Sedgwick County to pursue four legislative priorities, including juvenile competency funding and coroner cremains statute

Sedgwick County commissioners on Jan. 22 directed staff and their lobbyists to draft a set of four legislative proposals for the abbreviated 2025 session, county staff said at a briefing.

County staff and outside counsel presented four priorities for bill drafting and asked commissioners for guidance before the lobbyists submit bill language to the Legislature’s reviser. The four priorities are: (1) amend the statute that implemented Senate Bill 228 to add juvenile detention facilities to reimbursement provisions so counties are compensated for juveniles in custody who are awaiting evaluation or competency restoration; (2) revise election statutes to reduce the number of separate local election dates (the briefing noted options include aligning local ballot measures with primary or general elections); (3) change how Sedgwick County’s share of a 1% countywide sales tax is distributed — proposing assessed value (instead of property-tax levy) as the distribution metric; and (4) amend statutes to provide the district coroner clear authority to dispose of unclaimed cremated remains and related low-value personal property after a reasonable retention period.

Staff said the juvenile competency item follows a state action that provided reimbursement for adults but did not add juveniles; county attorneys drafted language to extend similar reimbursement to juveniles who must wait for evaluation or restoration and who currently may remain in custody without access to treatment. Staff said Johnson County and others were consulted; Sedgwick County officials said they face the largest local population challenge.

On election timing, Election Commissioner Laura Rainwater and staff described difficulties maintaining voter rolls and administering multiple spring election dates. The county asked lobbyists to explore statutory changes to allow jurisdictions to consolidate local ballot-question dates, and commissioners discussed narrowing the county platform to work within Secretary of State guidance (some commissioners suggested confining changes to the primary or general election dates if that is the Secretary’s preference).

On the sales-tax redistribution proposal, staff said the current statutory formula (in place since 1985) splits shared 1% sales tax partly by population and partly by property-tax levy, which reduces a government’s share when it lowers mill levies. Staff recommended moving the property-tax component to an assessed-value basis to stabilize distributions; staff’s analysis showed small distribution shifts for most cities and an estimated county benefit and a modest reduction to Wichita’s shared percentage (from 39.3% to about 38.2% in the staff example).

For the coroner statute, staff said current law is vague and has left the county storing cremated remains and associated low-value property indefinitely. County attorneys prepared bill language modeled on mortuary statutes to authorize disposal of unclaimed remains after defined retention steps; staff said Johnson County and other jurisdictions reviewed the approach and raised no objections.

Commissioners asked lobbyists to proceed with drafting; county legal counsel provided draft bill language to speed the reviser’s process. Commissioners and staff rated the bills by expected ease of passage: several said the elections and coroner language are likely to be straightforward, the sales-tax redistribution will be politically contested among municipalities, and the juvenile competency funding may face resistance because it imposes state costs.

What’s next: Staff and Watkins lobbyists will prepare bill-ready language and file drafting requests with the Legislature’s reviser, per the commission’s direction. The commission asked staff to coordinate with the Secretary of State’s office on the election timing item and to continue outreach to municipal partners on the sales-tax redistribution proposal.