled staff positions.
• Reduce the $100,000 subsidy for Century II.
• Reduce the $100,000 subsidy for the ice rink.
• Improve the Municipal Court process in light of the court’s new records system.
• Rein in the growth in management positions.

Unfilled city positions

Glasscock also pointed to all the unfilled city positions in facilities, park, and street maintenance. He said the city could save money by maintaining those staffing levels, and the city manager agreed.

“We’ve been running about 20% vacancy rate in all of these maintenance operations,” Layton said. “This just simply recognizes that it’s going to be hard to fill all those positions in 2025. We’re going to study later this year what the right sizing for those maintenance operations should be, but this is not a deliberate attempt to try to eliminate positions, freeze positions, necessarily. This is just recognizing that it’s an uphill battle to try to get to full staffing.”

Health insurance savings

The city manager said that employee health insurance also did not increase as much as expected. Instead of going up 6%, it only went up 5%.

Council members Maggie Ballard and Becky Tuttle said they had heard complaints from city employees that they lost some mental health benefits.

Layton said he does not believe the city changed any elements of the plan document.

The savings

The council approved each one of the suggestions.

“Although not unanimously, we just realized about $3,050,000 in the budget, which I think is a huge step towards efficience in government,” Glasscock said. “Again, without cutting any service to the general public.

He asked that $700,000 of the savings go toward an electronic timekeeping system to better prepare the city for 2026, 2027 and 2028. The council agreed.

Paving dirt roads

Glasscock then brought up the issue of paving the city’s dirt roads. He wanted to hear what other council members thought before he made his motion.

Ballard said paving dirt roads is important for the people in her district, District 6. She said there are 154 unpaved lane miles in Wichita.

“District 6 … has about 40% of the unpaved roads in the city, so 68.2 miles of dirt streets, and I represent the core of the city,” she said. “It still blows my mind that we have that many dirt roads, especially in the middle of the city.”

She said the city should stick to its commitment to pave the roads.

Council member Brandon Johnson said it is important for the city to stand by its word.

After the discussion, Glassock made a motion to reallocate money from the dirt streets program. He said the exception would be $4.2 million to pave the dirt streets near schools. He said individuals could petition to be added to the paved streets program if they got 80% of the residents on the road to agree.

The council approved his motion 4 to 3. Ballard, Johnson, and Mike Hoheisel voted against it.

The vote

Before the council voted on the 2025 budget, Mayor Lily Wu said she would vote against it.

“I believe that we need to continue asking the tough questions so that we can get to a position where we don’t have to come back and apologize to folks and say we can’t continue raising the budget for this department or this department,” Wu said. “We just, again, have to be mindful that they’re not our dollars. They’re taxpayer dollars.”

Council member Ballard asked Wu why she wasn’t voting for the balanced budget, especially since they had made cuts to it.

“If I would have had two choices versus just one budget book that captured the full revenue neutral at its full amount of $12.4 million, I would have been more comfortable voting yes,” Wu said.

Council member J.V. Johnston said the city had to raise pay for police, fire and public works personnel.

“Those pay increases are not 3%,” he said. “They’re double-digit increases. That’s what we’re accounting for with this budget, so I really don’t understand. It is a balanced budget. I don’t understand what, I’d like to hear some ideas what you would cut.”

Wu said that is what she is challenging city staff to provide.

“I’m asking for more options so community can say, ‘Please, choose A versus B.’ Because right now, you don’t even get to see A or B. You just get to see A,” she said.

“So you want to see a dollar amount?” Johnston asked. “Do you want to cut the library by a half-million dollars? You want to cut parks by a million dollars? Do you want to cut police by five positions? Do you want to cut fire by five positions?

Wu said she has made it clear that police, fire and city infrastructure are the core services of local government and should not be touched.

“You know that’s 74% of the budget,” Johnston said. “So you’ve only got 26% of the budget to find $12M. So libraries, parks, those types of things?”

The mayor did not respond to that comment. The council approved the budget 6 to 1.

After the vote, the City of Wichita posted a link to the additional budget items that were discussed and approved at the meeting .

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