City Council - Regular Meeting

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, please call the first item.

Public agenda. And I apologize, I don't have my public agenda that I read usually, but we allow five minutes for public agenda, and you're not allowed to address the council at the time. Anything that you say, you're not allowed to ask questions, but you can... leave questions for the city manager. If you have questions and you have five minutes and our first speaker is Brian Clark with the Wichita public library.

Hello. My name's Brian Clark. I'm here this morning. I'm not with the public library, but I'm here to talk about the Wichita Public Library, what it means to me and the community both. I retired after working at the Wichita Eagle for 25 years in the marketing department. There I learned the importance of access to all information. I learned the importance of the role that literacy plays in our community. and the need to have trusted sources of information and truth, and a changing environment, because newspaper business changed a lot while I was there. So today I want to share some thoughts about the library and what it means to me. First, some things I won't be talking about. I'm not going to talk about how libraries make economic sense. They're economic engines of growth in the community. They offer job search assistance. They offer resume workshops. They offer free internet access for people that don't have it. They have a high return on investment. Studies show that you get a return of $6 for every dollar spent. So that's a good thing. I'm not going to talk about how libraries make communities healthier, but they do. There's community programs. There's direct librarian assistance. There's fitness classes. There's healthy eating classes. There's a lot of ways that they make the community healthier. I'm not going to talk about how well the library has adapted to a changing environment and how they offer premier spaces, technologies, and resources that go way beyond books on shelves. We've heard about the death of print coming from the newspaper business. I'm well aware of that, but there are actually more public libraries in the US than there are Starbucks. Finally, I'm not gonna talk about how libraries provide skilled assistance to people that need to navigate vast amounts of information. Our librarians are information experts and they do a great job. But I want to talk today about more granular my thoughts about the library. It's been instrumental to me, the library system in general, the Advanced Learning Library in particular. It's helped me in traditional and non-traditional ways continue to be a learner in three different ways. One's just reading. I've always been a reader, but I read more now that I'm retired than I ever have before. Last year, in 2025, I checked out and read 42 books at the library. And I often grab a book off the shelf and go out on the second floor and enjoy the sunshine when the weather's nice. I'm also a big movie fan, so I've used the library to watch movies. I've checked out classics and looked at independent films, checked out more than 100 DVDs last year. And I've gone to a lot of the documentaries and that kind of thing. I hope the library continues to support Tallgrass Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Oscar Shorts, et cetera. Finally, I've just learned about things I didn't know anything about. I've taken lots of classes. I've done 3D printing. I've done sewing machine basics, strengthened computer skills. I've learned about Canva and Cricut and Audacity and Tinkercad. I've gone to Wichita Genealogical Society events. I've done Tuesday topics, Senior Wednesdays, author events, book club activities, learning circles, book swaps, community writing workshops, art for self-care, all of those free. I'm excited to further my relationship with the library and I'm still hoping that I'll continue to be a learner. I look at the Evolve magazine that comes out every quarter and I have fun going through that, picking out what I'm going to do. I got my eye on Dinosaur Trivia Night on July 16th. Please share my enthusiasm for the library and do what you can to support the important work done there. Libraries provide equitable access to books, internet, technology, promote literacy, and provide lifelong learning for all, regardless of income. They are safe refuges for underserved populations and provide places for civic engagement and education. And from a personal standpoint, they keep Brian Clark entertained, learning, growing, and having fun. Thanks again for the opportunity to present to you today. Keep making good choices and adding to the quality of life in Wichita. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Brian. Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

The next speaker is Earl T. Anderson with the South Central. He would like to speak about South Central Kansas Economic Development District, the Fire Department, and Police.

Who's this here for? Raise your hand.

I live there. Speaking to you.

I was gonna write something up, but you can ask my colleague. I'm better off the cuff. My name is Earl Anderson. I'm here to speak to you about SCED, S-C-K-E-D-D. City Council, if you do not know about SCED, Mayor Wu, please, please, please look into this. I am from Detroit, Michigan, born and raised. If my appearance scares you, you are what the kids today call the problem. I'm not a typical American. I love the flag. If you don't understand why I love the flag so much, go look up on YouTube the history of the Star-Spangled Banner as you never heard of it, and you'll understand from then forward. Again, I am a history teacher by trade, got a bachelor's in history, I'm only telling you about me because of SCID. Had a hard life, everybody has, but mine was a little bit worse than others. And, you know, things, one thing after another led me to not be able to work. I'm no longer allowed in public settings such as this. No longer allowed to be at a job because of my mental disorder. This month is mental month. Yay! Anyways, I contacted Mayor Wu because my house, my wife's house, was falling apart. Explained, you know, is there any help that I could get? Mayor Wu herself did not respond, but she gave it to a young lady in District 4 named Brooke Kowchuk. I want to keep calling her Kowchuk, but it is what it is. That young lady and I have worked for the past two years and I am proud to tell you, Mayor, City Council, I'm gonna cry, I don't wanna cry, I'm gonna cry. I have a brand new roof on my house. There are ceilings that are brand new in my house. My wife's house has been completely re-piped, completely from the curb back. My HVAC system and air conditioning unit completely replaced. All paid for by SCED. If you don't know what SCED is, City Council, I pray to you. I pray to you. Find it out today. Don't have your assistance. Do it you. Look it up. Figure it out. Maribu, this is directed towards you because of your past. Please tell Kate, Channel 12, Channel 3, to start doing news stories about this. I've contacted them all. I'm very good friends with Annette Lawless. She wants to do it. For whatever reason, I can't get on the schedule, and that's fine. I don't need to be. I don't need my fame announced and my help that I got announced, but darn it. When we're in a time as we are now in Minnesota, California, and other states, Arizona, where the governors and everybody else are accused of doing some horrible, horrible things, please allow Wichita to shine and show that you actually care for us. your citizens, your people, the people day to day, the people that are gonna speak here and present to you different ideas to help the city, do and go for the city. Brian, with the library, so many different things can happen in a library, so many different objectives. What I have been able to do is take, I have Mike Nolan with me, Michael has no parents, unfortunately lost them to, you know, no fault of their own, but they're not here anymore. And him and his friends are a little problem for you folks here in the city council. They like to go and race at night on the weekends and gather, if you will, at Douglas in Washington. You know, just keeps the cops employed, if you will. I've showed them a different path, I've shown them a different way. You've seen my truck, it looks just like I do with the American flag all over it, loud as hell, pardon my French. And I showed them a different path to take. I have been called a pedophile, I've been called a predator. No way does a man my age hang around kids his age. I met Mike when he was 16. and not have something to do sexually with them. I've asked Mike for two things. I've asked all of his friends for two things in return for my help. Mike, what are the two things? That's it. I bought them vehicles. I provided the money. My time is up. I've done everything I can to help them and I will continue and the next generation and anybody else who needs help because you, Mayor Wu, you, City Council, have helped me and allowed me to do this. So my home is open to them. I thank you for your time. I thank you so much for your help and I beg you, beg you, advertise this, show this to people, show that we're not typical Americans, show that you care about your city. I am proof. I'm living proof. You guys get nothing for helping me. Whoever funds SCED, whoever donated to SCED, I don't even know who they are.

Thank you.

And they don't know how they helped me. I will not take any more of your time. I appreciate it. I have two, two... Earl, thank you so very much.

Can you give the two nonprofit names to the city clerk so that the whole council will know about it?

I will appreciate you so much. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Earl. With that, we have three more spots available for individuals who would like to address the council. You can just come up to the microphone. Please state your name and the district you live in.

Good morning, Mayor, council members, and staff. I'm Wyatt Sheeter, and I'm from District 1. As we recognize Older Americans Month this May, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the older adults in our community. The older I get, the more the definition of old changes. I don't know if any of you have experienced that, but it's just a fact of life, right? We have many seniors in our community. They're our neighbors, they're our volunteers, caregivers, veterans, mentors, and civic leaders whose experience and contributions contribute to our great city here in Wichita. I'm the Executive Director of Senior Services of Wichita, and each day we see firsthand the needs of seniors in the community and try to meet those as best we can through programs like Meals on Wheels, community dining sites, senior employment program, and senior centers throughout our city. So if you're not familiar with Senior Services of Wichita and what we do, I would encourage you to lean in and contribute and get involved. For many seniors, these programs are a lifeline. It helps them maintain independence, stay active and engaged in their communities. I want to applaud the city for its commitment to supporting older residents through the AARP Age Friendly Community Initiative. If you're not familiar with what that is, it's an effort to reflect and understand that creating an age friendly city benefits everyone. When we improve accessibility, transportation, walkability, housing options, activities, social connection for older adults, we create a stronger and more livable community for all generations. And as our population continues to age, God willing, we'll all get old one day, we are going to need more of those services, whether they be through governments, nonprofits, businesses, and involved residents will become even more important. And I appreciate the city's leadership and willingness to invest in policies and initiatives that help older adults age with dignity, independence, and opportunity. Thank you for your continued support of Wichita's older adults, and thank you for recognizing Older Americans Month.

Thank you, Wyatt. And please say thank you to your senior services team for all they do to help our older Wichitans with Meals on Wheels and other programs. So thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Holden Woodward. I work in IT. I knew Dalton personally, relatively. Messaged him this weekend just because I was thinking about it and finally decided to show up. I believe I'm in District 1 over by 29th and Oliver, so hello, Joseph. Haven't met you yet, but I may talk to you at some point. What I came here to talk about today was the flock cameras in the city. They are an automated surveillance tool. They call them... WHAT THEY WILL END UP BEING IS A WAY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT TO SCURRY THE FOURTH AMENDMENT BY PURCHASING THE DATA OF MASS GATHERED SURVEILLANCE THROUGH A THIRD PARTY COMPANY INSTEAD OF DOING IT DIRECTLY WHICH IS A VIOLATION OF THE FOURTH AMENDMENT TO MY UNDERSTANDING. THEY ALSO COST THE CITY A LOT OF MONEY TO MY KNOWLEDGE. documentation on that so I can read through the agreement we have with them. So I will come back more prepared next time. I just wanted to get it in people's ears that it is overall a bad thing. I know it's had some positive effects recently with some shootings recently in Old Town. I don't think it's worth it in the long term. It is fantastic that we've found those people, but in the long term it can be abused so heavily that it is not a cost I'm willing to take. Also, really late on this one, but the paid parking, I had to pay to park here. I see that as nothing but a tax on the poor. That's for a city council meeting. I'd really love to make that, at least during that, free because I don't understand how that's, I can't morally support that. Downtown, I see it in the same way, but much less of a problem than during a city council meeting. THAT IS ABOUT IT.

NICE TO MEET YOU GUYS. THANK YOU. I WILL SEND A LINK TO SHANNA. IF YOU CAN GIVE IT TO THE SPEAKER. ON THE CITY OF WICHITA WEBSITE WE HAVE A TRANSPARENCY PAGE. THERE IS AN ENTIRE PAGE DEDICATED TO FLOCK. And it gives information about how much has been invested, how much we've spent so far, when it started, pretty much everything that you'd like to know. So I'm going to send it to you right now if you could share it with him. And then, of course, you can follow up with anyone. But this will be a good place for you to get the majority of information you asked about today. Thank you for coming.

We have one more spot available. I see none. Thank you to our four speakers during public agenda. Again, appreciate individuals coming to address your city council. And you'll always have that opportunity by emailing any of the seven of us at wichita.gov slash council. And I know that, again, many of the city council members have community service representatives, as one was pointed out, Brooke. And they are the ones that help carry out a lot of the tasks in order for those solutions to come to fruition. So we are very appreciative of the community service representatives that assist the council members. Council Member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. And if I may piggyback on that, the CSRs, they're a godsend. They're amongst the best employees that we have here. They do a ton of work, so I did want to give them a shout out. And also alongside the SCED program, we do have a home loan program with the city as well. So if people need additional resources, that is something to look into as well.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH AGAIN TO INDIVIDUALS THAT COME TO CITY COUNCIL. I WILL QUICKLY JUST MENTION THAT THERE ARE A COUPLE MORE OPPORTUNITIES BEYOND THE CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS. THIS UPCOMING WEDNESDAY AT CITY HALL THERE WILL BE A BUDGET TOWN HALL HOSTED BY THE CITY MANAGER RIGHT HERE AT 530 PM. I ENCOURAGE ANYONE IN OUR COMMUNITY TO COME AND ADDRESS THE CITY MANAGER AS WELL AS YOUR THOUGHTS AND PRIORITIES REGARDING THE BUDGET. AGAIN, THAT'S THIS WEDNESDAY AT 5 30 P.M. RIGHT HERE. IN ADDITION, COUNCIL MEMBERS ALL HAVE BREAKFAST. THERE WILL BE A BREAKFAST COMING UP ON SATURDAY IN DISTRICT NUMBER 6. COUNCILMEMBER BALLARD WILL BE HOSTING THAT AND IT IS OPEN TO INDIVIDUALS IN DISTRICT 6 AS WELL AS ANY OTHER DISTRICT WHO WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND AND IT'S THIS SATURDAY AT 9 A.M. AT EVERGREEN. SO MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES TO ENGAGE WITH YOUR CITY COUNCIL AND AGAIN, THANK YOU FOR COMING TO SPEAK DURING PUBLIC AGENDA. MADAM CLERK, PLEASE CALL THE NEXT ITEM.

Consent agenda items one through 15.

Council members, any items to be pulled from consent agenda? I see none. I move to approve consent agenda items one through 15.

Second.

Motion, second. Discussion? I see none. Madam Clerk, please open the roll. Actually. all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed same sign motion passes 7-0 madam clerk please call the next item councilmember agenda SO WE DON'T HAVE PETITION FOR PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT.

DO WE HAVE ANY PETITIONS FOR PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT?

WE ARE IN COUNCILMEMBER AGENDA. THESE ARE TRAVEL REQUESTS FOR THE NATIONAL CIVIC LEAGUES ALL AMERICA CITY. THEY WERE APPROVED ON MAY 12. HOWEVER, THE DATES WERE INCORRECT. THEREFORE, THEY HAVE TO BE REAPPROVED. AND THESE ARE FOR COUNCILMEMBER Vice Mayor Glasscock, Council Member Ballard, Mayor Wu, Council Member Shepherd, as well as Council Member Hoheisel, who will be attending. Council Member Johnson will not be attending. And Council Member Tuttle has not submitted an approval, so not attending or attending?

I will be attending. I'm pending some personal family things, just trying to work through some logistics, but I will be submitting my travel request.

SO TODAY IT'S ONLY FOR COUNCILMEMBERS I MENTIONED WITHOUT COUNCILMEMBER TUTTLE UNTIL SHE SUBMITS HER APPROVAL FORM. IS THAT ACCURATE? OKAY. I WILL START WITH I MOVE TO APPROVE THE TRAVEL FOR VICE MAYOR GLASCOCK AND COUNCILMEMBER BALLARD FOR JUNE 25th TO 29th. SECOND. Motion second. Discussion? See none. Madam Clerk, please, sorry. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes 7-0. I move to approve travel for Mayor Wu for June 25th through 29th. Second. Motion, second, discussion? See none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes 7-0. I move to approve Council Member Shepard's travel and Council Member Hohheisel's travel. But Council Member Shepard's travel is June 27th through 29th, and Council Member Hohheisel is for June 20th. Oh, yours was okay. Okay, so only Councilmember Shepard's travel June 27th through 29th.

Second.

Motion second. Discussion? See none.

Mayor, just wanted to put it out there. The reason why my dates are different is that prior obligations here for the City of Wichita, and then we'll join the rest of my colleagues.

Thank you, Council Member Shepherd. Motion second. No further discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes 7-0. All right. Council members, any appointments? I see none. Council members, any? Oh, Council Member appointments.

Mayor, I'd like to appoint Tracy Terrell to the Affordable Housing Review Board.

Any other appointments?

I see none. I move to approve that appointment.

Second.

Motion second. Discussion? See none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes 7-0. Councilmember comments now.

Mayor, just a comment. On Thursday, May 28th, from 5.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m., I am hosting On Tap and On the Map. It will be the legacy of redlining in Wichita. So I know that the city has had elected officials over the past couple of decades talk about this. This is an opportunity for the community to come out in a safe and fun environment, grab a beer from a local brewery, Hopping Gnome Brewery, and have an opportunity to learn about the history and the legacy of redlining in Wichita, how it's impacting our communities economically from a health lens as well, and also what our housing department, the incredible work they're doing, as well as what other entities are doing, and would love to hear from the community about what more we can do to undesign the red line.

Thank you, Council Member Shepard. I JUST WANT TO CLOSE OUT BY THIS IS THE LAST MEETING BEFORE WE CLOSE OUT THE MONTH OF MAY. AGAIN, I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO WYATT FOR BRINGING TO ATTENTION THE OLDER AMERICANS MONTH WHICH HAPPENS TO BE MAY AND TO OUR SPEAKER WHO ALSO MENTIONED THAT MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH IS THE MONTH OF MAY. THANK YOU FOR THOSE RECOGNITIONS TO REMIND OUR COMMUNITY OF THE IMPORTANCE OF mental health and respect our older Americans. I also want to say thank you to Lakeview, Rest Haven Cemeteries, both hosted Memorial Day commemorations, as well as the Veterans Memorial Park, who also did an annual event there. And last but not least, May also happens to be Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And this past weekend, Council Member Shepherd joined me at the Laos Temple to celebrate their Laotian New Year. And so I want to say thank you to all the participants that helped celebrate culture in our community. With that, I will- Mayor, I apologize.

I have two questions for Attorney Magana. I submitted a contract, and I just want to ensure that you receive that contract. It's a review with the Wichita State Social Work Practicum. Yes. Is that in review?

It's in review.

Thank you so much. And is there an ETA on when that will be received?

Probably by the end of the week. Okay.

Does the city manager need to do anything on his end for that?

Yes, we'll have a review.

Okay. And what is that process like for my educational purposes?

I'll review and then we'll submit it to CMO for the review. And then it'll be up to CMO to determine next steps.

WHEN YOU SAY UP TO THE CITY MANAGER, CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN THAT TO ME?

I WOULD JUST NEED TO VISIT WITH HIM ABOUT HOW, IF HE HAS ANY QUESTIONS ON EXECUTION OR PROCESS. THAT'S ALL.

JUST FOR AWARENESS, I DO WANT TO MAKE THIS PUBLIC THAT I HAVE SUBMITTED A CONTRACT FOR MY COLLEAGUES' UNDERSTANDING. THERE'S NO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CITY OF WICHITA, BUT FOR DISTRICT ONE TO PARTNER WITH WICHITA STATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK TO HAVE A PRACTICUM STUDENT HOUSED AT OUR ATWATER NEIGHBORHOOD RESOURCE CENTER. We have lots of citizens who come in there and they have several needs and those needs are not often within the purview of our community services representatives or even partners that are housed within there. And so since January, I've been working with Wichita State School of Social Work to make that happen. I would love it if we can expedite this process and if there are any things that I need to do on my end from the city manager's perspective, please let me know. And then furthermore, also have submitted and we'll be working with Assistant City Manager Dante Martin for an intern in District 1 as well. Again, my understanding is that all council members have the autonomy to bring these things forward. I am, and so I just want to make it public so that there's a level of awareness. And if there are any questions from my colleagues or anybody else in City Hall, please come in and engage with me. I'd be happy to.

Thank you. I see no further comments from council members. With that, I will move to adjourn the official city council meeting at 9.31 a.m. Second. Motion, second. Discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please. Sorry, I keep going into that mode. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes 7-0. We will now move to the workshop. Assistant City Manager, Dante Martin.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council. Glad to be here with you this morning. Unfortunately, City Manager Dennis Marstall couldn't make it. He's hung up due to travel challenges that he's facing. Staff has prepared an agenda with five items, pretty heavy, pretty significant items. Looking forward to a lively discussion. The first item on the agenda is our monthly update related to Wichita Water Works. Gary Jansen.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members, Gary Jansen, Public Works and Utilities. I'm just going to say a few quick words and I'll turn it over to Ron. Still making progress with Wichita Water Works. We're really close, I think, to being in a good spot for where we want to go with performance testing. Ron will talk about details related to clarifier repairs. We've got staff that we're getting ready to bring back at full staffing at the plant here within the week. So that we can be ready to start supporting performance testing. Our goal still is, I mentioned before, is to hopefully take possession of the plant in September. Assuming that can still happen and there's a lot of moving parts and things that need to happen between now and then. But we're tracking well at the moment. You'll hear Ron talk about the coatings work with the clarifiers. It's really controlling out of work right now. It's been impacted some by the weather. But assuming we take the plant over in September, we want to look at six months of operations before we bring the plant online. It would be great timing for us to be live with our new plant in spring prior to the high demands of summer. So we're keeping that as our goal, staying on that.

Timeline I'm gonna turn over on let him talk about specifics Good morning mayor members of the council quick 30 days since the last time I was here felt like let me start the presentation. I told you the last time we gave an update I was gonna flip it this month and instead of talk about everything that we had accomplished, instead talk about what was left to do so that it was a little bit easier to understand where we are. Gary mentioned the goal of trying to hand over the plant in September, that is the goal. I will tell you weather's the biggest impediment to that goal. At the moment I think since the last time I presented we've had 13 weather days affecting coatings work. which is a big challenge. So obviously we're doing everything we can to accelerate those schedules and we'll continue to do so. And we'll keep you apprised as we come each month as to how we're doing. In general, we wrapped up training and optimization activities on SEC 5 in May and shut the plant back down a couple of weeks ago. So if you'll recall, we had modified one of the clarifiers temporarily to mimic the updated repairs and then used the period from February to May to not just train city staff, but to optimize plant processes. and chemical usage through the period. I think it was very successful on both accounts, both the opportunity for city staff to operate the facility as well as to look at the optimization. What you'll find with a water plant and with your new water plant is you learn over time. You make small changes and you watch performance over time. Just like you have for the last eight decades or so on your current plant to get to where you want. This plant will go through that same kind of period and you will optimize continually as you move forward. That was a great opportunity to take care of time that would have been lost due to repairs and make it valuable, I think, both to city staff and the city as well. All repair materials are on site. The plant's expected to start back up here in a couple of weeks, and then we'll start PTAs in June. Gary mentioned we're close to updating the PTAs. I've shown some of those PTA numbers in here just so that you understand the grouping. There's a little bit more work to do with the city, but in general, the plan currently is to test all three water sources and to test all six clarifiers in a PTA format. and those durations are a little bit longer than they did, well, quite a bit longer than they were previously, so that you have a minimum runtime of about 21 days on each clarifier to make sure that it's operating correctly. Okay, SCC3 will be the first clarifier that comes back online. We're down to just coatings, repairs on that clarifier. As soon as that's done, final equipment checkout will will take place and then we'll restart the plant and start the first PTA. I'm gonna call that PTA 9 just for tracking purposes so that we don't duplicate what we did previously. The next two solids contact clarifiers that come online are SCC 1 and 4. They are also down to just exterior coating repairs. So as they finish up repair work and we finish the first set of PTAs, those two clarifiers are currently targeted for the second PTA. SEC 2 and 6, SEC 2 still has some repair work to happen. SEC 6 is coatings only at this point. So you can start to see we're way down the path with repairs. The repairs are actually the easy part of this. It's finding the weather to allow you to do coatings in place that are more challenging. as part of it and by far what takes the longest period of time. So don't worry about those where you see an SEC still has some repairs to be made. It's likely that we've got everything we need and we're just holding off until we get some of the coatings work done before we put that in place. The final clarifier to be fixed will be SEC 5, the one that we just took down from running temporarily. We still have some rake arm modifications. We've got the coatings and we've got the installation of the upper draft tube to occur. Our hope is that the way the schedule is lining out, that that last SEC 5 will actually be moved up into PTA, what we call PTA 11, or the previous PTA, so that we can do this in three years. one for each water source, three different PTA periods. However, we're also planning for if for any reason that doesn't happen or we need to repeat a PTA that we've got that planned for as well. So that's why you see PTA or 11 or 12 at this point. Obviously we will finalize with the city what the PTA process looks like, performance testing acceptance process looks like, and then we'll go forward. So that is my update. Gary, anything you would like to add to that?

Thank you, Ron. I don't have anything to add. We are making progress. Thanks for coming along well. As soon as we get started on performance testing here in the next week or two, we'll really start heading towards a place that we can start looking to take over the plant. All things are looking good right now.

Council Member Howell-Hazel.

Thank you, Mayor. Just one quick question. Are the performance testing, are we able to do those at the same time concurrently, or is it Does it have to be 21 days separately? So like, are we, we're not able to have 11 and 12 going on? At the same time.

So the PTAs are sequential, but you can test multiple clarifiers within a PTA. So those are concurrent.

Okay.

So, uh, so yeah, the, the, the current pathway, I'll say the kind of the draft plan is that there are three PTAs lined up. Um, the first I believe will be surface water and then, uh, and then groundwater and then blended water. to end you on blended water, which is what you will treat the majority of your time. We have a fourth PTA lined up as well in case we need it for either that final SEC or anything that needs to be repeated through the process. Again, all of our schedules are based on passing PTAs when we do this, so if we need to retest anything, that obviously tacks on to the end, but we've tried to account for that. So we've squeezed the schedule as tight as we can without overlapping actual PTAs where you're on different water sources.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Yeah, absolutely. Other questions?

I see none. Thank you for the updates on the repairs. And again, all the repairs are being paid for by your company. We appreciate that they're getting the proper coatings and repairs. However, my question really is for Gary. With the rains that we have received, thankfully, people have been asking about Cheney and the water levels. Can you just address a quick update regarding Cheney and where we're at?

Sure. I don't know the exact level, but Cheney actually is still in the flood pool, meaning that it is above the conservation pool, above normal level. We release water from Cheney Reservoir at the direction of the Corps of Engineers. And over the course of time, since we had the big rains about a year ago, there's been several releases, but the water has been kept in the flood pool. So we're actually at higher than normal capacity right now, which is a good thing going into this additional testing and as we head into summer.

Thank you. I see no further questions. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Gary. Assistant City Manager Martin.

Thank you, Mayor. The next item on our agenda is the airport master plan for Eisenhower National Airport. We have our director of airport, Jesse Romo, along with friends.

Good morning, Mayor. Excuse me. Good morning, Mayor, Council. Jesse Romo, director of airports, Wichita Airport Authority. We're here today to talk about the airport master plan for Eisenhower National Airport. It's just a specific one for that. And I just want to give a couple clarifying comments before I hand it off to our consultant to deliver. This is not a plan that is specific to a certain project. It won't tell you XYZ needs to be done. It is a plan that studies everything A through Z for the airport. So it looks at runways, taxiways, all of our buildings, future land, also employment capacity in the terminal, kind of everything that we do and touch as far as the airport goes for the future and tries to forecast out for 20 years and set us up for that future. But it's important for us to go through that process as we identify projects because we put them into the FAs, into their planning system. And so we hire a consultant to do this. It's been 18 months since we began. And even though that may sound like a long time, we're actually on schedule. And so these things just take that long to do. And we're also on budget. And we're happy with our friends at Kauffman Associates. They do a fantastic job planning airport studies all across the nation. And so with that, I want to bring Patrick Taylor up from Kauffman to help us go through and give you, as the airport authority board, an opportunity to review the entire airport master plan before we submit.

All right. Thanks, Jesse. Hello, Council, Mayor. Nice to see everybody again. As Jesse said, I'm Patrick Taylor with Kauffman Associates, so I'm a principal. We're headquartered in Kansas City. We are a national airport planning firm. That is all we do is airport planning across the country, and we produce master plans, land use plans, noise studies for airports across the country. I've got a short presentation which will summarize this 600-page document that you all have a copy of. The next step, just so you guys can kind of see where this is going, is to submit the technical drawings associated with this master plan, those drawings that show the current and potential 20-year future of the airport to the FAA. They will review them for technical accuracy, and then as they make decisions for grant funding for any of these projects that you may pursue, they will be referring to that airport layout plan. So that's kind of the big end game. So a master plan is an important visioning document for any airport. FAA likes you to kind of revisit these documents periodically, like every seven to 10 years for a commercial airport like Eisenhower, sometimes a little longer for a general aviation airport like Jabara. They want to be able to address any changes in the aviation industry, whether that's local or national. Of course, over the last 20 years, which is how long it's been since the last master plan was done, there's been several kind of shocks to the aviation system. So that's good to kind of capture what the next 20 years may look like for the airport. A big outcome is a list of potential capital projects. So a 20 year list of big projects that you may seek funding from the FAA on. That is in the back and I'll step through a few of those, kind of the highlights when we get to that. Categorizing airport land is also important. As a start, all airport land should be used for aviation purposes, but if you have excess land, there's opportunities for generating revenue through non-aviation compatible development. And like I said, the FAA will approve that airport layout plan, but it also approves a piece that came before that, which is our projections of aviation demand over the next 20 years. They have already approved those. And there's a bunch of benefits while you're doing the process, including involving the public. We had several public information workshops, which were fairly well attended. I see familiar faces here that were at those. And basically generating goodwill and discussions with the FAA on an ongoing basis, since they fund a lot of the very expensive airport projects. I'll just look at the right-hand side, what a master plan is. I think I just covered. But it is not a guarantee of any funding for any project with the FAA. All projects have to go through a justification process and an allocation process with the FAA. So there's no guarantee that any of the projects listed will happen or be funded. And it is not also environmental clearance for any project. You still have to do that for every single project. I might just briefly mention the team. So Kauffman Associates, we also have Martinez Geospatial. They help us by doing an aerial survey of the airport that the FAA requires. Garver, who's been an engineer at the airport for many years, was a sub-consultant to us and produced several documents that are going to be helpful as you move forward. HubPoint is a national air cargo firm that helped us with some forecasting. Landry SMS helped us with a comparative safety assessment. So in the middle of the master plan, we stopped and focused on three detailed areas of the airport that the FAA identified for us at the very beginning where we would do this specialized study. So we have that kind of buried within the master plan. And then security first title here in Wichita helped us with some property deed research. I always like to start by reminding people what airports are, and they are economic engines. And so here we have some fairly recent economic impact data for Eisenhower, which is about $6 billion of economic output, and right below that is the economic output of all the airports in the state, which is about $11 billion. So Eisenhower accounts for more than half of all the economic output for aviation businesses in the state. That's really what we're talking about, keeping that engine going. Just to remind everyone, we had a robust public involvement effort during the master plan. We had a group of planning advisory committees, so these were airport stakeholders. Several committee members were on that group, and they got detailed briefings at periodic points throughout the plan. We also had four public information workshops that were advertised locally and were well attended out there at the airport. And we have, the website is still active, but we had an ongoing project website in which all of this is available for anybody and has been throughout the plan. Just to kind of map out what the process is, so we start with kind of an 18-month timeframe. We have a kickoff meeting. Then we get into our forecasting element, and then we produce some draft documents there for our planning advisory committee and the public. Then we move into an alternatives development phase, which is kind of the fun phase when we work with all the graphics and come up with ideas to solve potential problems down the road. Then we did our comparative safety assessment and we've just recently wrapped up our recommended master plan concept, the capital program. So we are here on the far right side of the screen through the local approvals process. So this document again, this one contains all of this information. The basic master plan is about six chapters, including forecasting and a capital improvement plan. And then we have a number of appendices that are supporting the data and the conclusions within the master plans. So just to give you kind of a little understanding of the projections of forecast demand, that top number where it says annual and planements, and a planement being a passenger departing the airport, that is an FAA matrix that relates directly to grant funding, in fact, directly to entitlement funding, funding that the airport gets no matter what based on the number of passengers leaving the airport. So in 2024, which was our base year, over 900,000, with a projection in 2044 to about 1.5 million people leaving the airport. So that's three million people going through the airport on an annual basis. Let me orient you a little bit on this one. So this is a composite of all of the areas of the airport that we analyzed during the master plan. So everything in red is potential new pavement. So you can see taxiways and runway pavement there, parking apron. Everything in yellow is a structure or a building or a hanger of some type. And the blue is parking and access roads. The yellow kind of transparent colors are land areas that are not on airport property that the airport has identified. for an opportunity to acquire them, if that were ever to become available. And I might just point out, you do see yellow over Bombardier, and you see that over Cessna. And that's just, if something were to happen to one of those companies, if they were to merge, perhaps, I mean, we just don't know what the business environment will be in the future, but if those properties became available, that would be perfect aviation land for the airport to continue that use that's there right now. And there are several other adjacent properties all planned for future aeronautical use if they become available. To be honest, the footprint of the airport is perfectly adequate to address the forecast demand right now. So any property acquisition that they would do is basically an opportunity for the future.

What would some of those plans look like if we did acquire any of that? MROs or...

Sure, and there's been some interest from larger MROs at the airport in the past. It could be, so for example, on the upper left up there, that's a great opportunity for support, continuing to support general aviation, right? So smaller aircraft or business jet type of activity, which is growing at this airport. It could be any number of things. One thing that is rare, oh, Jesse's got a...

Sorry, someone should paint that yellow. I just want to clarify that this does not signal intention. This just gives optionality in the future. And one of the reasons why you do this is should it become available in the future, it could be federally funded for the land acquisition. But to your question, it depends really on where the location is. So the properties that are adjacent, the aeronautical, they have aeronautical access, can do MRO-type developments. Some of the properties that are more infilled are aviation-related businesses. So you could do, you know, some maintenance work on props or storage of different types of materials and things that support the MRO and FBO functions. So it's just a depends question.

Okay. Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Why don't I go ahead and point out a few of the things. So these are projects that are on the list sometime in the future. For example, the current administration building and the fire station are old. So they're in need of replacement. So we're showing those being replaced generally on the same footprint with a combined building. There's a large ramp area out there that's an opportunity. So that's colored in red right below the administration building. It says ARF ops to orient you. It's kind of in the center there, just below the terminal building. You'll see a large yellow square in the parking lot. So we're talking about a second parking structure. By far, the highest demand parking type at the airport is the parking structure. People love parking there. So there's an opportunity to construct a second four-story structure there, the additional 200 positions.

I have a quick question. This is for Jesse. Anytime I go through that parking structure, the technology there shows exactly how many spots are still available. What do you use in order to get that? So I just wanted to connect dots since downtown Wichita has several parking structures, and it would be very helpful to know how many spots are still available.

So actually, that equipment is... pretty old, and we're in the middle right now of finalizing selection to upgrade that. So it's APGS. It's parking guidance systems. So the PGS, you know, are going to improve. So it'll be different technologies that we're going to be using in the next few months as we go through selection and do install. So it should be ready and up beginning of next year. But we can sit down with staff from City Hall and share some of those things that we've learned and the technologies that we're going to be utilizing.

It's really a kudos to your team because it is very helpful to know how many spots are still available on floor number two versus three. So I just want to make sure that that is being whatever learnings you have at the airport to pass those over to parking in downtown Wichita. Because again, we want to maximize utilizing those assets and talking about the master plan. That is the biggest demand, which is covered parking. And can you just also address really quick, because I get asked this question often, why can't we have covered parking on the third floor of the parking garage, or fourth floor of the parking garage?

This is the fourth floor, yeah, the roof of the parking garage. Only a portion of it would ever be able to be covered because of line of sight issues from the air traffic control tower. So the air traffic control tower was built too short. And they need to be able to have actual line of sight and visibility. And there's a formula for that that you go through to study what line of sight is. But they need to be able to see the aircraft movements on the west side of the airport. So over by the cargo ramp, they need to be able to identify the tail number. So it is because of that we can't build vertical further than what we are. And so only a portion of that eastern side-ish of the parking garage, and I say ish because it's not even a clear cut, It's this wonky design of how that would be shaded. So it makes absolutely no sense for us to do any sort of awnings on top of that. But we will be looking at additional parking garage. We're looking at an expansion right now. We're also evaluating more parking, covered parking options even for park and ride. And back to the technology, not only will we have counts, but we also want to show lights to help guide people to where those open spots are to help them expedite. You know, they're driving around the parking garage as they're looking for stalls because everybody wants a covered stall.

And that brought a really quick question also for master planning, actually. Because the tower was built so short, are there any federal dollars to rebuild a taller? Because then that would solve that issue. But I know everything is depending on the resources.

The answer is yes. This is an FAA-owned and operated control tower. So when it's time for replacement, they, with a separate pool of money from what they give airports for grant funding, could consider a new tower. In fact, we have that in the plan, that they should consider it a new tower and a taller tower.

How old is the current tower?

83? I think it's 83. So it's getting there. Um, some other things I might point out as well is, um, we do show an extension of the concourse and the addition of three more gates. Uh, so right now with the current employment numbers, there's not FAA justification to do that. But if the, if the growth occurs as is projected, there could be an opportunity to expand gate capacity. Uh, in the interim, um, we've identified several locations on the airfield. They're red, large red pavement areas. Those are primarily considered for aircraft that remain overnight, and a lot of planes do here at Wichita. This is a terminal ending for the day's flights for many planes. So that's another reason for some of the expansion of the red pavement areas. We've also examined the air cargo activity here. So we're getting more and more 767s, which is a very large plane for here. And so there's a plan to expand the apron to better accommodate that particular aircraft as growth happens in the air cargo realm. And then I'll just focus a little bit on, oh, I mentioned one I forgot. So the location between the terminal and the tower is undeveloped right now. So we see that as an opportunity for development of kind of an international terminal and federal inspection services. And several of these have been built recently, including Tulsa and over in St. Louis, to accommodate flights to Mexico, for example, or wherever it may be internationally. Don't know the time frame on that. You need some demand. But it's a perfect location for a separate individual international-type terminal.

How do you go about doing that? I did see that with Tulsa. They just created a new Cancun to Tulsa flight. And Cancun happens to be Wichita's sister city. So it actually would have made more sense to be in Wichita. But how do you go about doing that, more international or possibility for international flights?

Well, if you're seeking FAA funding, and I don't know the funding mechanism in Tulsa, I would assume that there was some FAA participation. But the word we always fall back on is justification. So it would seem likely that they had a committed airline partner that indicated that if this was built, they would operate there. So that'd be an important first step. I'll mention a few other things on here on the air side. So I'm talking about the runways and the taxiways. I'll be honest, you've got a great system of runways and taxiways here. For many, many years, the pavements have been maintained in very good condition, and the airport is in really good shape. Now, we do show an extension of one of the runways, the shorter of the two parallel runways. That's actually been on the plan for 20-plus years. For now, it provides airspace protection. So anytime someone builds something that's near those runways, FAA takes into consideration during an airspace study that that extension actually exists. So that airspace is protected by keeping that on there. And there may be a need in the future to extend it as it's shown. So we are preserving that option in the future. So that is kind of the big picture. I might also just mention, you know, there's several airfield projects going on right now, including improvement of the general aviation ramp. So that's kind of the, well, in this orientation, the east side of the terminal building, that's an ongoing multi-million dollar project. There's another $20 million project that is ongoing pavement maintenance and reconstruction of certain areas. All these things that are happening now are also captured in the master plan for posterity and then all the potential future projects as well. So this is an airport land use map. This is basically to give the airport guidance on where they should locate future facilities. You know, everything in purple is the runway and the taxiway system, so you have to preserve that for access to the airplanes. Everything in green is potential future aeronautical development. Everything in purple is our, the deep purple is the general aviation reserved areas. And then kind of the light purple is opportunities to generate revenue, non-aeronautical type revenue that's compatible with the airport. So the airport has a number of land parcels that aren't generating revenue right now. And if there's interest, there could be interest. I mean, a typical example is like warehousing, which is very compatible with airport activities. I'll show you briefly the, so this is the 20 year list of projects, actually this is the first five years. And so we've kind of color coded it, we've done our best to phase it in time frames, in this case yearly time frames. But this is just a starting point. This always changes, the airport works with FAA every year. on prioritizing projects and grant requests, and it never goes exactly like this. But we've captured all those priority projects for the short term, for the first five years, most of which are pavement eligible type of things. Just so you know, the FAA invests heavily in pavement infrastructure, kind of those non-revenue producing facilities. They don't provide any grant funding for things that would be revenue producing like Concessions in a terminal those are all things that are locally funded This is our cost estimates our engineering partner helped us with these I would just look to the bottom right so in the first five years We're looking at about 126 million and potential projects That exceeds a little bit what the airport gets so it is almost for certain that not all of these will happen and some of them will be pushed to outer years and But this would be the ideal. If there was additional grant funding, you could pursue each and every one of those. So this is the years six through 11. Again, heavily focused on pavement maintenance. It also captures the new construction of admin and fire department, as well as some expansion of the apron areas. Another 95 million in total projects in years six through 10. And then out in the long term, so these are, none of these are justified. These are all triggered by demand indicators that would happen. But you want to capture them on your airport layout plan, which is those technical drawings the FAA will get. But it includes additional parallel taxiways, addressing the crosswind runway by shifting it so that they're not intersecting with the other runway. and several other items in there as well. So in the end, we have about a 350 plus million dollar capital program over the next 20 years, which we believe right now captures everything that the airport might potentially ask the FAA for grant funding for. Okay, so the next steps are once the council takes action, we'll be able to submit the technical drawings, the airport layout plan to FAA for their technical review and it's good for council to take action because then the FAA knows that there's local support at the leadership level. So they'll give us the conditional approval on the ALP and then we just have final deliverables which will be this with the word final on it along with any final edits that you all may have. That's everything I had. If there's any additional questions, yeah.

Thank you, Patrick, and thank you for going over high-level, the master plan. We're always very appreciative when FAA provides that 90% of funding, and then the airport comes up with that remaining 10%. That's a good partnership and we appreciate that. So looking at the next 10 years was helpful and thank you for going over some of the opportunities. I just wanted to recognize that Vice Mayor Glasscock and I both served on the Planning Advisory Committee from day one and really appreciate seeing these last 18 months come to fruition with this large document. But again, thank you for providing that document online so anyone in the community can take a look at that and for all the multiple public engagement sessions you all provided at the airport for community members to provide input as well. So thank you to both the airport team and the consulting team. Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. It's not a presentation without me asking two or three quick questions. Fair enough. Do we have a similar study for Jabara? Is that something we're required to as well?

Yeah, we did that a couple of years ago. It wasn't a full master plan. It's another step, a smaller step that the FAA permits in order to get an ALP for that.

Okay. With a lot of the discussions around, and I'm asking you to kind of speculate here, around budgeting going forth on the federal level. Is there any concern that we're going to see cuts to FAA grant funding?

Well, I guess we're always concerned. 2028, the current airport improvement program bill, so the one that's the primary funder based on those passenger levels, is up for renewal. It has never gone down in the last 25 years. It's always gone up. It's about $4 billion for airports across the country right now. It's kind of been one of those things that's nonpartisan. People everywhere like their airport. So we feel pretty confident that the funding sources will continue.

Okay, I appreciate that. Last question. Is there any consideration towards air mobility, air taxis? I know some places have it. Airport adjacent, is that something we can do? Is that something we took a look at in this as well?

We did, and that's kind of a newer technology that is coming online hopefully in the next year or two. So the vision right now is like electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Right now they're small carriers, four people or so. So it's like land at an airport, get in one of these and go to some other destination within 100 miles. LA, New York, Boston, looks like they're going to be running some kind of test programs, beta programs for some of those. So it's coming. We've taken it into consideration. From an infrastructure perspective, We don't have anything specific planned at Eisenhower now, but that could change in the future if something like that were to come on. And I would just say these aircraft are very similar to helicopter activity, right? They take off and land vertically. And when you start to build dedicated infrastructure for helicopters, then all of a sudden, and for these, the AAMs, they're limited to going to one spot, a helipad, or a specific landing spot, where right now they have the ability to go to a location on an airport that they want to be. And so you want to be cautious about the airspace and about the infrastructure that you build around things like that. But this airport could accommodate any of that right now. They don't need that infrastructure to accommodate that.

Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.

And last question for Jesse. Can you just share the nonstop flights that are currently available from Wichita and what any potential nonstop flights? That's the question we always get and that it does go back to implements. We want to see an increase in people utilizing the airport and the projection looks like it will. And so what are the plans regarding nonstop flights?

Thank you for that, Mayor. I don't have my list of all of our destinations right on hand, but if you go to flywichita.com, you can take a look at it on our website. We have all the destinations mapped out. We currently serve several large hubs and direct cities, including D.C. and Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta. We're trying to work on a couple of new markets that we don't have direct daily service to. that our community actually flies to quite a bit, which is L.A., New York. It would be nice to get direct into Salt Lake. Minneapolis is currently served and helps us get to the northwest. And we also have daily service going to Seattle. And so we're always looking for additional opportunities with airlines. It kind of goes back to your questions about the international travel as well. market needs to be able to show that we're sustaining that those flights and we have to have airline concurrence that they would want to serve that location with their aircraft and then we start negotiating from there just jesse driving to a connection is also not a direct flight that that's that's what's the actual motto because i butchered that um i don't remember what the the billboard says but if you drove to another airport to fly out, that was your connection. So if you're driving three hours to Kansas city or two and a half to Tulsa, then that was your connection right there.

I should have remembered it. Yeah. Uh, I also wanted to say I'm, um, flying to New York for a weekend and a couple of months and the connecting flight is DC, which I just thought was really interesting connecting there and connecting home. And, um, I thought that was just another Testament to the flights of even that connection unlocked more potential. and more opportunities for more travel. And so even just those destinations, Salt Lake unlocks more potential in the West. Salt Lake is a destination. So incredibly excited about opportunities there. When I talk to young professionals, the number one thing I hear from young professionals is the access to direct flights being an inhibiting factor for staying in Wichita. And so if we want to keep young people in our community, this is one way to do it. So thank you for all your work on it.

And the reality is that our size of market, we're a connecting market. And so we will likely have to connect through a hub. And we are very fortunate that as we've been adding flights, they've been overnights. As Patrick mentioned earlier, the remain overnights, the RONs, have increased. And so our gates are completely full. Our parking ramp for overnight parking is actually currently looking at being expanded so we can have additional planes be parked there. And one of the great benefits to that is if the aircraft are parked there overnight, they're ready to go early in the morning to get you to those major hubs to get the big banks of connections that will take you anywhere. And so it's a great problem to have because I know right now we're feeling a bit of a crunch. for overnight and late night arrivals, but it does help us grow our market and a future concourse expansion was also studied in the master plan.

Just a few comments for me. Thank you for all you do. I had the pleasure, I've said this many times, of sitting on the selection committee for our new director of airports and you were absolutely my number one choice and you have not let me down. You've just done an amazing job. I say all the time Eisenhower still has that new car smell and one of the things that I do at my district advisory board meeting every month is anyone who comes to present or to speak, including DAP members, We always have to say our favorite thing about Wichita. And there has not been a month that goes by that someone doesn't mention Eisenhower Airport as their favorite thing about Wichita, especially the glass jetways. Everybody loves those. So thank you for all you do. It's sometimes the first face that people see of Wichita. And I've never had anything but just wonderful customer service stories come my way. The other thing I wanted to say was I serve on the Air Services Task Force. Back in 2017, 18, There was a really large initiative in Wichita called Project Wichita, and one of the initiatives was for more direct flights. And again, as Vice Mayor Glasscock said, to attract and retain talent, business, all the things. And so it's good to see that we're sterile forward thinking and looking at how we can get more direct flights. It's something we heard that our community wanted, and I'm super glad that you're keeping it as a priority. So just thank you for all you do, and thanks for your great work.

Thank you. I appreciate the kind comments. And I'll just add to when people hear airport, mostly they think about their experience in the terminal. But we have two airports and we have a lot of different businesses and growth and different things that we do. And your district is home to one of our great airports in our system, Jabara, who's continuing to grow leaps and bounds.

Yeah, it's amazing to see that whole web corridor expand truly just in the last five years and then the planned growth and expansion with the expansion of NCAT at WSU Tech and everything that Clemens is doing. It's just another area of our community that's certainly growing. So thank you for being a part of that.

Jesse, I too like that, direct flights. I tried to look at direct flights and maybe I wasn't looking at the correct place, but is that on flight? Which is there a schedule for each airline on there? Or do you have to go to each airline then?

You're going to have to go to each airline. Yeah.

It tells you which airline goes to Miami, which airline goes to Destin or yes, there's a map on there that shows that.

But if you have any questions, just reach out and I can point you in that direction to show you the map and provide that for you. Okay. Thank you. Sure thing.

Jesse, I know that this plan focuses on the land side component of things, which I really appreciate you mentioning and all the great work that has gone into this. And thank you for thinking of the future and how we can build for not just Wichita today, but Wichita 10 years from now, 15 years from now. I think that's really important. But I do know or I feel that as we talk about expanding the land side of things that brings in more opportunity and so it brings me to understanding inside of the airport and are there any plans or any discussion about how to expand some of those services be it more lactation rooms for mothers who are who are with children or Family playrooms who are waiting for you know, a two-hour layover and kiddo needs to let some energy out And so they need a place to go again. I know that you all have a lactation room there, which I really appreciate as well But as we are thinking of growing the demand, how are we going to accommodate for the diversified? Profile of the people that are traveling through Wichita so they say I got to come back to this city This is just a great experience

Actually, we have a kids play land as well. It's right across from gate one. And so that's kind of on your way to next to where we have pet relief station. And then there's the mom of a unit for for nursing. And so we have a lot of those little accommodations. And right now they serve us well in our concourse and the size and amount of traffic that we have as we look to the future and expanding. We're also going to need to incorporate some new newer things of that nature. We did receive a grant last year that we've been working on a project to do some upgrades inside the terminal, some ticket counter expansion, a lot of behind the scenes upgrades and updates to give us additional capacity and efficiencies. And so we applied for another grant to continue that and we included a lot of family friendly things in there. Unfortunately, we were not selected for that round, so we're going to keep our eyes open for another, because that program just ended, but I imagine another one will come up. This administration has been focused a lot on family-friendly initiatives, so that's definitely going to be on our front burner and something that we've already discussed with the Airport Advisory Board, trying to bounce some ideas off of that, because we have some spaces available right now that we might be able to utilize.

I love that and I would love to see how the city could be a part of supporting that initiative as well. I appreciate all of our departments going out and looking for grants and particularly federal grants as well but the reality is that you gotta have sometimes the match funds in order to get the federal grants and so if you don't have the dollars there to match it, it's a mute point. So all that to say I really appreciate you being proactive and looking into that and I think if we value families and we value the experience that families have, Whether they're coming or flying in to our airport or they're flying in to visit family, I really hope that we take the time to invest in our airport so the experience is great. The last question that I have is can you speak to the work that you all are doing on your end, not the airline end, but on your end to ensure those with disabilities are able to navigate going through the airport without any barriers that they might encounter

Sure. Well, we have some federal obligations as it relates to ADA and some compliance things. And we've also done some other programs such as the Sunflower Program. And so that helps train staff to identify folks with those hidden disabilities. And so we're trying to partner with different organizations like that. I know there's a newer local one, something to do with the color purple. I can't recall the exact name.

It's the Purple Line Project. It's a program that's been grassroot here in Wichita, hopefully will be expanded far and beyond, but for different public entities such as airports are working with fire. I see Chief Snow over there, police. libraries, different entities, but for people with dementia and Alzheimer's so that they can receive the customer service that they need. Sometimes there's a misconception that they may be hostile, they obviously may be confused, so thanking for being willing to open. And I know Sunflower project, already great, and a national project, so interesting to see about collaborating with a local partnership.

Yeah, and in the past, within the past year and a half at least, We've also overhauled our entire ADA compliance program and revised how we communicated outward to make sure that we're clear on what those steps are and what's available to them. And as you mentioned, because it's a partnership between where our boundaries are and where the airline's responsibilities kick in.

Thank you, Jesse. There was just an experience from a constituent that came up last week and they just reiterated how welcoming our side of the house was, but they didn't feel that they received the same response. And so we'll talk offline about it, but I just wanted you to reiterate that because I think that we are taking amazing steps on our side to ensure that we are accommodating from people from all walks of life. As you said, I mean, the Sunflower Training Program is meant to train our staff on how to engage with people from all abilities. And I didn't know about the Purple Line Project, so even learning that we do more. So appreciate it.

And thank you for that, too, because that introduces an item for me to clarify to that. And this came from a mentor of mine when I first began my career well over 20 years ago, that running an airport terminal is all like running the mall. You're responsible for the facilities. You keep the lights on, the water running. But the storefronts themselves are managed by those different companies. So if you go to the mall and you buy a shirt and you don't like the way it fits, when you go back, you go back to the store and you might ask for the store manager. You don't ask for the mall manager. And so it is just a nice little analogy of delineation of responsibilities. We're always happy to talk to customers about any issues that they may have had. We take notes and we pass them along to our airlines. What the airlines have come back and told us is it means more to hear from the customer directly than it does to hear from us. Since they're the paying customer, they want to make sure that they hear from them, have the opportunity to respond, and they need to log it into their internal systems so they can track these issues that come up so they can better face them. So again, we're happy to talk with folks because we're part of the community, so we take the phone calls and we have the conversations. But make sure to pass that along to they also need to talk directly to their airline.

Yeah, we do the same thing with our county colleagues. Just one more question, and I want to get you on the record with this. Spurs in seven? It pains you as a Lakers fan. It pains you as a Lakers fan.

It did, yeah. No comment. I'm just rooting for good games. It's always fun to see a good game.

I see no further comments. Jessie, again, thank you and appreciate the consulting firm. And to reiterate, flywichita.com has all that information. The nonstop destinations from Wichita's ICT are Miami, Orlando, Destin, St. Petersburg, Seattle, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Dallas, Washington DC, Houston, and Atlanta. So thank you for doing those. opportunities for this community, the nonstop flights and future nonstop flights to other locations. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Item number three, City of Wichita has had the privilege and the opportunity to work closely with the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a project, Mayor, that I greatly appreciate your involvement, your leadership, your shepherding. Chief Sullivan was unable to make it to today's workshop. Our Strategic Communications Director, Jim Jonas, was unable to be here for us today, so greatly appreciate you taking the lead on the presentation. Our Project Manager, Denise Peters, is here, as well as Josh Navarro to support you.

Denise, would you like to come up here with me as well? As Josh and Dante is not going to join us, he's going to sit right here, but thank you for your support as well. First and foremost, this is very unordinary, and that is because often we have these fellowships that either the mayor or council members attend, and we don't usually do a formal presentation, but I think that this is appropriate to do as Bloomberg Harvard has made a large investment into cities in helping mayors better understand lead communities alongside staff, professional staff in communities across the nation. I'm very grateful to have been selected as one of the 47 mayors from across the world, representing 17 countries in this cohort of Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. I wanted to recognize that there were some alumni from Kansas in previous cohorts, including Topeka's former mayors Padilla, and the La Isla, as well as Overland Park Mayor Skoug, and Kansas City former Mayor Gardner, as well as former Wichita Mayor Whipple. So thank you again to the initiative for helping us over the last nearly one year in a project that we call Downtown Perception of Safety. There were three different tracks that mayors and their cities could participate, and our problem initiative was about downtown perception of safety, so we were part of the data track. There were two other tracks, collaboration and innovation. With that, I want to again recognize Police Chief Joe Sullivan for being one of the partners alongside Jim Jonas as our Communications Director, along with Assistant City Manager Dante Martin, Project Manager Denise Peters, and Data Analyst Josh Navarro. So the problem that we were working on was the perception of safety. So since 2018, the percentage of Wichitans who feel either safe or somewhat safe during the day in the downtown area has declined. Despite downward trends in crime rates, as well as significant public and private investment in the downtown core. As you can see from the graph on your right, crime rates by population have actually been going down. And if Police Chief Sullivan was here, he would explain more of this crime stats graphic, but he posed this alongside with his department at the end of each month. And so this is the latest one from last month. And as you can see, crime rates in all areas are down except for murders. But even when you look at it in the five-year year-to-date average, it is still down by 18%. So the two major areas that CrimeStats looks at are part one violent crimes and part one property crimes. And again, those are the overall numbers and they are on a downward trend. So the problem statement we had was that 2025 Polko National community survey. As you can see on my right hand side, that is the graphic of the results of last year's community survey. We received this information at the beginning of 2026. This is based off of a statistically valid survey representing the city of Wichita. And we want to be in the orange zone. The orange zone is of high importance, but also great quality. and those areas include fire services and water quality. However, we have to focus our energy on the bottom right-hand corner, which is the magenta area of this graphic, and those are the areas that are of high importance but low quality, meaning residents want us to focus more on these four things. They are crime, streets, economic development, and homelessness and housing. So if you take a look at those four areas, this married well with our problem statement regarding safety. As residents want us to focus more on reduction of crime and prevention of crime, we have to look at data. Data is the most sans bias information. And so we take a look at the survey. Again, these are responses from community members. Again, perception of safety is something that is internal to individuals. However, I want you to see that they found that 73 percent of Wichita respondents feel either safe or somewhat safe in downtown Wichita during the daytime versus 82 percent in 2016. So we want to improve that number. We want to improve the feeling of safety, and we have Police Chief Sullivan here. And so we, again, want perception to, uh, increase in the positive. Additionally, even though crime statistics have improved significantly significantly in the downtown area, only 41% of respondents felt very safe or somewhat safe in the area between five to 9 PM. So the evening time hours. The assumption of negative perception of downtown based off of data is that there are fewer visits downtown from residents, limits business investments and growth, lower vibrancy of downtown, but improved positive perceptions of downtown would be helpful. That would be more visits downtown from residents, revitalization of businesses and encourage investment, new business growth and higher vibrancy and more events. The 2025 POCO resident survey took a deeper dive into resident perception of safety, asking what factors would more likely encourage residents to visit downtown. The highest percentage was 83%, and what would attract people to come downtown? The reduction of the presence of unhoused or homeless challenges in our community. 82% said more events and attractions in the downtown area during the week or on a weekly basis. And the third at 81% was better lighting in streets and parking lots. The last three were more police and security presence. fewer vacant buildings, and cleaner streets. To address some of these items, when it comes to cleaner streets, that is a product of Wichita Public Works as well as the Downtown Wichita Group. Those two have been working in collaboration to make our downtown area cleaner. When it comes to vacant buildings, many of those vacant buildings are not owned by the city of Wichita, therefore they're not public buildings. They are rather private buildings, and they are owned by individuals that can do what they would like with their own property, and some have sat vacant. When it comes to police presence, I'm very grateful that the police department has a large presence, especially during the weekends, to make sure that individuals, especially in our old town slash downtown area, have a safe experience, especially as they're leaving some of our night establishments. The three at the top are areas where, as a council, we have an opportunity to work on. The reduction of the presence of unhoused and assisting individuals with homelessness and attracting more events that is not necessarily a council, area that we could um affect however we could be good partners one of those partnerships is wichita river festivals which happens to begin this upcoming friday and then when it comes to better lighting those would be again areas where council could direct staff to increase lighting in some of the downtown core the survey also asked if respondents had witnessed specific items in the past 12 months and did it make them feel unsafe And if they said yes, 73% that said yes was due to seeing or experiencing unhoused or homelessness situations. The second was lighting. And the third was street racing or reckless driving. The last remaining ones were vacant, sorry, rather vandalism, boarded up vacant buildings, litter, illegal dumping, poorly maintained sidewalks or streets, bar nightlife, crowds, or other. So again, you can see the top three were regarding homelessness lighting, which is part of public works as well as our partners at Evergy and street racing and reckless driving. While only 15% of respondents visit or spend time downtown daily, 44% read or watch local news about safety in downtown. And 43% said they read posts or comments on social media about safety in Wichita. So again, perception of safety, even though NOT A HIGH NUMBER OF THESE INDIVIDUALS VISIT DOWNTOWN ON A DAILY BASIS. THEIR PERCEPTION IS SHAPED BY LOCAL NEWS AS WELL AS COMMENTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

REAL QUICK, MAYOR, IF WE COULD GO BACK TO TWO SLIDES. YES, TO THIS ONE. IS THERE ANY ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AS FAR AS THE UNHOUSED PEOPLE? IS IT THAT THEY EXPERIENCE AN EVENT OR WAS IT SIMPLY JUST SEEING PEOPLE?

There was no detail regarding that. It was just unhoused neighbors.

Okay, I was just curious about that. Thank you.

There was also a qualitative analysis. So for data, we again go to our community survey, which is a statistically valid data capturing mechanism there's also a qualitative analysis that we did and that is thanks to downtown wichita as various partners also were part of a stakeholder focus group on november 13th downtown wichita hosted a focus group moderated by the executive director of downtown wichita nine key downtown stakeholders were included. Those included downtown business owners, downtown residents, and downtown employees. So these are three stakeholders that do have a daily interaction with downtown area. And so their experiences have a different, different take than our Community wide survey, as you can see only 15% have visited downtown on a daily basis, whereas these individuals do come to the downtown core on a daily basis, whether as residents as employees or as business owners. And there was strong qualitative data relating to downtown stakeholders. Again, the themes from that focus group went back to many of the things that even the community survey interacted with, and they included environmental design, perception of safety and experience and transportation. When it came to environmental design, Lighting was one of the areas that they would like to see improvement. Consistent and frequent maintenance. Again, the collaboration between Public Works and Downtown Wichita. Landscape improvements and beautification. Again, Downtown Wichita has those flowers on Douglas and we're very grateful that a community partner started that initiative and then Downtown Wichita took that on. We also have other non-profit groups including the Safe Century II individuals who beautify the former central library. And those are, again, areas where we ask community members to come alongside the local government to beautify the downtown core. The general feeling of safety among downtown stakeholders, again, they understand that there is a perception of safety versus the actual safety of individuals downtown. They did mention that homelessness continues to be a challenge in the downtown core. And then last, this is something that would be with public works, but that is some traffic calming efforts that could help with, again, I think one of the top three was street racing. So again, the comprehensive annual survey, as you can see the results on my right-hand side, last year there were 6,500 of these randomly sent out surveys. 493 individuals responded. There was an 8% response rate and 95% confidence in those responses. Again, this last survey included additional items regarding downtown safety as part of our Bloomberg Harvard initiative, and they included eight questions on that very topic. So again, these are in all of your community survey results from back earlier this year. But here's a graphic that is beyond just downtown Wichita, and that is the overall feeling of safety in our city. We obviously want the numbers to improve there. However, they have been on the decline since 2022. And so in 2022, the overall feeling of safety was at 47%. It declined to 37% in 2023, and then it started going back up in 2024 to 43%. And in 2025, it was at 41%. So again, we have work to do, and we understand that the perception or the feeling of safety is very subjective. And so we want to make sure that people are getting the correct data. And I'm very appreciative that the police department shares that data. on a monthly basis with the crime stats and it is available online and anyone can access that. But again, safety is not just the council, the city, but really it's our community's responsibility as well. All of us can be a part of helping reduce crime and prevent crime in our neighborhoods. Lastly, when it comes to this graphic right here, overall findings, how do you feel walking in downtown? Or how safe do you feel walking in downtown? And they are broken down by times of the day from daytime, evening time, and nighttime. And you can slowly see that feeling of safety and walking downtown Is the highest or best in the daytime, however, does go down in the feeling or perception as it gets darker in the evening. And then, um, focusing again on, um, the question that council member Hoheisel had regarding homelessness and unhoused individuals in the core, the city of Wichita has spent nearly $30 million. On our homelessness services at the multi-agency center, second light, as well as park landing, which is the next phase, uh, which is transitional housing slash affordable housing. So nearly $30 million has been directed towards that area. And so this is something that our council has been talking about now for three years, and it does match with our community survey. People again have said that they want the council to focus on crime. on streets, on economic development, and on housing and homelessness. And so this data from our community survey shows that, again, community members want our council to continue being at the forefront of addressing homelessness in our community as it does tie with perception of safety in downtown. Again, I've already reiterated some of these items, but improving our homelessness services, downtown lighting, improving street racing and reckless driving, as well as vandalism and graffiti will assist with the perception of downtown and help improve it. One of the things that we would like to have a discussion on is regarding lighting, and ask Denise to kind of explain a little bit more about lighting. But lighting is really a partnership with Evergy. And the light poles, the city of Wichita has the opportunity to add some light poles in areas where it is extremely dark or it could help with, again, safety in the downtown core. So I'll have Denise take over from here.

So as the mayor mentioned, lighting is primarily the responsible of Evergy, which is a private entity. We do have, we as the city, some responsibility in terms of the decorative poles. So that is something that's in our control. One thing that might be helpful is to move forward with a lighting illumination study to identify with more data in more detail where things are darker or could benefit from additional lighting. Did I cover it or is there...

Quick question on that. Would that be outside? I know that we have engineer's handbook standards as far as lighting goes, like at the end of every short block and then at midway and on every elongated block, quarter mile block, I believe. So would that be changing that policy as well?

It's too premature to tell without the data. So I really can't speculate on that.

I appreciate that. The thing is, I know we're focusing on downtown here, but a lot of these things are things I hear from people in neighborhoods like South City where they have the elongated blocks and they're concerned because if they are out walking in the twilight or at night, there's large periods of darkness and also people walking through and vandalism and whatnot. So I just want to make sure that it's not just downtown focus because a lot of these issues are elsewhere in the city as well. So if we are looking at a policy change, I think it should be citywide that we really look at that. Thank you.

Again, we know that lighting in any area of our community is helpful, especially in the evening time hours. Um, because this project asks us to focus on an area we've focused on downtown core. Um, we know that there has been a lot of investment into the downtown core. It affects both district one district six and district four. Uh, but really it's all of our districts districts back yard, um, as former mayor Brewer used to say. And so I'm very grateful that there has been a lot more collaboration regarding the feeling of safety downtown because we do want people to come to the downtown core. this upcoming Friday with the parade for Riverfest, we will have an increased number of individuals in our downtown core, and we want them to have a safe experience, but also one that they will carry with them that says this is a safe environment. And many individuals have commented really well about when there's increased traffic in terms of foot traffic, people walking around the area for the NCAA tournament, whether it's any of our Open Streets ICTs, just increasing foot traffic as well as lighting helps with the perception of safety and improving that perception. However, when it comes to street racing and reckless driving, this is really something that is a plea to community. We cannot monitor every single driver, but we can ask drivers to be respectful to other individuals who are either driving, or walking in our streets. And so this is something that we can't mandate. There's no policy that the city council can say you must not street race. We have laws already in place for that. However, we can't be the passenger with these drivers. And so it's really an encouragement and a plea to community members to think about safety and sharing of that road and sharing of that sidewalk because we all want to have the opportunity to go back home after a day's work or after attending an event downtown. Is there anything else, Chief, that you would like to address regarding street racing? Thank you.

I just want to reiterate what the mayor said, um, not, not this weekend, the weekend before we did an initiative with the sheriff's department, uh, and, and Kansas highway patrol, which was very successful and we'll continue to do that. But that alone is not going to solve the problem. Well, Friday and Saturday nights were extremely busy. We go to zero availability. So that's why we've engaged councilman shepherd, and Gary and, and other members of city government to look at street softening measures, um, that will discourage, make it uncomfortable to drive in that way. Um, and we hope that that discussion continues because we're really going to come up with a solution. It's not going to solely be through enforcement, although you will see enhanced enforcement through the summer. We are partnering with KHP to do initiatives throughout the summer on Kellogg as well as in downtown Wichita.

Is there anything in the real-time information center that could be used in the future? Like any plans for that developing that could be used for this or maybe red light at the intersections? I hear those all the time. I get those questions from the public.

I'm going to say red light cameras is an issue for all of you and traffic engineers. That would be an issue for all of you. We certainly aren't opposed to it. I know years ago there was a use of cameras for red light enforcement and it was not well received by the public. That's why we're going to leave that to the wisdom of our elected officials and the wisdom of our traffic engineers to decide what is the best matter to to uh... discourage this type of driving within center city and and will will be guided by the direction that you give and be happy to put it our input to any of your questions and this has to be a collective discussion i appreciate that thank you chief did you have any success two weeks ago and catching any of the motorcycle racers or anything like a hundred percent but that but but That's just it. We need to have an initiative where we have the resources because, again, we don't make things safer by creating an additional danger, chasing people through Center City and into residential neighborhoods. We know what the outcome can be. So in those cases and throughout the summer, I'm grateful to KHP and Colonel Smith that we will have air assets so we can do this in a safe manner. But it takes time and it takes a lot of resources to do it right, and we're going to continue to do that. And we're going to continue to look at other places like Mays Road. I haven't got the results for the weekend, but we're pretty busy this weekend, but we'll continue to. to look at that problem and we're working again, once again, as you saw, we're working with all of our partners in the region and we always get great cooperation from the sheriff's department and all of our adjoining agencies. But we do need that helicopter up in the air so that we can do it safely.

I appreciate that. I don't call you every time I get a complaint. Sure. But that's the number one complaint I get in my district. District 5 is the noise and the unsafe of street racing, and especially the loud motorcycles, number one complaint I get.

I live in Delano, and I definitely appreciate those concerns. That's why we're going to do it in a coordinated fashion. But again, public education is a part of it, just asking people not to do it. I mean, I pulled up on a motorcycle rider that was blaring his radio. They get here for two blocks, and he was rather indignant that I asked him to lower his radio. People also have to understand the impact they're having It's not just the street racers, it's the loud music. All of it creates the perception of chaos, perception of things being unsafe, even though the statistics prove otherwise. But the real time being open on Friday and Saturday nights, and that's why it's a little bit late. We just came from our morning meeting, which we had a lot to address, has been huge for us. You know, the tragedy, the DUI tragedy we have, the cameras caught all of that, which will be very valuable in prosecution. Speed was a huge factor there. So the camera network and having somebody manning those and able to launch the drones, either on South Broadway or on Kellogg and Wayne, Washington, has been a huge asset for the officers on the street, and they're really grateful to have somebody up there. And that will be staffed every night for Riverfest for the very same reason.

Yeah, I appreciate your help, not only on the weekends but during the week too.

We look forward to that. Believe me.

Thanks for your work.

Chief, you mentioned three things that I think is really important for the public to hear. You mentioned that public education is important and that informing the public should be the first priority. The second thing that you mentioned is that there were some items or some resources that we could potentially look into. I know Councilmember Hoheisel just mentioned one that I also mentioned to you. private and your response was the public was not responsive to that or not very happy and I think that's important to mention as well and the third thing is that again you reiterated just with councilmember Johnston's point again going back to the public and in and ensuring that we're taking in their thoughts as we think about how to create more safer streets this past weekend I was in a very spirited debate with someone who insisted that you know, there's this perception that we just always wanna give WPD what they want and that we don't care about public perception. And that's just, it's just not true. I think that there is certainly concerns that folks have and I'm happy to listen to that. But I think exactly what you said is that how do we take the knowledge and the resources from our law enforcement officers with the perception and thoughts of our public, making sure that we're meeting in the middle when we can. And so I just want to say I really appreciate that. I know that the reckless driving and the street racing was the number one thing I heard from many communities, especially in College Hill and Crown Heights and downtown when I was campaigning to represent District 1 in this seat. And a lot of people laugh, but then we're now hearing that it's a concern across multiple districts. So thank you for the meeting and thank you for bringing Public Works into that meeting to talk about the ways in which we can be both educational and not punitive. And I look forward to looking at creating more signature streets, particularly in the urban core so we can slow down that traffic, but also increase walkability as well to support our businesses as we've already heard. And then I also just want to mention the importance of potentially looking at expanding a central brewery. I know that that's been brought up before by Vice Mayor Glasscock, and I appreciate the education that you've provided me on that and what that could look like. But downtown is everyone's backyard, but it also requires specialized operations if we want to talk about patrolling certain things like street racing, but also making sure that the capacity is there because right now you're pulling from other patrols to be able to

meet meet the calls and and that's just not a sustainable model whatsoever so thank you no it isn't and this weekend was kind of unique because sunday night turned turned into a pretty busy night uh down in old town and um i had to get a hold of a supervisor in south and move some resources in there we had some large fights so you know there's it's great to see the city grow and it's great to see downtown grow but it actually comes with a cost but All the technology that we have introduced, we have had public listening sessions in all of your districts before we did it and give people the opportunity to object, to ask questions, to get answers. And I think that is the mistake that was made prior to my arrival. They made a decision to use cameras to write tickets. I would prefer not to write tickets. We do write tickets and we do issue warning citations, but we're not in the money making business. We're in the public safety business. So if we can keep people safe without writing tickets, that's always going to be my preference. So if we're going to introduce any new technology in the center city, again, I would need the expertise of traffic engineers and the advice of all of you. And then I would hope we would do it in the same very transparent fashion. and make sure that the public had the opportunity to comment and offer their suggestions. But most of all, that we let people know that this technology is in use before we begin enforcement. So I look forward to working with all of you with your ideas in Center City. But as I said, I am also grateful and look forward to the things we have planned in Center City with KHP, because it's a very real problem. I live in Delano, so when I don't have this uniform on, I have the very same complaint. So I'm looking forward to addressing it.

Vandalism is the other area that has been brought up. As you all know, downtown Wichita has created a downtown clean team. They are now on a daily basis looking for graffiti and vandalism. But our public works department as well as parks and recreation are part of that. I want to make mention that you can always look at the parks and recreation dashboard to look at all the various graffiti removal methods or cases that are out there, and it is not just in our downtown core. It is throughout our city, but that is led by Parks and Recreation, and we're very grateful that they're here too.

I want to give just a quick shout out after the downtown cleanup with the downtown street team. I know council member Tuttle and I were out there and we covered really the core of the downtown area and it was nearly impossible for us to find trash. We were like actively looking for like every cigarette bud that we could find because the downtown street team had done such an incredible job and I think that was a great investment using the downtown SMID and their allocation in the mill levy to fund that project. And looking at some of the highlights of just the downtown street team, this was from February 1st to March 31st. For two months, they picked up 1,353 bags of trash, fixed 283 graffiti tags, 256 scooters and bikes were relocated to avoid sidewalks. There's a whole other list of things, but there was also zero safety incidences during that too. So when we talk about perception of safety versus actual safety, there's a discrepancy there. So I think that ties in to the presentation as well.

Great comment, and I was going to say something too. And Director of Law Magana and I did the cleanup last year. She unfortunately wasn't here to do it this year. But from last year before the street team until this year was significantly different, the amount of work that we had to do. And I see Director of Public Works Jansen shaking his head. He was there, I'm sure, for many years. But for the last two, it was really impressive. So shout out to downtown Wichita and all the work that they do.

A quick question, and I don't know if anybody here can answer it. Do we know if they are increasing their trash pickup as far as just stationary receptacles? Because it's been pretty stunning actually to learn how much of our parks resources go towards picking up trash in the downtown area just normally out of trash receptacles. And the more that they can increase that downtown, the more we can get around to some of our other parks Again, neighborhood parks and some of the outlying areas of our city. So I'm just curious if they've increased that or they are looking to increase that with some of that funding.

Parks Director Davidson? Reggie, could you come to the mic?

And Reggie, while you're walking up there too, this is a similar comment in the vein of Council Member Hoheisel. While I think downtown has seen significant improvements to the receptacle problem, a lot of the receptacles in Delano are full, which I think means more people are out and more people are hopefully utilizing common consumption as well and walking around the area. But I've noticed that receptacles are more full more often in Delano.

So the downtown area parks does do all of the refuge pickup and collection that's there. So there isn't an increased number of what we're doing, but we're looking at options to be able to expand the size of the receptacle so we have more capacity. We've already made some of those changes down in Delano to be able to accommodate for the additional people that are there, and we're looking at the same thing for downtown. But we do work with Heather and her team on making sure that she collects and have it there on the days that we currently have our routes so we can try to be as efficient as we can.

All right, thank you, Reggie. Reggie, I just want to say thank you for saying that. I had the opportunity to pop into the downtown Wichita cleanup, and they mentioned that. And I think it's incredibly important, especially as sometimes information is getting posted on social media that is not fully accurate about duplicative services from our downtown Wichita team and our city staff, that there is an effort to maximize efficiency. And I also just want to say out loud, Again, I am just stunned at how much park and rec does with the compared to the amount of staff you have the responsiveness to the calls the responsiveness to trash pickup to homeless encampment work to forestry it is incredible and I'm also just mindful of just It's not a sustainable model. So as we continue to ask for more from Park and Rec, I hope that we also think about how we can increase staff capacity to ensure that you're able to meet the moment even better than where you are now. But I just want to say I'm continually impressed by what you all are doing and the ways you are working with neighborhood partners. I know Uptown, you're working with them to help with some gardening work. You're working with downtown Wichita. You're also working with several other neighborhood entities as well, and I appreciate the innovation collaboration happening in that vein too.

Thank you.

Again, thank you for all those comments. I'm just going to wrap it up. One of the areas where, again, perception of safety can be improved is assisting individuals facing homelessness. And again, I'm going to reiterate that this council has made an unprecedented commitment united effort in trying to help with homelessness with wraparound services in the downtown core. And so that needs to continue. And again, I'm grateful that parks department helps with the cleanups of these encampments. However, that is not sustainable. We want to assist individuals facing homelessness. And so we need to focus our energy in one area, And Second Light is doing that, and then Park Landing will be that next phase. When it comes to enhanced lighting, we can continue having these conversations with our Public Works Department as well as Evergy on where to have these lighting opportunities. As Denise mentioned, a possible study on where exactly greater lighting would be beneficial. could be a collaborative effort something that police chief has started at the beginning of the year is a city-wide all departments hand all hands on deck how do we improve safety in our communities in specific hot spots and lighting has been one of those topics so I am very appreciative of his leadership and when it comes to street racing Again, Chief has mentioned multiple ways that we as a council can also assist, and very first one being public education about respect of sharing a road and sharing a community so that we don't have these issues. And then last but not least, vandalism and graffiti, which we've been talking about. In summary, the Bloomberg Harvard City Initiative has now since concluded. Again, thank you to all the city staff who participated throughout this last year. We were grateful to have learned a lot from the data track. One of my greatest takeaways from the data track is that we should not just focus on outputs, but rather focus on outcomes. We can count the number of people we serve, which would be an output, but really what we want is outcomes. How do you actually improve homelessness in our community? How do you improve the safety of our community? and so outcomes is what the data track helped me focus my energy on, and so I'm grateful again to these partners, and we will continue having these conversations as I know that each of you talk with the city manager each week, as do I, and so again, that is it for our presentation, but I do want to go back to since the chief is here and I didn't do a good job sharing this, would you like to share anything on the crime stats?

Cause I did it.

No. Um, you know, as I've said many times, we don't celebrate crime stats because there's too much crime in Wichita. Um, what they tell us is that we are going in the right direction. Uh, I'm very happy with the results of restraint modeling and that's why we created the citywide meeting with all city departments so we can work together to address those conditions that create the environment conducive to crime. And that's why we will continue to invite all of you to attend. And eventually we'd like to see that expand so that we have the community in the room being part of that conversation. So we're encouraged. But we know that there's too much happening, and that's where we're going to continue to attempt to grow the department so that we can address a lot of the things that like the traffic. With the graduation of this class, we are creating a DUI unit within traffic. The issue is, as we begin to add people back to the department, we're beginning to add people to other, I want to say specialized services or targeted enforcement units. But it's a slow process. And we're going to continue to do the best we can. We are grateful for the input we get from all of you and from the community.

Chief, I'm just going to take a point of privilege and say thank you. Personally, we had an incident in my neighborhood this weekend. And unfortunately, a human's life was taken. But thank goodness Wichita Police Department responded quickly so that the situation was mitigated. But when it's in your backyard is when you really understand how important it is and the fact that you have such fantastic Relationships with the Kansas Highway Patrol and and others so that the helicopter got brought in drones were deployed immediately No other loss of life. It was just beyond impressive and as you can imagine my you and I were talking a lot my phone was blowing up and My neighbors were scared. They were worried, but I was able to give them reassurance that the situation was being resolved and that everything that could be done was being done. So thank you for all you and your team do. I am so grateful that you are a Wichitan.

Yeah, the officers from Patrol East that handled that initial assignment, it showed extreme restraint when they were fired upon, but they We're unable to see anyone at that moment, so therefore they did not return that fire, but they contained that situation very quickly, so there was never a danger to the actual community. So very grateful to all of them, and yes, it was really an example of partnerships within the law enforcement community. within the county, but also within the state. And KHP has always been just a fantastic partner for us. So thank you, appreciate that. Also very happy with our PIO office. We were getting information out as quickly as possible to keep the community updated.

Real quick, Chief, we have graduation this week, I believe. How many are graduating?

Graduation's July.

Oh, July. Okay, sorry. I got a little ahead. How many are looking to graduate from this academy, and how many do we have signed up for the next round?

Well, that's an ongoing process, the next academy, so I'll get you that number when things close. We have seen a downturn for this class, so it probably won't be as large, but it'll still be a good size. Right now, that number is 37. We've had two recruits that have, although they were doing an excellent job, they realized that this just was not the correct job for them, and we commend them for that. But this is a very strong class, so right now we're at 37.

Yep, I saw them during our trip to Tulsa, and that was a very big class, and I can't wait to see them graduate and get out.

But that's just it. I mean, we're never going to be statistically driven. There are standards that have to be met before you're accepted into the police academy. There's standards that have to be met in the police academy to graduate and there's standards that have to be met in your field training for months that have to be met before you receive permanent employment and we are never going to compromise on those standards.

Well, I think the first class you had when you got here was nine. Nine. Yeah, so it's been quite an improvement on that, so I appreciate you.

Well, you know, this council and past council, this mayor, past mayor, all are a big part of that. The past city manager, because of the support that you've given the police department. And, you know, in response to, you know, Councilman Shepard, I know the heat that he has taken, but I think what people have to appreciate for years, there was just – a lack of investment in this department and when numbers are down, technology becomes even more important because technology is a force multiplier and that it allows us to do more with less and that is the reason. There's nothing we come to you and ask you for that we haven't thoroughly researched to know exactly how we're going to put in place to make the city safer. Nothing we're asking for is a luxury. It's a need. So thank you for your support.

Yes, sir, thank you. I have a question about the, not for you, Chief, but when we talk about these numbers, do you have any synthesized data on the demographics of who the 400 some odd people were, where they lived at in the city? I mean, when we talk about the perception of our unhoused neighbors and just, I'm just curious, where does that stem from?

So if I understand your question, so in terms of demographics, there may be some demographics I can look into that. I didn't research that on who was responding. And then your question on the perceived interactions with homelessness, can you repeat that question?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I believe the mayor pointed out that 83% on the Polko resident survey mentioned that reduced presence of the unhoused. I'm just curious. I mean, that's the broader statement, but when you synthesize that, what does it mean? Is it they just see an unhoused person? Is it they were... accosted by an unhoused person. And I want to be transparent. What I'm getting at is I do feel that there is an overwhelming perception, that out of sight, out of mind. And I do not subscribe to that ideology or philosophy. I think when we talk about how we are handling this matter. I've said since day one, I continue to be extremely concerned about we're cleaning up the encampments, we put up the 48 hour notices and then they're back, like our unhoused neighbors are back because the demand is not matching the supply of the resources that we need to actually get them into the support services that they need. I just need to understand how or what people are concerned about as it relates to our unhoused neighbors?

Yes, that's a really good question. So if we take a look at the data, right, because I'm the data nerd, 15% of the folks responding to the survey had actually come down to downtown and spent time in downtown. So I think we really are looking at a perception So what's driving their perceptions? News stories, social media posts, that kind of stuff. And then when I'm answering a survey and I say, okay, well, what makes me feel unsafe? Oh, homeless, you know, president of an unhoused individual would make me feel unsafe. So in terms of, you know, that actual data, I don't think we have that. I think we'd have to dig a little bit deeper to really understand that. What I will say is we did do the qualitative focus group. And that was a bit of a mixed bag, if I recall. And I ask Josh to keep me honest here, because it's been some time. But nobody really had, I think one person had an experience with an unhoused person. I think everybody else, it was the presence of an unhoused person, not necessarily an interaction.

Thank you. And that qualitative, was that the nine group people? Yes. Yeah. And so for me, I would just like to see us as a council think about what is the education that we are providing and how are we encouraging residents to become more approximate. I'm not asking for folks to go and sit and have lunch with our unhoused neighbors, but simply going and doing a tour of Second Life is not enough to understand the lived experiences of this population. I ALSO QUESTION ARE WE REALLY PUTTING A STRAIN ON OUR RESOURCES WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR ENCAMPMENT ORDINANCE OR ARE WE EFFECTIVELY UTILIZING THAT ORDINANCE TO GET THOSE WHO CAN RECEIVE THE HELP AND WHO ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE THE HELP THAT THEY NEED. I'M ALSO EXTREMELY WORRIED ABOUT OUR POLICE OFFICERS WHO build trust with our unhoused neighbors. And by the time they are ready to receive the services, there's nowhere for them to go. And so that's not fair to our police officers. It's not fair to our community and it's not fair to our most vulnerable either. So I would really like to take a moment to bring back forth this encampment ordinance and look at how effective it truly is and where it is that we need to invest to ensure that we're creating a stronger ecosystem to provide our unhoused neighbors the support that they deserve. because out of sight, out of mind is not getting our unhoused neighbors the help that they need. And we need to understand that proximity is what builds relationships, and that relationship is what builds trust. Pointing from our ivory tower about seeing our unhoused neighbors, It does nothing so I appreciate you mentioning that and I really look forward to looking at the effectiveness of the encampment ordinance the interactions how many of those who we have interacted with have actually been housed and gotten the mental health resources or drug addiction resources or simply case management support that they need to be successful in our city and

Thank you council members for letting us present to you all. Again, these conversations will continue because homelessness is actually one of the topics at next month's workshop regarding the emergency winter shelter and the emergency winter plan. And we're really grateful that the United Way Coalition to End Homelessness should be giving us that presentation next month to talk about the collaborative effort. Because again, I appreciate your questions regarding really outcomes, not outputs. And whether it's the encampment ordinance or the $30 million investment that the city has spent, we really need to talk about outcomes. And while you mentioned out of sight, out of mind, OUR UNHOUSED NEIGHBORS ARE ACTUALLY IN PLAIN SIGHT, ESPECIALLY AT SECOND AND TOPEKA. AND SO THE TOPIC IS NOT GOING AWAY. WE NEED TO HAVE HONEST CONVERSATIONS ABOUT COLLABORATIVE WAYS TO HELP INDIVIDUALS. AND WE ALL NEED TO BE ROWING IN THE SAME DIRECTION. much as the collective impact talks about we all need to be in one direction we all need to be in a collaborative effort towards that outcome which is really having the city have functional zero homelessness less people coming into the system than exiting out of the system so thank you for those conversations they will continue but again I just want to give another big shout out to Denise and Josh for really driving this data project and for the leadership of our police chief and Jim Jonas because you can see Jim deals with communication which is public education and police chief helps lead with safety, but it really is a collaborative community effort. And so I think what you saw here is that collaboration that also is part of data. We can't do it alone. The city can't do it alone. We do need other partners, nonprofit partners. We need faith-based partners. We need a lot of various partners when it comes to safety and even the perception of safety.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. SINCE YOU MENTIONED COMMENTS THAT I MADE, I DO WANT TO SAY OUR UNHOUSED NEIGHBORS ARE EVERYWHERE, NOT JUST THAT SECOND IN TOPEKA, AND THEY ARE IN PLAIN SIGHT. AND I AGREE, THERE'S AN ECONOMIC CHALLENGE TO THAT. THERE SHOULD BE A MORAL CHALLENGE TO THAT, TOO, FOR US TO WANT TO DO MORE AND DO BETTER. MY POINT IS WE ALSO NEED THE RESOURCES. AND SO MOVING THEM WHEREVER IS NOT THE ANSWER. Providing them a place to move from the streets into a place where they can get the supports that they need and I believe that that we do not adequately have that support given the amount of our unhoused growing population that we see and and so i think it has to be a yes and i don't think we disagree i think we actually agree but there's a part that i would like to hear us talk about more and that is ensuring that the resources are there to meet the moment and the population who we want to serve thank you assistant city manager

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Shepherd, a couple of follow-ups. Your first question to Denise talked about the Polko Community Survey demographics. Elizabeth Gautre, our budget director, is here, but also Jim Jonas. And I won't put Elizabeth on the spot today, but we'll get back to you with that information, either Jim or Elizabeth. And as for the effectiveness of our encampment ordinance, I believe we're about 18 months since that ordinance has been adopted. I'll work with Manager Marstall to see about putting something on the workshop for you.

Assistant City Manager, a tag to that. I would like to see, since that was an update to the ordinance, not the new ordinance, so the ordinance for illegal encampments has been around for more than a decade. I don't remember the exact year. If we could have maybe data from that and then data from when it got revised in December of 2024, because then you can actually compare some of that information.

Glad to pull that together for you, Mayor. Our next item, item number four, a local vendor policy discussion. Our director of finance, Mark Manning, is here.

Good morning. Mark Manning with the Department of Finance. It's got a weird bend to it. I better leave it alone. Today I want to talk to you about supporting local businesses and particularly on purchasing local. So the city employs a number of strategies to assist local businesses, one of which is we like to keep our local purchasing dollars local. Why is that? Because local businesses hire staff locally, they pay local taxes, and those dollars recirculate in our community. So it is good that we keep our local dollars local to the extent we're able to. I would point out we also utilize a variety of other strategies to facilitate a competitive environment here, which helps our local businesses, and I'll go into some of those later. And finally, I would tell you that it's relatively easy for us to keep our local purchasing dollars local, because a lot of our local businesses have a lot of competitive advantages that work to our benefit as well as their benefit. They typically have on-site product and staff. They're very familiar with our city, and they're very familiar with our local market. So that allows them to be very competitive, which again, works to our benefit and works to their benefit. As I noted, we do buy locally a lot. I will tell you our general principle is we're going to buy based on the best price and the best value. But typically, somewhere between 75% and 90% of our purchasing dollars are retained locally. Now, I'll give you some caveats later. It's a challenge to define what local is. It's a challenge to define what our purchasing dollars are. But generally speaking, we're going to spend 75% to 90% of our purchasing dollars local. And we've done this study on an annual basis for many different years, and it generally stays in that range each time we do it. Now, what do we not spend locally? And again, in this case, I'm going to define non-local as outside of Kansas. Almost invariably, that is goods and services that simply are not available locally. Very highly specialized things or contractors have very specific knowledge that's not available here or equipment that's not manufactured in Kansas. And I'll give you some examples of that. But for the most part, again, the takeaway is we spend most of our dollars locally and nearly all the dollars that we can spend locally for which there are products and services are available for the most part stay locally. So again, what are our core principles in purchasing? Our world is very simple currently based on current policy in purchasing. We want to buy at the lowest price if it's a legal bid, or we want to buy at the best value if it's a proposal. Proposals are for things like services, and legal bids are for tangible items, fire trucks or things of that nature. But again, our world's simple. We buy at the best value or the lowest cost. And we also, of course, buy what departments need, and we make sure that what we buy is equal to their specifications. But again, that's our world today. We buy best value, lowest price. So how much do we spend in 2025? Again, the data source here is purchase orders and contracts. We spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $426 million last year through the purchasing office. Again, that's going to vary each year. When we have really large capital improvement projects, it tends to increase, which has been our world now for the last three or four years. But if I would have shown you this, I think in 2017, that number was closer to about $300 million. But just suffice to say, it varies year to year, but generally it's going to be in the $300 million to $400 million range, or sometimes even higher. Of that $426 million, we spent somewhere around 80% in the Wichita area. Again, I'm defining Wichita area now as the MSA. If you look just at Wichita, that number is probably going to be about 75%. About 4% is spread out into the MSA. That's just Butler County and Reno County and Harvey County in my example here. Again, we're gonna spend another 20 million or so in Kansas, and then last year we spent about 16% or about $70 million outside Kansas. That's actually a little higher than most years, and I'll show you some reasons why there. Now again, a theme in what I'm gonna present to you is a lot of this is a little difficult to nail down, because it's all dependent on definitions. For example, the 426 million, I'm not even including all our non-bid purchases, which is things under 50,000. The vast majority of that is spent locally. So if anything, I'm underestimating the local amount here, and that's probably another 15 or 20 million dollars. But again, I'm just trying to give you a flavor for how we purchase and where we purchase. So what do we buy outside of Kansas? Well, you heard an example this morning with the airport master plan consultant. I wasn't involved in the selection of that, but I'm going to guess there aren't many firms in Wichita that provide airport master planning services. So we contracted with a firm in Kansas City, and I don't know which side of the border they were on, whether they were in Kansas or not, but the point is that's the kind of services that we typically buy outside of the Wichita area or even outside of Kansas. I mentioned fire trucks. We spec Pierce fire trucks. They're manufactured in Appleton, Wisconsin. and some years we might spend four five six million dollars on fire trucks those are a purchase outside of kansas there is no source as far as i know for fire trucks that meet our specifications inside of kansas and again i'll show you a little bit later but you'll see a lot of very specialized contracts a lot of technology water chemicals i don't know anything about chemicals all i know is whatever chemicals gary uses at the water treatment plant are We purchased out of state from a chemical company, I think actually in Georgia. Again, I have no idea why other than to say that I have no doubt that they're not available in Kansas. That's what we're not spending in Kansas. So let's look at the 70 million we spent outside of Kansas. Of that $70 million, we spent $40 million in five states. I'm just going to run through them real quick to give you an idea of what we're spending. We spent about $5 million in Arizona. About 94% of that was to vendors. Exxon, which is where we're buying all our police technology, again, not available in Kansas. And then Airport had a runway project that they hired a firm out of Arizona on. And again, I'd I'm not an engineer, but I'm pretty sure airport runways are very sophisticated on how you got to build those. And so I would suspect that's why we chose a vendor out of Arizona. California, the firm that we're using at the water treatment plant is based out of California. Again, very highly specialized services. Maryland, again, we're using Pure Technologies, another water capital improvement project vendor. That's the bulk of our spending there. S.J. Lewis, again, is another water contract vendor on a CIP contract, very complicated project, and that's the bulk of the spending in Minnesota. And then finally, Missouri's kind of noteworthy. You'll see Wichita Water Partners I list as a Missouri farm. That morphs into the challenges of describing local. Wichita Water Partners has an office in Wichita. They employed a lot of people in Wichita, but yet, from my data set, they're a Missouri company because I send the check to Kansas City, Missouri. Again, part of the challenge in defining local, because personally I would consider Wichita Water Partners a Wichita company, but for our purposes of definition, we consider them a Missouri company. So what are buy local or local preference policies, or sometimes we call them LP policies? Generally, a local preference policy seeks to provide a policy-based advantage to local businesses. Again, right now, we buy based on low price, low value. Local preference instills into that a policy advantage to local businesses in addition to our Buy at the lowest price and best value policy. Typically, local preference policies require that a local award be provided if the local price is within a certain percentage of the actual lowest competitive bid. Sometimes they have it at a dollar amount. It's not uncommon to have if a local bid is within one or two or three percent. of the lowest bid you award locally. Sometimes it's 10 or 15,000 you bid locally. A lot of times there's caps on the amount of increase you'll pay in order to spend locally. And in some cases, those are all for bids. In some cases for proposals, local preference policies will provide additional scoring in the scoring matrix for local vendors.

Do we have anything like that in our scoring matrix currently?

We do not, at one time we had some scoring in the matrix for small businesses. I believe we took that out recently.

Was that due to the DEI changes?

Yeah. Okay, thank you. That's my recall. So, Council Member Hose-Eisel, I've been practicing your name. I was waiting for you to ask me a question.

That was close. That was close. I appreciate that.

It's taken me years, but I think I'm getting closer.

And I'm going to ask Chief Snow if she comes back to take a whack at it as well.

So again, what are the challenges in defining local? And this isn't just me. You'll see this in a lot of the other cities I'm going to show you. Is it geographic? Is it the boundaries of the city of Wichita? Is that local? Is it the MSA? Is it just part of the MSA? Is it Sedgwick County? Is it the state of Kansas? That's the challenge. What is local? How do you document local? Is it the billing address? Is it the address of the owners? Is it the address of the corporate headquarters? Is it a business that pays taxes in Wichita that may not be located here or employs in Wichita? And then the other challenge that we would have in the purchasing office is how do you validate any of this? We've talked to some of the other cities, and it's... I'll just say it would be a challenge to validate the information that we would receive. So that's some of the challenges in defining local. And I mentioned the example of Wichita Water Partners as an example. So let's look at some of the local preference ordinances in our area. This is not a comprehensive review. I just tried to pick out some of the local towns, some of the larger towns in Wichita. In Kansas, Hutchison has a local preference. For them, a local firm is domiciled, and I'm not even sure what domiciled means because I'm not an attorney, domiciled in Reno County. So the city of Hutchison's local preference is not even for the city of Hutchison. It's for the entire county. That's how they define it. And again, they're going to award a bid locally if the local price is within 5% of the bid amount for small bids under $15,000 or 3%. if it's within 3% for larger bids. And they don't have a cap, at least that I could find, which is a little unusual, because most of these have caps. Topeka, they award tie bids to the local firm, which is essentially the City of Wichita's local preference policy today. We will provide, if there's a tie in a bid, we provide it to the local vendor. Olathe, Olathe defines the local firms as based and operating in Olathe. And they award 2% of the bid amount up to a maximum of $10,000. Lawrence, they define local firms as a place of business for at least six months in Lawrence. Again, what's a place of business? I'm not sure. And again, their local preference is 1% to a maximum of $10,000. Wyandotte County, which of course is consolidated with KCK, does not have a local preference policy that I could find, nor does Overland Park, which is a large city on the Kent City metro area, of course. So you can see, generally, they provide a percentage Benefit to local firms, they usually cap it at some amount, and they have different definitions of local. So what are some of the drawbacks of local preference ordinances? Well, they're prohibited on federally funded projects. And all of those local preference policies, by the way, specifically exclude federally funded projects from their local preference ordinance for that reason. Federal funding can get a little dicey sometimes. Sometimes it's easy to define. Sometimes it's not so easy to define. But that's kind of a challenge for local preference ordinances. Another issue is, ironically, it can make local businesses less competitive because a lot of cities and counties and states have They penalize, I can't say reparosity, penalties for local businesses. So if we had a local preference ordinance and a local vendor was trying to sell into a state that has that provision, it would make them inherently less competitive in those other jurisdictions. So that's kind of a challenge for local businesses. I mentioned they can be very burdensome to administer, and they also can increase our costs. I mean, if we're providing a, if we're accepting not the lowest bid, but the lowest local bid that is inherently higher, that creates an environment where our costs go up. Again, there's ways to cap that, which you've seen a lot of cities would do, but the bottom line is it is going to increase our costs if we had a local preference ordinance. What do our professional organizations think about this? These are actually not new quotes because their position has not changed for a long time. NIGP says that local preference ordinances are an impediment to cost-effective purchasing of goods and services and the construction in a free enterprise system. And NASPO says that they favor openness in the competitive process and that public procurement should not be made under conditions that should be made under conditions that do not constrain, restrain markets and that foster adequate competition. Again, that's what our professional organizations would tell us. I mentioned we provide a number of strategies to support local business. That is very, very important to the city of Wichita. We provide help navigating the procurement process, particularly towards small businesses. We spend a lot of time explaining to them how you submit a bid, how you can submit a proposal. We tell them what we buy. We give them lists of what we buy because we want to buy local. That's one strategy we use there. I would point out, kind of a little bit off topic, another strategy that we might present to you at some point in the future. Right now our bid limit is 50,000. If it's over 50, we have to do a legal bid. If it's under 50, we have more flexibility to obtain our bids. The bidding process sometimes can be a challenge for small businesses. Legal bids are more administratively burdensome for local businesses. Now, that's not to say legal bids are bad, but it is more administratively burdensome. Our limit of 50,000 is significantly lower than a lot of other jurisdictions, not only in Kansas, but across the country. I don't know if we'd want to compare ourselves to the federal government. Their limit, for example, is 250,000. There's other cities in Kansas who have a $100,000 limit. Again, raising that limit would have an ancillary impact probably of helping our local businesses in preparing bids and particularly our small local businesses. So that might be something that we'll visit with you about in the future. uh... we also encourage our local for our local departments to purchase locally again particularly this is on items less than fifty thousand uh... we we encourage him to solicit bids from our local companies and to the extent that can we encourage them to purchase uh... from our local companies and particularly small businesses i mentioned we award scoring ties to local businesses that's in our current policy now we also provide very favorable payment terms to our small businesses. We'll pay them on net 10 instead of net 30. And again, we recognize some of the cash flow challenges that sometimes small businesses have, so we're willing to make that accommodation for them. And there's a variety of other things, but our bias is tilted towards helping local business to the extent we can in our procurement process. Another example, I think we just changed our insurance requirements on some proposals. We lowered it a little bit. We worked with the law department, but one reason we did that, again, was to make it easier we obviously won't protect the city we're not going to not do that but we determined that we didn't need some of our insurance levels at the level they had previously been set on we also have another of local variety of local business strategies we provide financing assistance to businesses in a variety of ways we provide tax exemptions I would argue that we create a low-cost environment in Wichita, which benefits the competitiveness of our local businesses. And I would also suggest that the investments the city makes in infrastructure are beneficial to our local businesses and provide them a competitive advantage. So we do a lot of things, I think, to help our local businesses. West Street's the primary example of that. Last bullet, I think we spent $50 million on improving West Street. There's a lot of local businesses in West Street, and I think that invariably helped. We have a very good freeway system that helps on the transportation cost. So that's typically the strategies we employ to help local businesses. So in summary, I would tell you, again, we support local businesses very strongly with a variety of strategies. Most of our purchases currently, I would suggest to you, are local, again, depending on how you want to define it. But anywhere from 75% to 90% are currently local. We're a little concerned local preference policies could raise our costs and that they actually could harm businesses. And we're also a little bit concerned about any administrative burden that a local preference policy would provide to the city of Wichita. So I threw a lot out to you. I apologize for that. That's the end of my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Mark, I just have one quick question and thank you for the presentation. I know we're talking about local and I appreciate all this information and I did wonder if it could potentially raise our prices because if local vendors know they're going to get the bid, you know, I'm happy to have this conversation. But one thing that you said that struck me that's not regarding necessarily local BUT THAT THE $50,000 THRESHOLD AND THAT MANY MUNICIPALITIES AND YOU MENTIONED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AT 250,000 WHICH IS A DIFFERENT ANIMAL ALL TOGETHER BUT WHILE WE'RE LOOKING AT LOCAL AND THIS IS IT ALSO TIME TO REVISIT THAT $50,000 THRESHOLD IN YOUR OPINION AS THE EXPERT THAT YOU ARE?

If you're asking my opinion, I would tell you I think it would likely be very beneficial to the city of Wichita to consider raising that threshold. Again, it would help. Now, we're still going to get bids. Don't make any mistake about that. We're still going to bid competitively all our purchases.

Sure.

But we would receive those in a manner, I think, that is more efficient for our local businesses, which would expand sales. the vendor base which is always a good thing for us and i didn't even talk about the administrative challenges of the current limit on city departments it's created some administrative burdens on some of our larger departments and how they purchase items and the administrative workload they're in so yes i think there's a lot of advantages to it so maybe something we should consider

I'VE HEARD FROM DEPARTMENTS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS THAT I'VE BEEN HERE THAT THAT'S THE CASE. I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO GIVE ME A RECOMMENDATION, AND YOU CAN RENT THIS. YOU DON'T HAVE TO OWN THIS. BUT IF IT WENT FROM 50 TO ANOTHER NUMBER, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR PROFESSIONAL OPINION OF A RECOMMENDATION AT THIS POINT? AGAIN, YOU'RE JUST GOING TO RENT IT. I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO OWN IT.

I like round numbers, 100,000 might be a nice round number, but 75,000 working, whatever we increase it to would accomplish both the advantage I think I mentioned. It would make it easier for our departments administratively, and it would make it easier for local firms to not have such a cumbersome bid process. THAT IS A POLICY DIRECTION. WE HAVE SEEN OTHER CITIES AT THE 100,000 LEVEL.

I WAS KIND OF THINKING THAT, TOO. I WOULD JUST MAKE A FRIENDLY REQUEST TO ASSISTANT CITY to Director of Law, Jennifer Magana, that if we decide to move forward with any kind of policy regarding local vendors, that we also look at that. If we decide not to move forward with any kind of local policy, that we still consider that. I think it's something that brings a great opportunity for efficiency for the city. So thank you.

A couple of just quick questions. That 79% national or for spending on local businesses, how does that compare to other like municipalities?

Council Member Hose-Eisel, I cannot answer that question for you. I don't have the data from the other cities. And as far as I know, I could not find any trade publications or any publications that had that kind of data in it. So sorry, I can't answer that.

Okay, I appreciate that. If we do move forward with this, we looked at the different models around the state, and my preference is if we do require a certain percentage or give preferences to local businesses, they be businesses with employees because that ensures that that money stays local. People can pop up buildings here or offices and say we're a local business. But if it's still going out of the city, out of state, I don't think that qualifies with what we're trying to do. I would also ask, it's been a year and a half since the current administration came in and implemented some of the requirements with DEI. I know different municipalities have addressed it differently. So I don't know if there's any information out there. as to what is allowed, what the federal government has said is okay and is not an issue. So I would be curious to see some additional information on that and how we can maybe steer back as best we can to our policies before we had to make those changes.

One thing we have discussed at a staff level, again, obviously we're going to be cognizant of the federal guidelines, but whether we should have anything in our matrix for proposals, which did add scoring points agnostically to local firms. You know, we can't base it on a variety of other factors, but, you know, it's something we'd want to look at, but whether we can just have a small amount in the matrix for local firms. So we may take a look at that.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciated Council Member Tuttle's comments about obviously there could be an additional cost burden. I also know that spending money locally has a multiplier effect based on the jobs locally. And so I'd just be interested if we know, and it's probably dependent per contract or per amount, but if a $50,000 contract is expended locally, what is the multiplier effect for tax dollars kept in Wichita? And then you had mentioned about the preferences of whether it's an MSA, whether it's in the county, whether it's in the city. I'd be interested in even looking at just a statewide MSA. If the state's growing, then Wichita's going to be growing as a capacity of that as well. And so my question is more the multiplier. I understand Obviously, there's a point of diminishing returns where a local policy doesn't make sense. I'm just interested in what is that point of diminishing returns in that. So I'm glad that we're having this conversation. I know it's a very complex issue, but there has to be some benefit, even if it's somewhat of an additional cost, that still we would be on the receiving end in a positive way.

AND I DON'T DISAGREE WITH THAT AT ALL AND I THINK THERE'S ALSO JUST THE COLLABORATIVE OF SPIRIT, RIGHT, OF BEING WICHITANS OR KANSANS IN THIS CASE AND WORKING TOGETHER. SO I DON'T DISAGREE AT ALL. I THINK IT'S GREAT THAT WE'RE HAVING THE DISCUSSION. I THINK THE OTHER QUESTION THAT I MIGHT ASK IS AND I'M ALWAYS HESITANT TO MAKE MORE WORK OR MORE BURDENSOME PROCESSES BUT We've seen great success, for example, when we were talking about landlords in the past and what should happen if it's a bad situation with renters. Well, we brought together a group of landlords, and lo and behold, they came up with the best solution ever, better than we ever could have. So if this did move forward, if it seems like there's the will of the council, it might be interesting even to put together a group of landlords you know other purchasers like the county's purchasing agent or other city municipalities and also some local vendors who we do a lot of work with to say you know what could we do to make it easier to do business with the city of wichita how do you feel about this just a thought it always seems like when you bring in the folks who do the work every day we get the best product for the city

Well, I think that's a great suggestion. I think the property task force was the perfect example of something that was wildly successful and walked out with a better outcome than we expected in the end. I also do want to compliment your department in particular that you guys are figuring out ways to make business easier, especially with online licensing. And I think there are multiple ways that we can make business easier, and you guys are trying to massage and figure out what ways it is. But I really think that's a great idea to have kind of a roundtable discussion what does make sense for Kansas and for Wichita.

By the way, Council Member Glasscock, Shayla told me this morning that we got 35 applications for fireworks and internet merchant permits this morning, processed them all just like that. So to your point, that was a good example of the model that she's implemented and the efficiencies that we've gained from that.

I agree with that also. I think it'd be good to maybe get a group together. Just a question. How often, because it raised my... tension when a bid went out for vehicles to Houston instead of to Wichita, when two Wichita bidders got beat out by Houston. How often does that happen?

Not very often. That was an anomaly. I'm not sure why the local vendor was that far apart from the vendor in Texas. I believe it was, actually it would have been over some of these limits. I believe the difference was $13,000 if I remember correctly. I could be wrong. That's highly unusual. But again, we followed our model. Our model is lowest price. Now, how in the world they got a car from Houston here at the same price of one that we could have picked up down the freeway a little ways? I have no clue. But, again, our model was lowest price, and that was the lowest price.

Yeah, almost makes you think that maybe the Houston people made a mistake in bidding it. Could be.

Possible.

But they delivered it, though.

They delivered it. We'll hold them accountable to deliver it, no doubt. And, Councilmember Tuttle, to answer your question a little bit, I have no doubt that we could find many, many, many people to come to a council meeting to express an opinion about the limit. I'll give you a few examples. I mentioned it's particularly challenging for some of our city department directors, one of which is here today. There's other areas. We bid projects for special assessment projects, which are really important to our developers, and the limit has lengthened the time period on some of those. Yeah, I've heard that. Of which they're aware, and we've talked to them a little bit about that, and maybe some of the strategies that we could do that would make it easier for us to bid those projects faster for them. And again, we do hear from small businesses in particular how challenging it is to submit a local bid or a legal bid. And it is more challenging. And again, we, our current strategy now is try to navigate them through that process, but there's no doubt it's a little bit more challenging than, than, than just providing a verbal or written bid.

So I would support moving that to a hundred thousand also, just because you go to the grocery store, you get about half the groceries used to get. So think prices have just increased so much that I think it would make sense.

Yeah, the limit has, we'll show you this in the presentation, but based on inflation, the limit hasn't changed for quite some time. Yeah.

Like I said, I've asked the assistant city manager and I'll follow the manager too, but whether we go with a local or not, I really would like to see us look at that change.

Thank you. Thank you, Mark.

I'll just echo something that Councilmember Tuttle mentioned about having other individuals being part of that forum or suggestion committee. One of the things that I think could tag along with that, and it goes with Councilmember Because small businesses don't have these major staff members that can help with the legal bid, would you be able to share what those administrative challenges are for both the business but also for businesses? CITY STAFF WHEN A LIMIT IS 50,000 VERSUS 75,000 OR 100,000 BECAUSE I THINK SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS COULD PROVIDE THAT FEEDBACK OF WHAT IS THAT THRESHOLD, WHAT WOULD BE THAT NUMBER AND WHAT WOULD NOT BE OVERBURDENSOME.

Well, again, recognize we are going to get competitive bids, period, regardless of the process we use. But on a legal bid process, there's a lot more stipulations. There's a lot more better defined insurance requirements. A lot of times there's bonding requirements. There's just a variety of different requirements that, again, due to scale, that's relatively simple for larger firms. It's relatively burdensome for smaller firms. As far as staff administration, If it's under the bid limit now, 50,000, the legal bid limit, again, we're still gonna require bids. We typically can get verbal bids. Sometimes we get written bids. We'd like at least three bids. We'd like as many bids as possible, but all that is done at a staff level. Then we typically can, we review it in purchasing, and then we'll issue the purchase order. Well, legal bid is much more complicated. We actually publish it, and then we have a time frame there in which it's published. And then, of course, we take it to board of bids, and they approve it, and then we take it to you, and you approve it. And that process can take... I don't know, two, three, four, five, six weeks sometimes. Again, that's not bad because we do a lot of due diligence, and there are reasons why that is appropriate. But I think the argument might be made that maybe all that due diligence wouldn't be quite as necessary for what we could consider low dollar amounts. And finally, I'd point out, Mayor, one more thing to Councilmember Glasscock's point. We have a fixed amount of resources in purchasing, just like everywhere, right? We would prefer to spend our time on things that we think are more strategically important and more critical, which is proposals, which are a lot of work and very nuance-y, and higher dollar legal bids. We're getting close to the point where we're spending a lot of our time on legal bids in the 50, 60, $70,000 range. That takes our time away from what we would argue is probably a little bit more strategically important work for us. And again, not complaining, I'm just telling you that that's what this forces us, that's how it forces us to allocate our resources in a way that might not be maximum efficiency.

I see no further comments. I just want to say thank you and kind of echoing Vice Mayor's comment. So because of the Harvard Bloomberg Initiative, we have been asked by an accelerator group, which is Partners for Public Goods Procurement Innovation Accelerator. And so Josh has been part of these types of initiatives before, but we've been asked to be part of something innovative to help again with procurement to find better efficiencies and so I just wanted to highlight that Josh does a really great job and so he'll be participating in this thanks to our collaborative effort so good job on this do you need a formal what next steps should be or so it will come back to us thank you very much mark

Thank you, Mark.

Mayor, our final item is an update on the current budget process. We're about halfway through this year's budget process. Finance has prepared a presentation to bring you up to speed on where we are, not only in terms of revenue, what's coming in, but what we've learned through the early meetings with department directors about the requests and demand on the demand side. So Mark and Elizabeth Goldschmidt.

I'm going to lead off today, and then I'll hand it over to Elizabeth after when I get to the really hard slides. I'll do the easy ones to start off with. We have a large slide deck, so I'll try to go through them a little bit quickly because we're getting a little pressed for time here. So I'm going to provide you a general fund outlook. Spoiler alert, the theme is virtually the same as what I told you when I presented the Q4 report from last year, what I presented at the retreat on March 12th. What we presented, I think, at the workshop on March 28th, our premise has not fundamentally changed. Now, some of the variables have changed a little bit, but generally our premise is in the future, interest earnings is going to decline. We're pretty confident. Property tax revenue has been very strong, which has been a good thing, but we're concerned about the outlook a couple years out. We think we will be balanced for the next couple years, but We continue to have some longer term challenges. Now developing the budget, we'll talk to you a little bit about that. Essentially, departments have had all their meetings with the city manager and he has received their input. He's obviously gotten a lot of feedback from you, a lot of which we talked about today in some of the slides from some of the earlier presentations. Now he is developing his recommendations. It's very important that we receive feedback, again, which is the purpose of today's presentation, to give you some asks from departments. And Elizabeth will go over that in detail. We'll also suggest to you some policy issues that feedback would be important to us on. Things like, are we going to exceed the revenue neutral rate? How much of your assessed valuation do you want to capture? Things of that nature. And I'll go into a little bit more detail on those. Finally, it's really important that I explain to you the calendar. City Manager will present his calendar. Recommended budget on July 14th. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that we have until July 13th to finalize the budget. It's a challenging process to put the entire budget together. I'm not talking about the policies on what goes in it. I'm talking about actually formulating it. We live in a very compliance-oriented environment, and what we do is directed by statute, and some of the penalties for not adhering to the statutes are very severe. So we take all the due diligence on preparing the budget very, very seriously and it is a time consuming process. So what I'm telling you is it's really important to us that we receive feedback sometime towards the end of June maybe, like the June 23rd workshop would be an opportune time. After that it's gonna be a real challenge for us to prepare a budget that is legally compliant and statutorily compliant in a timely manner. So yes sir.

Thank you, Mark. Can you remind us again when the county gets to post their full assessment?

June 15th is the official date. Sometimes we're notified a few days earlier. I think June 15th is a Friday this year. It wouldn't surprise me if we know a few days before that, but by statute, June 15th is the last date at which they need to provide that information to us.

And that locks in our assessment rate?

That gives us the assessed valuation for which we legally have to use in the budget process. Now, again, you don't have to capture all of that, and I'll talk about that in a few minutes, but that tells us what the official assessed valuation will be that is available for the 2027 budget.

All right. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to go through a lot of these a little bit quickly because a lot of these, frankly, are slides that you've seen before. Again, our summary is we expect interest earnings to remain elevated, actually. I mean, I know I sound like a broken record because I think I've told you for about two years now, they're going to drop, they're going to drop, they're going to drop. And every year, at least recently, I've come back in and said, well, they're still going to drop a little. Well, that's our situation again with the conflict in the Middle East. The Fed is, the general consensus now is there might not be a rate drop this year. Well, the way we invest our, yes, sir.

Oh, that's good for our general fund of the rate type, but that's also bad for our CIP.

Yes, that is exactly right. Now, the good news on CIP is due to some stuff we've done, we're in a pretty good shape on our borrowing needs this year, most likely in the fall. So we probably won't be that active in the fall. But yes, you're exactly right. It hits us both ways.

Do I get an honorary degree when I'm done with council? I've learned so much the last four years on.

Yes, absolutely. Now, again, just simplistically, we invest our portfolio out a little over a year. So if I tell you rates aren't going to drop till the end of this year, what I'm really telling you is if we invest appropriately and we're lucky, really I'm locking in interest earnings to the end of next year, which is a really good thing. That's why I would tell you that in 26 and 27, we're not as concerned. Who knows what's going to happen in 28, right? I mean, The consensus is for Fed cuts starting in 2027, but we'll see. I still think the bias is that we've maxed out, but we'll see. Again, we'll be bouncing 26 and 27, and in the future we have two issues. What's assessed valuation going to look like? Is it going to be dictated to us from Topeka? Is it going to fall just due to market conditions? What's interest earnings? Those are really the things that are driving our longer-term forecast. Let's look at our longer-term forecast. Again, here it is. Essentially, we're balanced in 26, 27. We believe we will be balanced. We believe we'll have challenges in 28. These numbers are better than the last time I showed them to you, again, because we keep refining all our estimates.

Is this at the 7% or 8.6% assessment?

Our current assumption is 7%. Again, that is only a staff assumption. We'll find out how good Elizabeth and I are at estimating assessed evaluation and what

TWO OR THREE WEEKS. THIS IS ASSESSED VALUATION AT 7% EXPECTING FULL CAPTURE OF ALL 7%.

YES, YOU ARE CORRECT. I HAVE ANOTHER SLIDE THAT WILL ANSWER YOUR NEXT QUESTION IN A COUPLE OF SLIDES.

YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE OPTIONS BEYOND OR BELOW THE 7%?

YOU ARE ABOUT TWO SLIDES AHEAD. I WILL GET THERE IN A SECOND. THIS IS OUR REVENUE PORTFOLIO. I HAVE SHOWN THIS IN A PIE This shows you the top five revenue sources to the general fund. I would take two takeaways, note interest earnings down from 31 million to what we believe would be 25 million in 2028. Again, am I right or not? I don't know. And that's better than what I would have shown you a year ago, but fundamentally we still think interest earnings would drop. Property tax, look at that line. That is where most of our growth is coming from. That's just the fact. We might pick up a million a year on franchise fees and sales tax, but this shows you the composition of our revenue portfolio. This is probably even better. This shows you where our growth is coming from. What this tells you in 2027, we expect 10.5%. $10,200,000 more in property tax revenue than what we had the year before. So what I'm trying to show you is what generates our increased revenue in the general fund. We expect to have basically $11 million more to spend in 2027. $10 million of it is going to come from property tax. The other amount is going to be everything else netted out with the decline in interest earnings. Property tax is a large revenue source for us, and it's the one that grows the most, and that's basically what this chart is showing you. I'll go through these quickly because the line charts probably aren't that meaningful, particularly on the magnitude here. That shows you our property taxes in the general fund over time. You can see it grows relatively steady. You really can't tell the nuances in this chart. I've got a better chart in a minute. This chart right here. I showed you this at the retreat. This shows assessed valuation. The blue line is probably more meaningful than the dark colored bars. The blue line is reappraisal. And the takeaway from this, in my opinion, is that blue line has been somewhere around 2% to 3% up until about four years ago. Even though the bars were higher in earlier years, that was due to new construction. It is true that reappraisal has been abnormally high for the last four or five years. There's no doubt about that. We do not expect that to continue in the future, again, either because of legislative action or I don't know if you saw, but there's an article in the Wall Street Journal today, ironically, about real estate values. And some of the hot markets, Phoenix, Florida, Las Vegas, those places are starting to see housing declines. Now, we don't have the boom-bust cycles that those places have, which is actually a huge benefit to us. But the point is, there's some speculation that real estate may be cooling a little bit. Again, not my area of expertise. That is our presumption, because we tend to forecast more conservatively. And I would argue you kind of saw that a little bit right before the dot-com. You saw two large years of reappraisal growth, and then it declined a little bit. You really saw it right before the great financial crisis. We had a couple, three years of really strong AV, and then we had five years of no AV growth, which was a very challenging time. But We would suggest that there's a higher likelihood that assessed valuation in the future is going to decrease. The mill levy rate has declined, as you know, and Mayor, this is probably a good slide for you. Last year, we did not capture about 1.6% of the total assessed valuation growth, which had the effect of reducing taxes somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.6 million and also reducing our mill levy just a shade under a half a mill. For the math, each 1% of assessed valuation is roughly $1.4 million. So I told you, Council Member Glasscock, in answer to your question, I told you that we had projected 7% growth now. I also showed you that property tax growth in nominal terms is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million plus. Seven times 1.4 is roughly $10.8 million. That's the math on that. So to something you may be interested in, if it is in fact 7% and we choose only to capture 5% of that growth, for example, or 200 basis points less, each basis point's 1.4 million, that means that we would forego about 2.8 million in revenue. So that's to keep the math simple. Each percent's 1.4 million, ballpark terms. And again, just to reiterate, we have not assumed that yet in the projections that we're providing, but we can have all that discussion June 15th when we get the final evaluation. I wanted to compare ourselves to the county briefly. Now, that's a challenge. We are different entities. We're both governmental entities, but we have different service areas. We provide different services. So we are different. You'll see that our assessed evaluation growth generally grows about the same amount. Sometimes they're a little bit higher, sometimes we're a little bit higher. I would point out their assessed evaluation base is about 40% higher than our base, so they have a much larger base to work with. Now, you can see that they have not captured all of their AV growth for several years. A couple years, they did just very small fractional decreases. Last year, I think they decreased their mill levy somewhere close to a mil, if I remember correctly. So you see last year, they only took 4.3% of their 8.5% assessed valuation growth. Again, I'm not an expert on Sedgwick County, but I will tell you that I think their environment is materially different from us. Their AV base is quite a bit larger, but they are not necessarily engaged in the very expensive businesses that we're engaged in, which is to say public safety. They do not fund the fire department out of their county general fund. They do fund the sheriff's office. And again, I have no doubt they have their own challenges that we don't have in some of the services they provide, but I just prepared this slide to kind of maybe give you an example of why the city has captured, not had the flexibility to not capture all of our assessed evaluation in the past, and that's again because we're in very expensive businesses, a lot of which had huge, increases due to our need to adjust the wage base over that time period.

I do have a quick question. So they don't fund fire services, but they fund fire services through being fire service district number two. And so has district two seen an increase in captured evaluation? And so while the county may have not maybe increased or captured full evaluation, I'm interested if the fire district itself captured full evaluation or actually increased mill.

Great question. I did not review that, but I can very easily. So I'll get that information to you.

Okay. I'd be, it'd be like, you know, for example, our SMID as a difference where we had separate different taxing jurisdiction. So I'd just be interested if they captured full valuation of the fire.

I can find that out. I will, I would tell you that for point of comparison, the fire district levy is somewhere in the 16, 17 mil range, which is what over 50% of our mill levy. We're at 32. So they, Fire is expensive for the county and it's a challenge for them, but I'll find out the answer to your question. Franchise fees, takeaway here, very volatile. You can see from the chart, things we can't control, commodity pricing and weather. It's a huge challenge for us to project. We have a pretty middle of the road forecast. Sales tax also has some volatility. Over the long term, it tends to grow at a relatively predictable rate, and you can see that as our presumption in the future, but you can see there also is some volatility. This is the most important one, interest earnings. That's what we expect to happen. You can see that we have maxed out. I don't think we'll hit what we gained last year, $37 million or so. But this is probably the most important slide for the challenges that I think we are facing. Charges for services, again, there's some volatility there, but it tends to grow rather consistent and slow for the most part.

I've already summarized this three times, so I won't bore you with another summary.

Let's look to the expenditure side. Same chart. Police is by far our largest general fund expenditure. If you had police, fire, public works, park, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 84% of our general fund, and everything else is the other 16%. Where are we growing? You can see here the expenditure changes, the same $11 million. Now, this is a little bit misleading. Police increases are relatively low compared to their size of the base. That's because we do not have contracts for the FOP in 27 and 28. That's why you're seeing an employee compensation amount there. A lot of that will get spread to departments as we negotiate contracts. But the takeaway is almost all our growth is going to three things, police, fire, or police. memorandums of agreement, union contracts. Everything else is basically a million dollars, roughly. The everything else, by the way, is just all the technical work we do in realigning the budget based on strategic priorities and adjusting for any known contractual increases and a variety of other things like that. But vast majority of our growth is police, fire, and employee compensation, which is generally union contracts, not negotiated union contracts. You've seen this chart before. Again, this shows you the growth of public safety over time. So what have I not included in the numbers that I've shown you? This is very important to recognize what we have not included, because we do have more challenges. Fire station staffing, as you know, the CIP has a net new fire station coming up, not sure exactly when, I think next year. Staffing load for a new station is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million, by the time you add staff, utilities, fleet charges, all that, and I'm gonna use the round number, $2 million. You know, how will we fund that? Will we receive an ARPA grant to fund it? Will we reallocate staff? Will we add staff? I don't know. I would tell you that none of that has been incorporated in the numbers that I've shared with you this morning. Homelessness, we talked about that a little bit this morning. We've got some significant challenges there that could undoubtedly utilize additional resources if that's the policy direction. I talked about stadium star bonds at length previously. When that district, when phase one expires, which I think is in March of 28, we could have some challenges there. We'll keep an eye on it. But again, that could be a future challenge that we have. Incidentally, that would probably be an ideal use of Stabilization reserves, if that's the policy direction. The benefit of this one is anything we spend here likely will get our money back at some point through the Starbond District because we can recover at the back end anything we invest at the front end. But just recognize that that is a challenge in the future. And then finally, can't emphasize enough our assumptions on employee compensation and any contracts that exceed those amounts will probably put pressure on the general fund because wages, as you know, is 75% of our general fund. I'm just about done here, Elizabeth, if you don't start heading this way. So again, I won't void that slide. Oh, I'm sorry, I got two more on stabilization.

Actually, on that slide, I'll bore you with a question real fast. Regarding in terms of general fund expenditures, mill levy allocation, theoretically, if we're looking at, let's say we're facing a pending deficit in 2028 at the two point, one million, I know it changes subsequently too. Is there a pathway and does it have to happen when we discuss revenue neutral to take, let's say, one mil from the CIP and put that toward the general fund to cover larger obligations where the CIP gets less of the mil allocation because that's 10 year projects while the general fund may need funds this year that then we're able to increase the allocation from the cip to the general fund taxing jurisdiction stays the same really when it comes to property taxes but we're going to be able to fund the general fund more

Yeah, that's a great question. I did go into that level of detail, but you have total flexibility to allocate the mill levy among the various funds as you choose to. Having said that, the revenue neutral rate says if we levy $1 in additional property taxes, we exceed it.

So you still exceed revenue neutral, but you could put a higher allocation of the mill towards general fund than CIP or reduce the amount going to CIP.

Yes, sir, you could. But again, you would exceed the revenue neutral rate unless you're willing to accept the exact same level of taxes levied from the prior year.

Okay.

But yes, revenue neutral rate would not impact your ability to shift between funding sources or taxing funds.

But would that decision have to be made then? Because I know you have to, the state requires what mill you're allocating to the general fund and CIP. So if we were to move, let's say a mill from the CIP to the general fund, would we have to do that at the revenue neutral hearing?

you will have to publish notice of the maximum amount you plan to tax by fund and we typically do that on july 14th all that does is set the maximum amount but it's by debt service fund and general fund so after that date you will not have flexibility to flip between the two funds so if that is our desire we would need that information well prior to that date so we can complete the forms appropriately and do all our due diligence and all that kind of stuff. But I'll also tell you, obviously, this year you're going to set the mill levy for 2027. Next year you'll set the mill levy for 2028. Let me just briefly go to the stabilization fund. We created that in 2011. We transferred in $1.8 million from some one-time expenditures that we had. We did not spend anything out of that. Fast forward to 2020. What happened in 2020? The pandemic just created havoc on our revenue and expenditure flows and created a lot of unique results. What happened after that? Interest earnings went up a lot based on the inflation that came out of that, led to a bounty of interest earnings, a lot of which we scraped off and put into the stabilization fund. That is the short answer of how we went from 1.8 million in 2011 to somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 million or so dollars today. Again, to date, we have not expended any of that. I think we transferred some out and then brought it back a little bit later, but on a net basis, we have not spent any of the stabilization reserve. Now, we do plan to spend it in 26, 7, and 8. We have $3 million coming out each year then. This shows kind of graphically what the stabilization fund would look like. Now, this is unaudited information. It'll be slightly higher than that when we finalize things, but the Try to look very similar. I would remind you of your policy on the reserve, which is City Council Policy 40. It basically says that the reserve is designated to absorb abnormal revenues in the general fund, which is exactly what we did essentially with interest earnings. It's intended to be used to offset any abnormal expenditure issues, which is essentially what we're doing in 26, 27, and 8. We're using it as a bridge, knowing that we had challenges those years. Or finally, number three, it's for any purposes directed by the city council. Primarily for non-recurring is probably better, but bottom line is it's available at your discretion.

Now that $3 million a year is programmed or it's accounted for in our projections moving forward.

Yes, sir, it is.

Is it just the three years out or do we have any projections further than that? I know we're planning 10 years or so of digging into this.

Our presumption is we will not make that transfer in 2029, and I didn't show you a 2029 bar, but if I did, it would be materially worse than the 2028 bar for that reason.

Okay. Appreciate that.

Yeah. I'm going to stop right there. Elizabeth is going to focus on more on the budget process, how we got to where we are today, some of the priorities that the manager is likely to include in his recommended budget, most of which I hope will sound very familiar to you. I'm pretty confident they will. And then she'll talk about requests that we've received by departments, and then she'll go over the calendar real quick.

So as Mark mentioned, right now we're working pretty hard on item number one. We kind of consider those to be base budget updates, so updates every month when expenditures and revenue come in, we continue to make updates to the budget and adjust things. There are also a variety of things that have been the result of things like the community survey, workshops, retreats, the town halls in the city council districts. And also on slides 26 to 37, there are requests from departments. So some priorities at this point, many of which are in the magenta quadrant from the survey, things that the city manager is considering including in the budget this year would be increasing funding for street maintenance. And then also making sure that there's funding for expanding forestry, you know, addressing forestry work orders, addressing encampments, expanding business retention, which is also tied to economic development in the magenta quadrant. And then some items related to water and the water and sewer funds and expenditures in those. Some other items that are being considered at this point, the centralization initiative, which I believe was included in the last budget workshop in April. The next is evaluating staff recruitment and retention strategies. This is probably a longer term discussion, but consideration is being made in regards to a tuition reimbursement program and or family leave. Maintenance needs, this is something we've heard a lot when it comes to the CIP, but there are also some proposals being considered regarding maintenance of facilities that have been constructed recently and opened or will be constructed during the planning period of the budget and making sure that ongoing maintenance costs are included in the operating budget. IT has brought forth a lot of concepts regarding strengthening security that are pretty technical in nature, but those are being prioritized. And then also staffing models in Park and Rec are something that are being considered this year. At this point they have a lot of full-time staff, they have full-time staff and they have seasonal staff. And some ideas regarding bridging the two with part-time year-round staff is something that's being considered as part of the budget process this year. So those are some things And we'll talk about this again probably in June as we move forward. But if you're, as we move through the process, we are moving, I know July seems like many holidays away, but as we're moving through the process and there's anything that you'd like more information about from the city manager, please reach out to him and we're willing to provide more information. So as far as budget requests go, I'm happy to report we implemented new software this year. We have about 88 users in the system, and we received a lot of budget requests. So those requests total about 175 FTEs, about a $14 million impact in the general fund, and about $6 million across other funds. So what we're providing to you today is just a proposed framework for evaluating all these requests. Sometimes it feels like kind of knitting spaghetti together when it comes to the budget process. There's just so many different places and so many different ways that ideas make it to the budget process, whether it's a community survey, the strategic plan, impact from the CIP. So what we've done our best here is to put these into kind of some different concepts for you to consider as you look through these other requests from departments. So this one here, this is the FTE request by department. You'll see in park, in library, those are both, a lot of those are actually part-time positions, and that one in HR is also a part-time position. So that is just some of the impact as far as positions go. And here's some more for For public works, most of those positions, I believe, would be in the sewer fund. Those would be for operating the updated sewage treatment system. And police requests are across a variety of different operations, so that's field support and investigations. Just for some frame of reference. Yes.

Pardon me. I'm sorry. Could you go back a slide? Yes. In the city manager's office, five positions. Do you know what those are by chance? Yes. Yes. But wait, there's more.

So one position would be in economic development. Two would be community service representatives. So there would be one for each district and then one for the mayor. Because right now there's a shared position. And then two would be in arts and culture. One I think would be for the Indian Museum. and one would be, I think, for rentals. Does that make sense? Rentals, like arts and culture rentals? Like facility rentals? So.

Anything else on this one?

Okay, sure, you bet. Okay, so these next couple of tables show the dollar impact by department in the general fund. So what you'll see here in fire, Mark just mentioned the cost of operating new fire station. It looks like that's for part of 2027 and then fully implemented in 2028. So, and there's the second one on police. So they had a variety of different requests. And then in Public Works, nearly all of that line item is for facilities maintenance. So, and a lot of it related to the new police and fire facilities. Do you guys? Can you go back one slide? Yeah, you bet.

So the city manager's office, can you share cultural arts, what's all in CMO?

Yes, I think, whoops. Yes, I think it's the two positions that were on the other chart. I have this sorted by department. I think there's also something related to a study for the Convention Center or Performing Arts Center is another request here. And so that's probably why it's higher in the middle year. Elizabeth this may not be a question for you, but I'm curious who requested that study I Think that it came it was a request that came in so all users have access to it I think it was submitted by the division

Excuse me, Council Member Shepherd, that is correct. So as Elizabeth mentioned, staff has the opportunity and put requests directly into the system. So in this case, our director of arts and cultural services, Lindsay Benaka, submitted the request for the study, as well as the development coordinator at the Indy Museum and the rental coordinator for cultural arts facilities.

And can you remind me, I want to make sure I heard it correctly, which facilities are we in?

As far as the request, there's a wide range of facilities that fall under the purview of arts and cultural services. What Lindsay has been looking at is lost revenue because we don't have someone actively marketing those sites across the division.

Perfect. That's very helpful. Thank you for clarifying that.

Anything else on this one? Okay. And then there are a variety of other requests from departments that are funded outside of the general fund. So one, and then I'll bring this one up, the municipal court, they administer the special alcohol fund, and that's one that will be in a latter slide. And then the request here from PARCC is similar to the request on the recreation side, which is, Currently they have seasonals and full-time. This would be they'd have seasonals, part-time, and full-time in the future.

How would we be able to see the request that departments are, and part of this is just my newness and not understanding, so I apologize. Do they come forth and I'm assuming they have a budget and there's rationale behind their request? Where would I be able to read that for myself?

Yes, I would be happy to pass that along to Shanna and Shanna could provide it to you all. Yeah, you bet. No, this...

And I imagine it's thousands of documents.

So it's not, it's one of them is about, it's not too long. It's about, 40 pages long or something like that but it's not a tremendous amount of text and then the question those are all summaries then it goes from there if you want more than the summary then you know that's the thing definitely to reach out to the city manager and get some more information about those in more detail we have a lot of them that came with multiple attachments lots of information we have that information available but it's just a matter of like how much do we want to share just because it can be a little bit take it from me, it can be a little bit overwhelming and I've been spending a lot of time in all these requests and I'm still having to refer to the sheet. So it's a lot of information. Okay.

So real quick on this. So any changes on this, um, like in parks comes from the golf fund.

That one. Yes.

Okay.

So most likely the financial impact on that one, they feel that that could be, they could translate that into some more revenue, but also it would probably just diminish the transfer out to capital projects that they've been making every year. They would still be above zero, but there might be less of a transfer.

Okay. Would that still have to go through the board?

I would think so.

Okay.

Yeah. And I think they've already been in, I think Jesse has already done that legwork.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. JUST A REMINDER ON THIS ONE, THE IT FUND AND THE FLEET FUND BOTH ARE IN A LOT OF WAYS FUNDED BY THE GENERAL FUND. MOST OF THEIR USERS ARE IN THE GENERAL FUND SO BOTH OF THESE WOULD HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE GENERAL FUND. THERE'S THESE WATER AND SEWER UTILITY REQUESTS AGAIN. AND THEN TRANSIT, THEIR REQUEST IS TO INCREASE THEIR BEST DRIVER HEAD COUNT BY FOUR TO REDUCE OVER TIME. So I'm gonna go back to this other slide just really quick. So there's these six things here that we tried to put all of these requests through. And so we are not going to be providing you with bullet points for every single request today, but just some examples of that. And so hopefully you'll find this framework helpful And when you receive some more information, either maybe there's some more ideas that you would like to be included in a framework, but then also when you get the information, it could be helpful for you to process all of those requests should you want to do that. Jump back forward. So on the strategic plan, so what I did here is I looked through the strategic plan, including all the way down to the tactic level. I also looked at the monthly report that strategic plan, that staff who are assigned strategic plan items to see what items have really strong tie to the strategic plan. One of them we've already talked about is the Mid-America All-Indian Museum. Development manager there ties to a strategic plan item related to funding of cultural facilities. Centralization of financial services, which came up last month. Library master plan staffing is aligned to the strategic plan. And then software for data governance, which is one of the IT. ITEMS. ON THE LIBRARY MASTER PLAN STAFFING, THAT REQUEST IS ABOUT $4 MILLION AND ABOUT, I THINK, 48 FTEs. FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY IS ANOTHER ITEM THAT WE'RE PROPOSING FOR FRAMEWORK FOR

Can you go back to that, say that one more time for me? The library, how many positions and how much of an increase in the budget it would be?

Yep, you bet. So library here is $4.2 million. So it's $4.2 million. And then it's 48.5 FTEs. And it doesn't result in any changes in service hours or days.

Well, it will if we don't fill those positions, though, correct?

Pardon?

It will result in a change if they don't meet that number, correct?

No, it wouldn't result in changes to hours of service or days of service. It just would result in being able, the proposal is to be able to focus on implementing elements of the strategic plan that the department doesn't feel are being addressed today.

Sure. Sorry to interject. I wanted to give you a little context in the information that Liz was providing you. We encourage departments as part of our budget process to provide us requests. So that's what you're seeing here today. Like the mayor mentioned earlier, we like to focus on outcomes. So what we're trying to provide you with is a menu of choices that could impact outcomes. And the library is a good example. What I would maybe focus a little less on is the actual dollar amounts. These are the dollar amounts that departments submitted to us. I'll give you an example. The golf change from seasonal to part-time is something that we are very interested in helping the golf department do so they can operate efficiently. The price tag that Jesse has assigned to that, I'm not sure that's what it will actually cost for us to help him in that endeavor. So again, take the dollar amounts as what they are. That's what the department submitted. And again, what our input that we're seeking a few more is, are any of these concepts things that address outcomes that you're interested in? And from that information, then we'll probably work with departments to try to refine estimates and see if there's alternatives that can provide a little bit less outcome at less price and that things of that nature.

So I could be interested in concepts, but I don't know what their concepts are by just based on numbers from this board. I know the county process, every single department comes and gives a presentation before the commissioners. to let them know what their requests are i'd be interested in hearing directly from every department director specifically about the requests and we can ask these questions and ask more in-depth questions about hey if it's not going to cut hours then what services do we want to be able to do what is the hr and so i know that that's the process the county's implemented i know we haven't but i'd be very interested in hearing directly from the department directors about the answers, I think, to all the questions that we have regarding all these positions.

And if I can jump in real quick, Elizabeth, just even in the meantime, and I'm not opposed to the departments coming and, you know, presenting to us, but, and Mark and Elizabeth, I'm going to not get this right, what it's called, but we've received in the past, like, requests, and it was, like, the untouchable, if you will, the middle, and then the, you know, whatever, and it was, you know, like a, I don't, I

Yeah, I'm familiar. What is that document called? I don't know. It was the tiered list.

The tiers, yes, thank you. And even until we can get like the, if we decide to do presentations, which again, I'm not opposed to, but even the tiered list gave like a generic description of what was going to be in addition to meet the strategic plan of the city or the mission of the city.

Yes, exactly. So an un-tiered version of all these requests, that can be provided to you quickly. I think it would probably be helpful, too, to get some feedback of what, based on these concepts here, and then what you all are comfortable, what would you like the tiers to look like? because in the past the tiers were focused on reductions in the budget, right? So it was like the first thing was like things that would have less of an impact, things that might be efficiency related but not an impact on residents and then as we move through the tiers, things that would have a larger impact

And these don't this year, I'm not even sure it has to be tiers. I just liked the description of the positions that were being added or unfortunately, sometimes like in 2020 during COVID potentially cut that were in the tiers. I mean, like right now for the city manager, it has five positions, but we don't know what that means.

And that would be in a document. I guess what you're saying is that would be maybe they were four different items and then the items would be grouped by some sort of a grouping.

I don't even care if they're in tiers, if they're grouped, just some sort of description of who's asking for what and what value it will bring towards addressing the strategic plan and the mission of the city, which should be our focus.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. We can do that.

You bet. And I don't want to create a lot of work. I know we've done it in the past, and I'm pretty sure the department heads probably had to submit that when they put in their requests.

Yes, exactly. No, that's definitely available. What I can't do is... necessarily answer things with as much detail and knowledge that they would, but we can get you started with some descriptions. Yeah, you're welcome.

Quick follow-up. Are there any departments that ask for less staff?

Pardon?

Are there any departments that ask for less staff?

No.

Okay. So the answer is there's not even an option for less. There's only options for more at 0 to 5, 5 to 10. I mean.

Yeah. No, we didn't. Generally, yes. Generally, people are very willing to ask for more, but it's been my experience working in the budget office. The less only comes if we're asking for it. Does that make sense? Like, people are always open to requesting more staff or more budget, but typically...

Okay, there are no... I feel very perplexed right now because there's only so many dollars, and we've already started talking about some things that are major... EXPENDITURES THAT ARE COMING, THAT WAS SLIDE NUMBER 19. FIRE STAFFING, HOMELESSNESS, START BOND FOR THE STADIUM, EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION, THOSE ALL WILL BE HAVING AN EFFECT ON THE BUDGET, YET NOW WE HAVE ALL THESE REQUESTS FOR ADDITIONAL STAFF, WHICH NOT ONLY MEANS INCREASE IN SALARIES, BUT ALSO INCREASES IN BENEFITS. So I'm a little concerned here that, again, the question was, are there any departments that ask for less staff? And the answer was no. So only additional, which then increases the budget.

And I really wish the city manager were here because one of the things that he asked for us to provide to you was all the requests that we received from departments. So in prior years, lists that you might have received would have included ideas from departments. It might have been concepts that were incorporated into the budget office or the budget process in different ways. But what we're disclosing to you today is all of the requests that we've received. So Mark mentioned things that are at the top of the list would be the fire, the net new fire station staffing. were some a couple other things and slides a few earlier slides about the forestry work orders encampment issues those two things are already incorporated in the budget it's just a matter of really focusing on them so now what i'm disclosing to you is just some ideas of all the requests that we've received and a few of them the city manager in those earlier slides has already indicated that he plans on including in the proposed budget, but many of them he's not indicated that yet. But I suppose what he's looking for today is if there's any of these ideas that he didn't include on those slides 24 and 25 that really resonate with you all. to get that feedback sooner. But what I'm hearing from you too is you'd like to know more about what they are. Yeah. Before you do that.

I appreciate knowing all the ideas and I'm glad that we're hearing all the requests because I don't think that's been involved in the last two budget cycles we've had where I've known all the requests. So I'm thankful for that. I've seen a lot more information about what these requests are. before I know what direction to move forward on whether or not some of these, and to the mayor's point, I'd still be interested in what strategic realignment we can have as well. Okay.

If I could add something to it, and I think Elizabeth explained it well, understanding where we are in the process, understanding that Manager Marstall inherited this process, so we're kind of changing it on the fly. This process that we're going through now will look a lot different next year, but we're halfway through this, and so what we're looking for is input, guidance from mayor and council, that the manager can go back as he develops his draft proposed budget. Once again, it's his charge as the manager to develop a draft budget that he can present to council. We'll have another workshop later in June. Also, Manager Marstall will have a number of conversations with each of you that will help shape and influence the draft that he ultimately presents to you. Our goal today was to present to you every request that has come to the manager, kind of get some general consensus feedback on what additional information you'd like to see, and also what maybe some of your priorities are, so that the manager can go back in the lab, so to speak, and present a balanced proposed budget to you.

I just want to highlight something Elizabeth said that I want to make sure. It wasn't lost on me that I don't think departments were asked to make cuts, correct? In the past we have. In 2020, we flat out said this is what we have to get to and everybody is going to need to help. So I don't think that any department did anything incorrect or staff did anything correct. They weren't asked to make cuts. Is that correct?

That's correct. In years where we've, and even I think maybe in last year's budget, the first year was balanced, but the out years weren't. So we provided targets to two departments for out years, and they were given targets to start with. And so none of that was provided this year.

I think a lot of my concern, and again, a lot of this is because I'm new, so I'm learning right now from my colleagues and from you, and I'll continue to learn. I can't wrap my head around How does what I'm seeing even align with the priorities that I hear us talk about a lot? And so, again, to the question, and I'm not blaming anyone, and I don't want to be critical of anyone. Everyone is just simply doing the best that they can, and so I want to honor that. Equity, I think, needs to be centered. And I guess I'm not... I guess I'm not understanding it specifically when we talk about additional two CSRs. I could even get behind understanding that. I think District 2 and District 5, I mean, they have challenges just like all the rest of our districts. And I think it's incredibly important to recognize that. I'm an advocate for inclusion and equity, and that does not only remain true for a certain subset. I mean, it remains true for all of my colleagues. I want them to see the value of it in my district. I'm gonna see the value for it in theirs. I guess when it comes to the makeup of our structure, and we talk about the structure a lot, like we're gonna add a CSR for the mayor, and did I not hear that correctly?

Well, that was the concept that was presented. That doesn't mean that, like what Mark said.

I guess that's why I need to see that. Who's presenting this? And again, the reason why I'm going to say this out loud, the mayor's heard me say it out loud during a district breakfast. We are expected to work 30 hours a week. Our CSRs do not report to us. No one is full-time, according to the policies, except for the mayor, who also has a full-time executive assistant. We share two assistants in the office who do a phenomenal job. And then I question when I see other departments asking for additional help and I see our fire and I see our police and law. And so I guess I'm like, how is it that we're coming to this conclusion that this is even

Yeah, I think at this point, I think I would tie this back to what Mark mentioned, which is these are all of the requests that we've received thus far. And it could be that some of them don't resonate with you at all. And it could be that some of them, like this request about the CSRs, resonates with you in some way, but not exactly in the same way that departmental staff packaged it. Does that make sense? Like I'm hearing some resonance, at least from you, on this issue that having expanded staff support could have some value, but then I'm hearing from the mayor, not in the way they presented it, or at least in her nods. So I think this is a different way of doing things. We're really providing a lot of raw material to you. I'm kind of standing here going, maybe this is different. But if you could kind of, I think that the feedback that I'm getting thus far about providing summaries of things, your understanding that this is the raw material from divisions can help us maybe dig in a little bit more. And I think the number one thing that I'd like to take away today as I head straight back to my desk to work on more for you is how would you like this arranged? You know, like how, you know, do you just want 40 things in a row or do you want things grouped like infrastructure, public safety, like, you know, think about that as we get to the end. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And for me, I look to you that, I mean, honestly, I would just like the raw data and like just how we do the CBBG funding. I mean, we can, we can take the time to read what departments have submitted. In my mind, I don't want to create more work for you, but I also realize that there may be some things that can't be shared again, just new to this. So that's my thoughts for now.

Okay. So, um, These are just some concepts that we've had so far. So I think we were on this one when we got back. And I just bring up the data governance one with IT. This was one when I received it from the department. It took me a while for it to come to life reading through it because it's pretty complex stuff. But it ties directly back to the strategic plan. And some of these things have to do with like safe data sharing between different kinds of databases, those sort of things that really help us become a data-informed organization, or more data-informed, rather. The next grouping we have here, these are some things, the middle one actually results in more revenue. Some of these things are pretty low dollar. In the past, these probably wouldn't even have been things that came to you in a workshop like this, because they're all I THINK THE MOST EXPENSIVE ONE WOULD BE $20,000 A YEAR. SO IF YOU'RE COMFORTABLE WITH US MOVING FORWARD WITH THESE SMALL DOLLAR ITEMS AND NOT EVEN HAVING THEM IN YOUR PACKET, THAT WOULD BE ONE THING. OR IF YOU STILL WANT THEM IN YOUR PACKET, YOU TELL ME. SO THIS ONE I THINK CONNECTS TO WHAT COUNCILMEMBER SHEPHERD WAS REFERRING TO. THESE ARE SOME THINGS THAT I THINK CONNECT BACK. to town hall topics. It doesn't mean that it's exactly connected to the feedback that has been received so far, but these are two requests that connect to items in the sales tax referendum and their enhanced funding for low barrier shelter, and then the convention center assessment, which may or may not be a top priority from the town halls, but it's included in this slide for now. Community survey, again, these are connected back to the magenta quadrant. One of them, this one is kind of complex. The police department submitted three different requests for staffing for the real-time information center. I've put them into one request. In their monthly strategic plan update, they state that they need dedicated staffing for the real-time information center. in order to have an MOU with Sedgwick County to embed a 911 operator in the real time information center. I don't know the extent of staffing that's required at this point or the type of staffing, if it would require a sergeant or a different type of position. But we've aligned it there just because that ties, that has I feel like a close tie to crime prevention. So it's an interesting concept. And then funding. for a low barrier shelter again in that magenta quadrant. And as a reminder, street maintenance is in the magenta quadrant, but that's mostly handled in the CIP. I think I hit this topic earlier, which is things in the CIP that have already happened relatively recently or will be happening during the planning period. CIP projects have maintenance and or operating impact. The maintenance request came in from facilities They're pretty tight on contractuals every year, just monitoring their budget. And it's not for positions, it's for contractuals expenditures. Things like utilities and contracted maintenance. Fire station 23, there is no facility in a city that has a more, a bigger operating impact than a fire station because it needs to be operated 24 hours a day. So to have the constant staffing, it requires 14 positions. I know that the department is soliciting a grant, but it's definitely something to consider. And then two of these, the Brewer Community Center, I actually stopped by a couple of nights ago because my son had to get to baseball early. It's a hopping place. They have long hours. Right now they're covering with seasonals, but they're proposing adding an admin aide there for, in addition to the Existing full-time person and then plain view this one would be in the future when that facility opens It's got an expanded footprint compared to the to the previous facility So those are kind of in that same thematic group So before we skip forward So of these requests are you comfortable if I were to group them this way? or do you just want summaries for all of them and

I think by department would be helpful. There are 16 departments. I know that cultural arts is part of the city manager's office, but I would see it as its own separate. And then when you're talking about CMO, that does include CSRs as well as communications. So maybe even... refining that also, just so that we know what within CMO is the request.

Okay. Any other feedback? The information that I have already had, and it tags it with its strategic plan pillar and its strategic plan goal and things like that. It has a short summary, so I can provide that to you. Right, so Mark already covered the next group of sides, I think already, so, but those are things really to be thinking about in advance of our late June workshop, so should the revenue rate be, never new neutral rate be exceeded in 2027? And as a reminder, that's not a question about the mill levy or a question about the assessed valuation, and those are both related to it, but it's really a question about levying one dollar more than the previous year. So that is the issue at hand there. The second one he already covered, should the entire AV growth be captured for 2027? I think Mark covered really all these. Stabilization reserves, should they be considered in addition to the $3 million that's already been budgeted? But are there other specific purposes that you would like to consider using them for? What would be the appropriate amount of employee compensation to include in the 2027 budget? And as a reminder, that would also be used as a framework as we consider agreements with our employee groups. Are there any priority outcomes that you feel should be included in the recommended budget? Maybe they're things you've seen here today or you haven't. And what would those be? And are there any service delivery enhancements that you feel should be further reviewed? I think the summaries that I'll be providing will address that as far as the ones from departments. but you see things, you have a different vantage point, so there may be things that are missing from that list that you would like to see us also analyze and provide for you for future consideration. Anything on this slide?

How does the consolidation, I know that when we last spoke, maybe it was at the last workshop, there was some consolidation that we were thinking about doing in terms of roles, or centralization.

Centralization.

How's that gonna impact this conversation? Like cost recovery-wise, will we, or is it gonna be neutral?

I don't know that that would, did you say revenue neutral?

No, I'm sorry, like cost recovery wise, would that have any impact on us?

Yeah, I don't think it would have any impact on service levels as far as residents go. It's really an accounting, it's really a matter of accounting for things differently. These centralized services would be accounted for one department. and then the cost for them would be recovered in operating departments. So it's one of those things, and Mark's like, we have to put a lot of things together. That's one of the a lot of things we have to put together. But residents, I don't think should have any, it's really, my timesheet will have a different org on it. But no one else would know. It's your secret. Do you have anything you wanna add?

Yeah, centralization is a great example of a item that was included in your strategic plan with specific tactics of which we are going full steam ahead. What will the impact on residents be? I would argue the only impact will be that they'll see a more efficient and effective government. It will eliminate a lot of overhead costs, and I think we will be able to serve all of our customers better. Residents are some of our customers, particularly if they owe us money. vendors are our customers departments are our customers so I I don't I think it'll basically be seamless for resident and if there is an impact it'll be a good impact because they'll see better service levels from their centralized financial provider Anything else related to this slide for now Can you add mark one more thing to centralization one of the things that we've had is

the reason why centralization is the direction we're going towards is then we can ask on a timely manner if someone owes the city money, you ask in a timely manner. Can you talk about that's how the customer can then also be affected?

Yeah, there's a number of ways that will be more efficient, and I won't go into all of them, but you're correct on Accounts receivable, we were very decentralized, which is probably not a good place for us to have been. We didn't bill people appropriately. We didn't write off appropriately. We didn't send past due notices appropriately. We, in finance, that's all we do. I mean, we have a centralized system that does that. We generate that. We track that. I think that's where you'll see the advantage. Again, departments... They did as good as they could, but their focus isn't accounts receivable collection. It's filling potholes or solving crimes. That's all we do. Just like In-N-Out Burger. I mean, they make cheeseburgers and shakes and french fries. We collect money, we pay money, and we buy things. We don't do all the other stuff. So that's where you'll see the efficiencies on things like that.

Thank you, Mark.

So just a little bit more information. So on this top bullet, we have talked about this a lot, we will provide additional information about department requests. I think you've already requested it, so we'll be doing that. So recommendations will be developed, and I think it's, What we're hearing today too is recommendations will be analyzed, some alternatives maybe in the same themes will be considered as we move forward in the process. We'll receive assessed valuation in the middle of next month, and then there's a workshop coming up on June 23rd. I think, at this point, I think we're 29 business days out from going to print, so if you have feedback to provide things, we'll get you information immediately, but if there's anything you want to know more about, or alternatives to it, modifying requests, please don't wait until June 23rd. But the flip side is too, there's a lot of them, and I think it's okay to say, you know, we maybe not this year does that make sense the budget process will always come back again and again and again so maybe some things for this year or maybe some things that we need more information about for the future so it's kind of got a there's an element of urgency here but there's also an element of the 2028 budget will be right on its heels as soon as this one gets adopted so we're going to be finalizing these recommendations in early july um to start our due diligence and ensure statutory compliance. There's are, as Mark mentions, there are a lot of forms to submit to the county clerk each year and We have to submit all of our nearly all of our funds on one form So if there's one department or one fund or one thing that's not quite done. It means the entire thing isn't quite done So it's important to keep everything moving in the process and also there's been a lot of Times in the past that we haven't had all the line items in place or all the plans in place but still We state maybe in the transmittal letter or in the budget issues that we're planning on doing something, even if it isn't completely lined out in the budget. And the city manager will be presenting that budget to you on July 14th. And at that meeting, as Council Member Glasscock mentioned, you'll be taking action on the revenue neutral rate, but as he mentioned, the maximum tax is to be levied for each of our taxing funds. Then we'll turn around and publish that information. And then the other thing that you do at that meeting is you set the final budget hearing date for adoption. So there's really three items at that meeting. So you're not adopting the budget, you're just taking action on R&R, maximum tax is to be levied, and setting the date and time for that final hearing. So here is a calendar at this point, all these dates I've mentioned. And then we plan, there's a schedule August 4th for a second public hearing and 18th for the third one. At this point, those are both morning meetings and then adoption is an evening meeting on the county clerk's website or on the county clerk's software. And so it's really important for us too that if that's an evening meeting, we need to make sure that once we publish that notice, the time and date of the meeting can't be changed. So once all, because the county mails it out to all the taxpayers. So that was a lot of information today. We will certainly be following up with you. Please follow up with the city manager if there's more information you'd like to know. Yes.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Great job, as always. I really appreciate it. I know the county started their budget simulator last week. When does our budget simulator go live? If you said it, I'm sorry if I missed it.

No, I did not mention that. We do plan on having a budget simulator. I don't like to, we're also standing up new software for the budget process this year, new budget document software. So I think that we would have been talking about standing up our budget simulator when the proposed budget is published so that people have the opportunity to do the simulator on the proposed budget simply because the alternative would be on the 2026 adopted, and we're talking about so many new things that I think that people might be confused if those weren't in the budget. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense. And I just want to highlight to the community too, and I've said this a zillion times, but I think we do a really good job of providing opportunities for community input. I think last year I counted 15, 16, up to 19 different opportunities for people to become engaged. So I hope the community really does. They can attend DAB meetings. They can go to the workshops. They can do the simulator. We usually have some sort of town halls. you know, come to city council meetings, reach out to your council member, whatever it may be. But I say every year, every single year that I've been here, I say the budget vote is the most important vote that I make because where you allocate your treasure is a reflection of your values. So I'll look forward to a really robust discussion. And I also hope that everybody from this body asks all the questions that they have, gets as much information as they need. so that we can come to a product that we're all proud of in August. Thank you.

With that, I do have a question, and that is for Mark. Talking about the 7% likely in assessed valuation, what is the current rate for growth and inflation?

The last inflation I saw was an annualized rate of about 3.8%. That was last month, I think.

New growth?

Growth for?

You think that's both inflation and new construction?

New construction, I think we're generally somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5% to 2%.

Roughly 5% when you account for inflation plus new construction?

or six percent four if you're around three i use round numbers 3.8 rounds to four new constructions two that gets you to six but mathematically that's not a precise but somewhere in the five to six percent range yes ma'am so my question is uh currently the budget reflects a full capture of seven percent uh last year in 2025 can you tell us what was the uh projected

Percentage and then what did we actually capture percentage eight point six percent was what our assessed valuation grew by and we captured about seven percent of it So still above new construction and inflation so my question then is this is additional work for staff but Out of all the conversations we've had in community which many community members are concerned regarding the rising costs of living Can you provide a budget also that is in the 5% range because that would only capture new construction and inflation? Again, not a 7%, so a 5%. How difficult would that be and how could we get, again, so that we can choose one over another?

I think the way we would address that probably is we would look at some of our assumptions, employee compensation being the most obvious one. We would also rely on our strategic plan and we would look for items that weren't specifically or directly aligned to the strategic plan. Probably our tactic would not be to develop a separate budget that aligned to that but rather to provide you with a list of options that could be changed from the budget that the manager would recommend and they would probably be just a list of items that you could consider if that was your prerogative.

i would like options and i think that again every decision we make is a trade-off and so therefore i'd like to see what that trade-off is uh... trying to i've been going to these town halls in each of the council members districts the next one and last one will be in council member ballard's district on saturday and again the concern has always been someone has mentioned multiple times this whole rising costs of living. And so in order to respond to that, one way that we can do, again, it's regarding property taxes. And I understand we have many who are renters as well, but those costs get passed on to a renter as well. So I'd like to know if you can provide, again, those options so that the council can make those decisions.

That's the methodology that I would recommend to the city manager to follow. Obviously, it's his decision on how to do that, but that's probably the best way to do it, in my opinion, would be that, and that's what I would recommend to him.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Elizabeth. And Assistant City Manager, Dante.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. That's all we have for today.

See you all at the town hall on Wednesday at 5.30 p.m.