Council reviews 2026 budget targets, reduction options and sales-tax thought piece at workshop

City staff briefed the Wichita City Council May 27 on strategic pillars, draft tactics and preliminary budget scenarios for 2026'27, forecasting a $2 million shortfall for 2026 under current assumptions and presenting a menu of expenditure reductions and revenue options, including a thought piece on a possible city sales tax.

"We will share with you ... the pillars and the goals and the work that's been done," the city manager said at the start of the workshop, describing a draft implementation plan that now includes time-bound tactics tied to the council's priorities. Finance Director Elizabeth Goltry summarized 46 strategies and about 60 tactics organized under five pillars: Well Run City; Keep Wichita Safe; Grow Our Economy; Build and Maintain Dependable Infrastructure; and Living Well. Goltry said the tactics are intended to guide departmental budgets and implementation.

Staff gave the council a two-scenario budget framework: a base case and a scenario with lower property-tax revenue that requires targeted reductions. For 2026 staff presented a projected deficit of about $2,000,000 and similar pressure in 2027 under current assumptions; staff noted those figures depend on the Sedgwick County assessed valuation notice, due by state statute on June 15. "A month ago we projected a deficit of a million dollars a month ago ... and now we're projecting a deficit of $2,000,000 in May," Goltry said, describing recent adjustments including SAFER grant local-match updates and internal service fund rate changes.

Staff proposed a range of reduction concepts, arranged from items with low resident impact to options with greater community effects. Examples discussed included:

- Internal/administrative savings already realized or low impact (health-insurance experience, postage, park uniforms, HR contractual adjustments). - Library adjustments (reduce lesser-used formats, study technology and self-checkout, shift 1.5 local-history positions toward partnership support). - Municipal-court concepts (reduce collections contractuals and consider eliminating one courtroom if decreased citation volume persists; elimination would affect three positions once automated interfaces are complete). - Park and recreation changes (reduce tree-planting funding, optimize athletics official scheduling, discontinue mowing certain private-adjacent rights-of-way; staff said the number of affected properties is being analyzed). - Public-safety and high-impact options for 2027 (discontinue all animal-control field operations beginning 2027 and convert shelter into a drop-off facility; discontinue shelter operations by 2027; revert aerial truck staffing to pre-SAFER levels), which drew notable council concern. - Other options: cap cultural institution support growth, reduce public art capital programming, re-evaluate MABCD (neighborhood inspections/abatement) budgets and adjust ERU stormwater fees.

Council members asked for clarifications and registered positions on several items. Several said they opposed cuts to tree planting and to animal-control field operations; others asked that some operational changes already implemented (for example, parks pool hours and staffing adjustments tied to drought and use patterns) be treated as modified assumptions rather than reductions. Staff acknowledged the need to vet concepts further with departments and said some concepts are considered long-term or would require phased implementation.

Revenue alternatives: Mark Manning of the Department of Finance presented a "thought piece" on a possible city sales tax. Manning said Wichita is one of a small number of Kansas first-class cities without a city sales tax and that a city-level general-purpose sales tax could be used for property-tax relief and/or to cash-fund capital improvements. He estimated a 1.0% city sales tax could generate roughly $115,000,000 annually in 2027 and described statutory mechanics and timelines for a referendum, noting state law requires Department of Revenue notification and collection timelines that could delay revenue until many months after a voter approval. He also said statutory formulas determine how countywide local sales-tax revenue is distributed to cities and that past pledges and an 1985 ordinance have shaped local practice.

Council discussion emphasized trade-offs and timing. Multiple speakers noted a city sales tax referendum would require public engagement and that a sales tax would not be a reliable source for immediate 2026 balancing because of statutory notice and Department of Revenue implementation timelines. Goltry and staff advised that the council should not assume sales-tax revenue for the 2026 budget-setting schedule; the council must set a maximum levy on July 15 and adopt final levies and the budget in late August.

No formal votes were taken at the workshop; staff said they would continue refining reduction concepts, track public feedback via a budget simulator and community outreach, and return with updated materials at subsequent workshops (next scheduled workshop noted for June 25 and budget actions planned for July and August). Council members asked staff to prioritize items that are "untouchable" versus those that could be trimmed, and asked for further detail on public-safety capital needs, the potential sales-tax structure and equity mitigations (for example, measures to reduce burden on low-income households). Several council members said they would support further study of a sales tax used for capital (with a sunset or limited term tied to specific projects), but they also stressed any referendum would require robust community education.

Next steps: staff will update the materials after the county assessed-valuation notice, continue the budget-simulator engagement, and return with refined options at the June workshops; the council will set levy ceilings July 15 and adopt the budget and tax rate in August under the state schedule.