Howell says county government lets commissioners act faster than state legislature; cites Boys Ranch closure as reason he ran

Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell said he ran for public office after becoming frustrated with how the state and the county handled a juvenile program and that the county commission’s smaller size and authority let elected officials implement changes more quickly than the state legislature.

Howell, who served two terms in the Kansas House, described the moment that galvanized him to pursue county office: a South Central delegation meeting in 2012 when he said a local official warned the county might have to close a youth program he called the Boys Ranch. “I thought, well, I’ll take this as a mandate,” Howell said, recalling a push to secure funding and avoid the program’s closure. He said the county ultimately halted the effort and that the facility was shut down.

The decision to run for county commissioner came after Howell said he concluded there was substantial work at the county level he could influence. “It’s a very large part of government,” Howell said of Sedgwick County: “46 different agencies and nearly 3,000 employees and the size of our budget, about $600,000,000 right now in terms of taxes and spending and then public safety services and infrastructure human services.”

Jeff Luboff, Sedgwick County commissioner for District 2, and Howell compared the two levels of government in an interview. Howell said the Kansas Legislature is fast-paced, confined to a roughly 90-day session that requires agreement across two chambers and the governor, which makes getting laws passed more difficult. “You have to get everybody to agree including the governor,” he said. By contrast, he described county work as year-round, with a five-member commission able to focus on a single issue and implement changes immediately, then adjust later if necessary.

Howell said his background—engineering and problem solving—shapes how he approaches county business. “I come at this from an engineering perspective; data is really what drives my thinking,” he said. Luboff said the two share an analytical approach; he described Howell as a resource on the county’s legislative agenda because of his experience in Topeka.

Howell also described a personal element to local politics: his wife later ran for and won a seat in the state legislature, after the couple moved a short distance to make the campaign possible. He said the move reflected their long-term ties to the community and allowed them to support each other’s work at different levels of government.

The interview included contact information Howell and Luboff offered during the conversation.