Consolidation a topic again for Wichita, Sedgwick County. What to do next is the question

City and county officials seem to agree that where local government can be consolidated efficiently, it should be.

But they haven’t reached a consensus on what to tackle next.

Sedgwick County commissioners and Wichita City Council members met Thursday and reviewed a proposal to merge the city and county cultural arts, parks and recreation services under one unified department.

Some said that plan isn’t ambitious enough.

“Move city courts to the historic courthouse. Move the County Commission into City Hall. Merge our purchasing departments in this building. We get to use your chambers on Wednesdays,” Commissioner Jim Howell suggested to the City Council.

No binding action was taken during the meeting, the first joint session of city and county government since 2022.

Mayor Lily Wu directed city staff to prepare a fiscal and operational analysis of the proposed parks and cultural arts merger in the next 60 days. At Commissioner David Dennis’ urging, the County Commission opted to delay a similar directive and to discuss the matter again next Wednesday.

Some city and county services are already consolidated, including the Metropolitan Area Planning Department, the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department, the Regional Forensic Science Center, the Law Enforcement Training Center and the Housing First (Section 8 voucher) program.

Cultural arts, parks & rec proposal

The initial idea for a parks and cultural arts merger came out of conversations between City Manager Robert Layton and County Manager Tom Stolz.

“One of the advantages is that we would try to get to a one-stop shop so that you actually wouldn’t have to know if a facility was in the city or in the county,” Layton said. “All you would have to know is, I want a recreation program. We would have joint cataloging and class registration.

“On one app, you could reserve a city park shelter and at the same time, maybe something at Lake Afton.”

Wichita State’s Public Policy and Management Center was enlisted in 2020 to interview stakeholders and come up with a merger plan. PPMC’s proposal was first presented to a joint session of city and county government in 2021 with an emphasis on providing streamlined services and encouraging public-private partnerships.

The new department would be divided into four divisions under one director, who would report to both the city and county managers:

▪ Parks — This division would be in charge of park maintenance, forestry and golf courses.

▪ Recreation — This division would manage services at county parks, including Sedgwick County Park and Lake Afton; also recreation centers, community events and City Arts.

▪ Operations/Administration — This division would handle facility rentals, registration, purchasing and communications.

▪ Cultural Arts and Attractions — This division would manage Botanica, Old Cowtown and the Mid-America All-Indian Museum; handle the private contracts for operation of Intrust Bank Arena and the planned privatization of Century II; handle collaborative partnerships with the art museum, the zoo and Exploration Place; and coordinate with attractions that are independently run and receive some public funding, such as the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, Kansas African American Museum, Museum of World Treasures, Wichita Aviation Museum, Sedgwick County Fair, the Extension Office and the Arts Council.

PPMC’s study did not include a financial analysis.

Debating the merits

City Council member Becky Tuttle said any money saved through efficiencies under the proposed model should be reinvested back into services.

“Last time when we had this en banc [meeting], that was kind of the combined feeling that this wasn’t an opportunity to take money away from parks or cultural arts to fill in gaps in other places but just a way to, if there were efficiencies or things we could do better and more cost-effectively, perhaps maybe having more services or an expansion of services,” Tuttle said.

Dennis said he’s leery of ostracizing his constituents in smaller cities outside of Wichita.

“Is it fair for us to only look at the city of Wichita for parks when every city in the county has parks?” he asked.

“I have to balance that and make sure that people in Colwich and other cities out there don’t say, ‘Hey, you’re charging us tax and you’re giving it to the city of Wichita.’ That’s a little bit of a concern.”

The county manages Sedgwick County Park, Northeast Sedgwick County Park — 600 acres of grassland and woods on unincorporated land — and Lake Afton Park. The city manages 144 parks.

Council member J.V. Johnston said citizens want to see different levels of government working with each other, not against each other.

“They don’t want us to get in our camps and get our swords out and protect our territory,” Johnston said. “They do want us to work together, and I think that goes for Colwich and Haysville and Cheney and all the communities.”

Howell questioned whether the proposal would actually increase bureaucracy.

“If you put city and county together in charge of Sedgwick County Zoo, is that more complex or less complex? Is that consolidation or is that the opposite of consolidation? I think it’s the opposite of consolidation,” Howell said.

Under the PPMC model, the zoo would continue to be managed by a nonprofit organization.

Commission Chair Ryan Baty said the conversation about sustainability in cultural arts, parks and recreation goes beyond finding efficiencies.

“Many of our constituents are very concerned that as we begin to go into budget season and we look at, hey, where can we find savings or where do we need to cut? I don’t think anybody in this room’s trying to cut public safety,” Baty said.

“When we look at these discretionary items like parks and rec — and these are vital community interests — I think what we’re trying to do in here is not just find efficiencies . . . We’ve got to protect these assets for this community.”

Other priorities

Dennis said there are more pressing issues that deserve the combined attention of Wichita and Sedgwick County leaders.

“Fire consolidation is much higher in my opinion than this. I don’t want to take our staff and start winding them around the axle on something that is not the highest-priority thing,” Dennis said. “Homelessness is an extremely high priority.”

“I don’t want to say in 60 days we’re going to come back and work this issue. We’ve got some really, really important issues that we ought to be talking about.”

Other possible ideas brought up Thursday included merging the city and county court systems, creating a regional transit authority and collaborating to provide in-house healthcare at an employee medical center.

Wu suggested the creation of a “blue-ribbon committee” made up of business people and former elected officials appointed by each City Council and County Commission member who could review recommendations for possible government consolidation.