Voice For Liberty

Tag: Government transparency

  • Wichita needs transparency from its agencies

    Wichita needs transparency from its agencies

    When the Wichita city council delegates spending to outside agencies such as Visit Wichita, it should insist on the same transparency requirements the city itself faces.

    The Kansas Open Records Act is designed to give citizens access to data concerning their government. In the words of the Kansas Attorney General, “An open and transparent government is essential to the democratic process.”

    The preamble to the Kansas act states, “It is declared to be the public policy of the state that public records shall be open for inspection by any person unless otherwise provided by this act, and this act shall be liberally construed and applied to promote such policy.” (emphasis added)

    That isn’t always the case in Wichita. Here, the city has formed several non-profit organizations that are funded in large part by tax revenue. But these organizations believe they are not covered by KORA, and so far the city agrees with that.

    An example is Visit Wichita, the city’s convention and visitors bureau. This week the Wichita City Council will consider the scope of services and budget for the money the agency receives from Wichita’s Tourism Business Improvement District. This is a tax of 2.75 percent that is added to hotel bills in the city. From 2016 to 2018 this tax brought in an average of just over three million dollars per year.

    If the city itself was spending these funds, there is no doubt that the spending records would be public. But Visit Wichita wants to spend this money in secret. It also wants to enter into contracts in secret.

    In the Kansas law, here is the definition of a public agency: “‘Public agency’ means the state or any political or taxing subdivision of the state or any office, agency or instrumentality thereof, or any other entity receiving or expending and supported in whole or in part by the public funds appropriated by the state or by public funds of any political or taxing subdivision of the state.” There is an exception, which doesn’t apply here: “‘Public agency’ shall not include: … Any entity solely by reason of payment from public funds for property, goods or services of such entity.”

    As can be seen in the nearby table, Visit Wichita gets around 93 percent of its funds from taxes. Surely this qualifies as “supported in whole or in part by the public funds.”

    In the past, agencies have objected to the release of records on the basis that they would reveal information or strategies that would benefit Wichita’s competitors for jobs, conventions, and tourists. But the requests I have made (and which were rejected) asked for past data, not contemporaneous data. Further, if Wichita was successful in attracting jobs, conventions, and tourists, this might make some sense. But Wichita lags in these categories, which means that oversight is important. For example, among large hotel markets in Kansas, Wichita is near the bottom in growth.

    The records that Visit Wichita needs to disclose are its spending records, which means the checks it has written and credit card charges made. It also needs to disclose its contracts. This is the law, and it is also good public policy.

    When my records requests were rejected, I asked the Sedgwick County District Attorney to enforce the law. The DA sided with Visit Wichita (then known as Go Wichita) and the city’s other non-profit agencies, concluding that they were not “public agencies.”

    That determination simply meant that Visit Wichita could not be forced to reveal records. But it does not prohibit the agency from supplying records — if it wanted.

    This issue is important so that people can trust their government. But leadership in Wichita has not agreed. Now, as Wichita considers large public investments in facilities like a convention center — something desired by Visit Wichita — we need transparency, not secrecy.

    Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple campaigned on greater government transparency. An amendment to the city’s recommended action could require that Visit Wichita recognize itself for what it is — a public agency as defined in the Kansas Open Records Act. Proposing a motion to include this requirement would allow the mayor to fulfill a campaign promise, and it would let Wichitans know where council members stand on this issue.

    For more information, see Open Records in Kansas.

    Click for larger.
  • Missing from Wichita city documents: Sales tax

    Missing from Wichita city documents: Sales tax

    It would be simple for the City of Wichita to include additional relevant information regarding economic development incentive decisions.

    When the Wichita City Council makes decisions regarding economic development incentives, the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University prepares an analysis for the city. The purpose of the analysis is to determine benefit-cost ratios for overlapping governmental jurisdictions, purporting to show that these jurisdictions will receive more in benefits than they pay in costs. An example of the analysis for a large project is here.

    The city does not make this analysis document available to the public. It is a public record, though. Every time I have asked, they have been provided.

    One thing, then, that the city could do to increase transparency is to simply make these analysis documents available. Perhaps not in the agenda packet, but as a supplement, such as the way the city provides Powerpoint presentations for council meetings.

    Another thing the city could do is to include relevant data that would take just a little more effort.

    Consider sales tax exemptions. For a recent industrial revenue bond decision, city documents stated: “The project will also qualify for a sales tax exemption on bond-financed purchases.” 1 But the document doesn’t state the dollar value of the sales tax exemption, even though the CEDBR analysis includes this number. 2 That value, for this recent project, is $1,111,264.

    Is that information relevant to decision-makers? City documents estimate the value of the property tax abatements in the first year as $773,604. So for the total tax forgiveness received in the first year, the sales tax exemption is larger than the property tax abatement, accounting for 59.0 percent of the total. 3 That is relevant.

    Even over the ten-year life of the property tax abatement, the sales tax exemption is still 11.8 percent of the total tax forgiveness. That — the duration of the property tax abatement — is another opportunity to increase transparency. The CEDBR analysis gives the total cost of the incentives for ten years. (A nearby table summarizes.) These totals are speculative, as the city council must revisit the matter in five years to determine whether the company deserves the property tax abatement for an additional five years. (This is known as a “five-plus-five year tax exemption.”)

    But the total value of the exemptions is relevant, as it flows into the benefit-cost ratio calculations.

    Given all the numbers the city presently reports from the CEDBR analysis documents, not including the value of the sales tax exemption is a significant omission, and one easy to correct.

    —
    Notes

    1. Wichita city council agenda packet for January 21, 2020, item V-1 ↩
    2. Center for Economic Development and Business Research. January 8, 2020, version 8. Available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mg3B0sJVy67_r4gNl4NZbclZKZsdgQUx/view. ↩
    3. Assuming all sales taxes are paid during the first year. ↩
  • Wichita should post fulfilled records requests

    Wichita should post fulfilled records requests

    When the City of Wichita fulfills records requests, it should make those records available to everyone.

    When governmental agencies like the City of Wichita fulfill records requests, they could also publish the records on their websites. When records are supplied electronically to requestors, this is an additional simple (and low cost) step that would leverage the city’s effort and increase its value.

    Some federal agencies do this. For example at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website, there is a page titled FOIA Library. An example entry on this page is titled “Executive Orders on Travel Records.” The explanation for this is “Contains all records released in response to requests and/or litigation pertaining to Executive Orders on Travel.” On that page are downloadable documents that were created in response to records requests.

    This does not need to be a complicated endeavor. Off-the-shelf solutions like Dropbox and Google Drive are easy to use and inexpensive. Google and other search engines will automatically index the documents.

    Posting fulfilled records requests is an easy way for the City of Wichita to start increasing transparency of its operations. Let’s get started, Mayor Whipple.

  • Wichita legal notices an easy start on the path to transparency

    Wichita legal notices an easy start on the path to transparency

    Kansas law requires publication of certain notices in newspapers, but cities like Wichita could also make them available in other ways that are easier to use.

    Legal publications in the Wichita Eagle, occupying nearly the entire page.
    As Wichita’s new mayor takes office, there are a few things the city could do to increase the availability and distribution of government information. An easy project to accomplish would be placing legal notices on the city’s web page.

    Kansas law requires that many legal notices must be printed in a newspaper. That law needs to be changed. Newspapers resist this reform, as it might mean a loss of revenue for them. (That’s right. Newspapers don’t print these notices as a public service.)

    Although the law requires publishing notices in a newspaper, it doesn’t prohibit publishing them in electronic form. If governmental agencies would make their legal publications available in ways other than the newspaper, citizens would be better served.

    The City of Wichita does some posting of legal notices on its website. Under the City Clerk section, there is a page titled “Legal Notices” that holds notices of bidding opportunities. This is good, but the notices that are important to most people are not on the city’s website.

    Some of these notices appear in city council meeting agenda packets, where they may be buried in 500 pages of other material.

    Posting all city legal notices on the city’s website would be easy to do. It would be quite inexpensive, as the copy is already in electronic form. The notices would become searchable through Google and other methods. Interested parties could capture and store this material for their own use. Once people get used to this method of publication, it will make it easier to get state law changed.

    Posting legal notices on its website is an easy way for the City of Wichita to start increasing transparency of its operations. Let’s get started, Mayor Whipple.

  • Wichita water plant contract

    Wichita water plant contract

    Wichita should consider discarding the water plant contract in order to salvage its reputation and respect for process.

    This week the Wichita City Council will consider approving a contract with Wichita Water Partners to build a new water treatment plant. It’s a controversial matter that likely played a significant role in the recent mayoral election. Wichita Eagle reporting by Chance Swaim in the story Wichita’s mayor steered multi-million-dollar water plant contract to friends traces through the issues.

    The most important thing is that the city receives a reliable water plant that meets its needs. Currently, the city operates a plant that is the only source of water. It’s described as having outlived its useful life. At any moment over the next several years, the city might have to spend millions to repair a plant it will retire soon.

    It’s also important that the city does not reward the corruption — petty or not — surrounding the awarding of this contract. Mayor Longwell was defeated in his bid for reelection, and that sends a message. But the other corrupt party is being rewarded, as it seems likely the city council will approve the contract with Wichita Water Partners. Its principals sought to influence the mayor by wining and dining. (Literally, they offered to deliver leftover wine to the mayor.) They flattered the mayor with honorifics like Mayor Miracle, Your Eminence, His Highness, Homecoming Queen, Eye Candy, Jethro, and Wine Delivery Guy.

    Besides this, Wichita Water Partners was not honest with the city. The Wichita Eagle reported this: “Rod Young, president of the engineering firm PEC, and Roger McClellan, president of the construction company Wildcat, both acknowledged to The Eagle their relationships with the mayor. They did not disclose those relationships to the city on a form asking about potential conflicts of interest in the water project.” (emphasis added) PEC and Wildcat are part of Wichita Water Partners.

    But the coddling of Longwell worked. After paying the mayor’s $1,000 fee to enter a charity golf tournament, Longwell told them, “I’m going to be super nice to you for a long time.” Longwell switched the basis of awarding the contract, proposing a “design competition.” But only one firm entered the competition, Wichita Water Partners. Jacobs, one of the largest engineering firms, was originally and unanimously preferred by the city’s selection committee. But the company decided not to enter the design competition. The result was only one company participating in the mayor’s “contest.”

    There are important considerations going forward, especially as the city considers spending one billion dollars or more on new projects like a convention center, performing arts center, and other downtown projects:

    • The selection committee had significant concerns regarding Wichita Water Partners and its proposal. Since the city overrode the committee’s strong recommendation, will the recommendation of other similar committees be taken seriously? Will other committees feel their job is important? What about citizen advisory boards?

    • One of the nation’s largest and most respected engineering firms declined to participate in the mayor’s “design contest.” Will the city be able to attract bids from other reputable firms given the way the water plant contract process was changed? Will future bidders fear that the city’s bid process will be changed just before the contract is awarded, after bidders have spent time and money preparing their bids?

    • While Mayor Longwell will be leaving office soon, other city officials who enabled the process — elected and others — are still in place.

    This is not the way to do business, even though the government is not a business. As the Wichita Eagle editorialized: “Longwell steered the council away from its earlier decision on how to award the water plant contract — away from competitive bidding and toward shadier ways of doing business — and that is unacceptable.”

    While Longwell was defeated in an election, the other party to the “shadier ways of doing business” won. That’s bad for the city right now, and bad for the city looking forward.

    Should the city discard the Wichita Water Partners contract this week, as is its right? Undoubtedly, starting the bid process again would add cost and cause further delay. And, given the city’s conduct, would a new bid process attract quality proposals?

    Canceling the contract and starting over is worth deliberation and consideration. Our city’s reputation and respect for process are more important than any single contract, even its largest.

  • Wichita consent agenda reform proposed

    Wichita consent agenda reform proposed

    The Wichita city council will consider reforms to the consent agenda.

    Next week the Wichita City Council will consider changes to the form of city council meetings, specifically the consent agenda. 1

    A consent agenda is a group of items — perhaps as many as two dozen or so — that are voted on in bulk with a single vote. If the consent agenda is passed, each individual item on the consent agenda is also considered as passed. An item on a consent agenda will be discussed only if a council member requests the item to be “pulled.” If that is done, the item will be discussed. Then it might be withdrawn, delayed to a future meeting, voted on by itself, or folded back into the consent agenda with the other items. Generally, consent agenda items are considered by the city to be routine and non-controversial, but that is not always the case.

    The city proposes two main changes. First, a draft, or proposed consent agenda will be presented to the mayor and vice mayor one week before a council meeting, with the finalization on Friday. City documents explain:

    A draft consent agenda will be presented to the mayor and vice mayor one week before the scheduled city council meeting. The mayor and vice mayor will make a preliminary designation of the items to be included on the consent agenda. The consent agenda will be considered only a draft until it is endorsed by the city council during its regular Friday agenda review meeting.

    Second, there is a list of items considered appropriate for inclusion on the consent agenda, as presented below.

    In the past, the city has placed major items on the consent agenda, such as authorizing a $2 million contract with the city’s convention and visitors’ bureau. 2

    Notably, this summer the city placed a long-term lease with a proposed airport hotel on the consent agenda. Before the meeting, it was found the contract had many errors. 3 At that time, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell expressed frustration with items such as this being placed on the consent agenda and said he would propose changes. 4

    Items appropriate for consent agenda

    From the proposed ordinance:

    In order to provide City staff with additional guidance, the following items are considered appropriate for the consent agenda:

    1. Applications for licenses
    2. Community event requests
    3. Street closures
    4. Preliminary construction estimates
    5. Petitions for public improvements
    6. Design services agreements and supplements to design services agreements
    7. Sale of remnant parcels and property previously designated as surplus
    8. Purchase of property for right-of-way
    9. Second reading ordinances
    10. Property acquisitions
    11. Minutes of advisory boards and commissions
    12. One year agreements, agreement amendments or agreement extensions with a value of $100,000 or less
    13. Grant applications and awards if the local match is less than $100,000
    14. Change orders
    15. Settlement agreements
    16. Establishing public hearing dates for the repair and removal of dangerous structures
    17. Authorizing note and bond sales
    18. Zoning applications that have no protest and are recommended for approval by the DAB and MAPC
    19. Nuisance assessments

    —
    Notes

    1. Wichita City Council agenda packet for November 19, 2019, item V-2. ↩
    2. See, for example, For Wichita, another agenda surprise at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-another-agenda-surprise/, Naftzger Park costs up, yet again at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/naftzger-park-costs-up-yet-again/, In Wichita, spending semi-secret at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-spending-semi-secret/, A consultant to help Wichita’s confidence factor at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/consultant-help-wichita-confidence-factor/, For Wichita City Council, discussion is not wanted at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/for-wichita-city-council-discussion-is-not-wanted/, In Wichita, a gentle clawback at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/in-wichita-a-gentle-clawback/, Wichita, again, fails at government transparency at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-fails-government-transparency/, and Wichita open records issue buried at https://wichitaliberty.org/open-records/wichita-open-records-issue-buried/. ↩
    3. Lefler, Dion. What’s up with the new airport hotel? Wichita scrambles to correct errors before vote. Wichita Eagle, June 24, 2019. Available at https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article231911503.html. ↩
    4. Lefler, Dion. Longwell proposes changes in city process after airport hotel blunder. Wichita Eagle, June 28, 2019. Available at https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article232088887.html. ↩
  • For Wichita, another agenda surprise

    For Wichita, another agenda surprise

    Wichita city hall again places a controversial matter on the consent agenda, where it might pass without notice.

    Should the City of Wichita lease part of a new park to a private entity for its exclusive use? That’s what the Wichita City Council will consider this week. But there are issues apart from the lease itself.

    The subject of the item this week is Naftzger Park in downtown Wichita. The new building on the east side of the park has ground floor retail space, including a restaurant. To have an outdoor patio area in which alcohol is served, the restaurant’s patio must be fenced in. Furthermore, the proposed patio sits on park land, which requires execution of a lease.

    The problem is that plans for the fenced patio were not known by the mayor, the city council, or the public until last week when the city council agenda for its September 10, 2019 meeting was released.

    Not only that, the item was placed on the consent agenda. That’s a section of the meeting where a number of agenda items are considered and voted on in bulk without discussion, unless a council member asks to “pull” an item. The consent agenda usually holds non-controversial items.

    But the redesign of Naftzger Park has been controversial. There was much community discussion about the design, and not everyone was happy. The park and the surrounding development have received millions in taxpayer subsidy, which adds to the controversy.

    So it’s surprising that anything involving this park would be handled on a consent agenda. But in February the council considered an error in the park design, correction of which cost $115,000. That was passed on the consent agenda with no discussion.

    Where is the fence? Click for larger.
    Now, another matter regarding Naftzger Park was placed on the consent agenda, and it is definitely controversial, as is any plan to lease city park land to private interests. Credit to Wichita City Council Member Bryan Frye (district 5, west and northwest Wichita) for objecting to the consent agenda placement, according to Wichita Eagle reporting.

    The city has had other trouble with its consent agenda. This summer the lease of airport land to a hotel developer was placed on the consent agenda. The lease was found to have errors and the matter was delayed twice.

    According to the minutes of the July 16 council meeting, Mayor Longwell referenced “a mistake made by staff to put this on consent agenda without the knowledge of any Council Member.”

    On the same matter, the Wichita Eagle reported: “‘We really don’t like, in this case, last-second changes that are brought to us,’ Longwell said. ‘And it’s not fair to the community to have last-second changes presented to the council and then ask us to vote on it.’” A few days later the newspaper reported, “On Friday, Longwell said he plans to ask the council to change its policies so “every negotiated agreement goes on a regular agenda, not consent.”

    Someone didn’t get the message, it seems.

    Should the city lease part of Naftzger Park for exclusive private use? That’s an issue worthy of discussion. But two things are certain:

    Any lease should have been part of the original discussion on the redesign of Naftzger Park two years ago.

    And, stuff like this shouldn’t be on the consent agenda.

  • Wichita checkbook updated

    Wichita checkbook updated

    Wichita spending data presented as a summary, and as a list.

    As part of an ongoing transparency project, I asked the City of Wichita for check register data. I’ve made the data available in a visualization using Tableau Public. This visualization is updated with data through August 13, 2019.

    Of note, the city does not make this data available on its website.

    To learn more about this data and use the visualization, click here.

    Example from the visualization. Click for larger.
  • Wichita airport hotel ownership unclear

    Wichita airport hotel ownership unclear

    The Wichita City Council plans to use the consent agenda to vote on an item containing confusing language.

    For the Tuesday June 25, 2019 meeting of the Wichita City Council meeting, item No. II-17 concerns the city leasing land to a company wanting to build and operate a new hotel near the airport. 1 The agenda packet holds this language:

    “Upon execution of the lease, WEH will provide a $2 million good faith security deposit in escrow with the Airport to ensure timely construction of the hotel. Upon completion of the roof construction, the deposit will be available to WEH for additional construction costs. WEH will invest a minimum of $12 million of private funds to build and equip the property, which the structure will be owned by the WAA in accordance with existing policy. During the life of the lease, WEH is required to make periodic capital improvements and re-investment obligations in order to maintain its franchise agreement with a national flag hotel.” (emphasis added)

    (WEH is Wichita Eisenhower Hotel, LLC, a private company formed to construct and operate the hotel. WAA is the Wichita Airport Authority, which is the same as the Wichita City Council.)

    Reading this, can you tell me who will own the hotel building? I wondered, so I posed this question by email to the city’s public information officer: “The sentence fragment ‘which the structure will be owned by the WAA in accordance with existing policy’ sounds like the hotel building will be owned by the Wichita Airport Authority. Is this correct?”

    I received a generic response that illuminated nothing. 2 My follow-up question was not acknowledged by the end of the day.

    The council will, at least according to its schedule, consider this item tomorrow morning. Will city council members, acting as the Wichita Airport Authority, have a clear idea of the meaning of this agenda item and the supporting contract?

    I think I know what it means. WEH will own the hotel and lease the land from the city. There’s language like this: “The development group requesting a lease agreement has formed a Kansas corporation to own and operate a hotel on the Airport.” (emphasis added)

    Further, the lease is priced by the square foot of land (49.6 cents per square foot per year), although after four years that is replaced by a minimum agreed amount or a percent of the revenue of the hotel.

    All this points to WEH owning the hotel building, not the city through the Airport Authority, although the Wichita Business Journal has a different opinion. 3 But it’s a shame that we must guess what the city means.

    Will city council members also have to guess? Perhaps. This item is on the airport’s consent agenda. Unless a council member speaks up and asks for clarification, there will be no discussion on this item.

    —
    Notes

    1. Wichita city council final agenda packet for June 25, 2019. Available at https://wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/06-25-2019%20Final%20Council%20Packet.pdf. ↩
    2. “All buildings and land are owned by the Airport Authority, with just a few exceptions. The FAA owns the control tower and the Post Office and the County owns the buildings at Jabara’s WSU Tech campus. But even in those cases, the land is owned by the Authority. Tenants pay land and building rent but do not pay property taxes.” ↩
    3. The Wichita Airport Authority, which will also own the structure …” McCoy, Daniel. *New hotel planned for Wichita Eisenhower National Airport. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2019/06/21/new-hotel-planned-for-wichita-eisenhower-national.html. ↩