On June 28, 2016, candidates for Sedgwick County Commission participated in a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Participating candidates included:
From the Wichita Pachyderm Club this week: A forum featuring Republican primary election candidates for Board of Sedgwick County Commissioners. This is an audio recording made on June 10, 2016.
In District 2 the candidate is Michael O’Donnell. In District 3 the candidates are Karl Peterjohn and David Dennis.
Since funding for and management of the Sedgwick County Zoo is in the news, here are some articles showing how generous the county has been with funding.
The Sedgwick County Commission has been generous with zoo funding, spending far more than agreed upon and granting a moratorium on loan payments and interest.
That’s the plan. What actually happened is quite different.
In September 2014 the commission voted to give the zoo $5.3 million to help pay for a new elephant exhibit. This contribution was not in any funding agreement, and the money was paid in January 2015. This extra funding is almost as large as the planned funding for 2015, which was about $5.6 million.
July 28, 2015. Click here for the full article.
As the Sedgwick County Zoo and its supporters criticize commissioners for failing to honor commitments, the Zoo is enjoying a deferral of loan payments and a break from accumulating interest charges.
What happened? The county loaned the zoo money to build a restaurant. But the zoo was not able to make the payments as agreed. So the county deferred the payments. I’ll be surprised if the zoo makes any payments after the deferral period ends.
July 28, 2015. Click here for the full article.
An analysis of public health spending in Sedgwick County illuminates the consequences of public spending decisions. In particular, those calling for more spending on zoos and arts must consider the lives that could be saved by diverting this spending to public health, according to analysis from Kansas Health Institute.
August 11, 2015. Click here for the full article.
Sedgwick County has released its annual report on the performance and status of economic development incentives for 2015.
Section I, titled “Summary Totals for Loans & Grants Executed 2005 — 2015,” holds data that must be interpreted carefully. The report shows a total of $11,682,500 in loans and grants. Of that total, $5,000,000 was advanced to Cessna in 2008 to help with the Columbus jet program. But Cessna canceled that program and repaid the loan. It’s almost as though this activity never took place.
Of particular interest is Section III, titled “Individual Loan & Grant Incentive Results.” These programs are specifically designed to induce the creation of jobs, and in some cases capital investment. This section holds a number of evaluations that read “Not Meeting Commitment.” One example is NetApp. The county reports that “Company Commitment at Compliance Review” is 268 jobs, but the county found that “Company Performance at Compliance Review” is 124 jobs, which is 46 percent of the goal. NetApp is significant as it is one of the larger incentives offered, and the jobs have high salaries.
Another observation is the small amount of the incentives. The majority are for less than $50,000, with one being $10,000. Often these small amounts are promoted as responsible for — or at least enabling — investments of millions of dollars. These incentives come with large costs besides the cash value. Companies must apply for the incentive, county and other agency staff must evaluate the application, there is deliberation by commissioners and council members, and then effort spent producing the thoughtful and thorough report such as this produced by the Chief Financial Officer of Sedgwick County. (The City of Wichita produces no similar report, despite dangling its possibility if voters passed a sales tax. See Wichita can implement transparency, even though tax did not pass.)
Click here to access this report.
The Sedgwick County Commission makes a bid for accountability with an economic development agency, but will likely fall short of anything meaningful.
The Greater Wichita Partnership is a reorganization of local economic development agencies. It has asked the Sedgwick County Commission for $300,000 to fund a portion of its activities this year. Those on the commission who are skeptical of GWP and its predecessors have asked for measurable outcomes of the progress GWP makes.
Here is a paragraph from the agreement with GWP that commissioners will consider this week:
9. Measurable Outcomes. GWP shall be subject to measureable outcomes as it shall determine, subject to review by the Board of Sedgwick County Commissioners. GWP shall present an annual report to the Board of Sedgwick County Commissioners at a regularly-scheduled Commission meeting no later than December 31, 2016.
I appreciate the attempt by members of the county commission to ask for accountability. But this paragraph is so weak as to be meaningless. The nature of the measurable outcomes is not defined, even in broad strokes. Further, GWP gets to decide, at an unknown time, what constitutes the measurable outcomes. Then the county commission gets to “review” them, which is a weak — really, nonexistent — form of oversight. We ought to ask that the county commission “approve” them, and sooner rather than later.
But there is a bit of good news. Paragraph 10 of the agreement calls for a separate accounting fund to be created for the money the taxpayers of Sedgwick County will give to GWP. Then: “GWP agrees and understands that, by entering into this funding Agreement, any and all of its records, documents, and other information related to the Fund and the activities financed thereby shall be open and made available to the public upon request, in accordance with the Kansas Open Records Act.”
That’s good news, and a move towards the type of transparency and accountability that local governments — especially the City of Wichita — promote but finds difficult to actually deliver. Although this provision applies to only the county-supplied funds, hopefully GWP will realize that being transparent is better than being secretive.
Jim Howell, representing District 5 on the Sedgwick County Board of County Commissioners, spoke to a luncheon audience of the Wichita Pachyderm Club on September 4, 2015, about “Making a Difference” on the County Commission. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Videography by Paul Soutar.
Sedgwick County Kansas doesn’t make available online budgets for more than two years, so I’ve obtained both recommended and adopted budgets and deposited them here. There are also other documents such as comprehensive annual financial reports.
The documents are also available through DocumentCloud below.
Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Richard Ranzau spoke on the topic “Returning Core American Values to Sedgwick County” before a luncheon audience of the Wichita Pachyderm Club Friday, August 28, 2015. View below, or click here to view at YouTube.
Videography by Paul Soutar.
The Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce urges spending over fiscally sound policies and tax restraint in Sedgwick County.
Today the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce issued a “key vote” alert. This procedure, used by political groups of all persuasions, alerts elected officials that the Chamber prefers a certain outcome on an issue. Those who vote in harmony with the Chamber are likely to receive support in their next election, while the noncompliant are implicitly threatened with opponents the Chamber will support.
Here’s what the Chamber sent to commissioners:
From: Barby Jobe
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 2:47 PMTO: SEDGWICK COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
FROM: WALTER BERRY, Vice Chair, Wichita Metro Chamber Government Relations Committee
RE: KEY VOTE ALERT
While we have not recently had many “key votes” at the local level, the Wichita Metro Chamber would like to alert you that we will be key voting the 2016 Budget.
The Chamber would like to encourage the Commission to consider a compromise by leaving the property tax rate as it is currently and reducing the amount of cash-funded roads thus allowing a reallocation of funds for economic development and education, culture and recreation, city partnerships, and health and human services.
Thank you for your consideration.
This deferral of maintenance needs is a form of deficit spending. It’s curious that a purportedly conservative organization like the Wichita Chamber of Commerce would support that.
Well, it’s not really surprising. The Wichita Chamber has long advocated for more taxation and spending, taking the lead in promoting the one cent per dollar sales tax proposal in Wichita last year. The Chamber has supported big-spending Republicans over fiscal conservatives for office at several levels.
In Wichita, and across the country, local chambers of commerce support crony capitalism instead of pro-growth policies that allow free enterprise and genuine capitalism to flourish.
That may be surprising to read. Most people probably think that local chambers of commerce — since their membership is mostly business firms — support pro-growth policies that embrace limited government and free markets. But that’s usually not the case. It’s certainly is not the case in Wichita, where the Chamber supports higher taxes, more government spending, more business welfare, more government planning and control, more cronyism — and less economic freedom. The predictable result is less prosperity, which has been the case in Wichita under the leadership of the Wichita Chamber, its policies, and the politicians and bureaucrats it supports.
Here, in an excerpt from his article “Tax Chambers” economist Stephen Moore — formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now with Heritage Foundation — explains the decline of the local chamber of commerce:
The Chamber of Commerce, long a supporter of limited government and low taxes, was part of the coalition backing the Reagan revolution in the 1980s. On the national level, the organization still follows a pro-growth agenda — but thanks to an astonishing political transformation, many chambers of commerce on the state and local level have been abandoning these goals. They’re becoming, in effect, lobbyists for big government.
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In as many as half the states, state taxpayer organizations, free market think tanks and small business leaders now complain bitterly that, on a wide range of issues, chambers of commerce deploy their financial resources and lobbying clout to expand the taxing, spending and regulatory authorities of government. This behavior, they note, erodes the very pro-growth climate necessary for businesses — at least those not connected at the hip with government — to prosper. Journalist Tim Carney agrees: All too often, he notes in his recent book, “Rip-Off,” “state and local chambers have become corrupted by the lure of big dollar corporate welfare schemes.”
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In the states, chambers have come to believe their primary function is to secure tax financing for sports stadiums, convention centers, high-tech research institutes and transit boondoggles. Some local chambers have reportedly asked local utilities, school administrators and even politicians to join; others have opened membership to arts councils, museums, civic associations and other “tax eater” entities.
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“I used to think that public employee unions like the NEA were the main enemy in the struggle for limited government, competition and private sector solutions,” says Mr. Caldera of the Independence Institute. “I was wrong. Our biggest adversary is the special interest business cartel that labels itself ‘the business community’ and its political machine run by chambers and other industry associations.”
From Stephen Moore in the article “Tax Chambers” published in The Wall Street Journal February 10, 2007. The complete article is here.