County commissioners looking for new way to fund arts and culture services

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – A plan to fund arts and culture services in Sedgwick County through a sales tax continues to move forward.

Currently, arts and culture services are paid for with property taxes. County commissioners are trying to come up with a way to lower property taxes while funding community-centered programs.

Commissioner Jim Howell thinks such a plan may need to get approval from the state legislature but says it could be a way to keep funding going without ever touching property taxes. He says property taxes should only fund core government and public safety services and is proposing a one-eighth-cent sales tax to pay for everything else.

“If the economy thrives and there’s growth in the economy, then the sales tax generates more money, and that eighth of a cent generates more money they can share between, and we would have to have some type of advisory board that would create recommendations for it to be adopted by the commission on how that money should be split up,” Howell said.

He says places like the Sedgwick County Zoo and The Kansas African American Museum are quality-of-life amenities, not necessities.

“When I knock on that door and say to that little old lady that’s starving that she can’t buy food, and she can’t pay her electric, and she says you’re taxing me out of my house. I can say none of your taxes goes towards anything other than core functions of government, and we are trying to do everything we can to be efficient,” Howell said.

If the commission pursues a sales tax, the state and voters would have to approve it.

“I fully understand that property taxes are the most stable form of taxation to fund local government. I understand that. They are stable, and they should be used to fund the core services of what we do here, especially in public safety, but they’re also painful for people in many regards,” said Sedgwick County Commissioner Ryan Baty.

One proposal would have other cities within the county agree to a sales tax to support arts and culture.

The commission took no action on Tuesday.

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