Sedgwick County presents tentative 2026–2030 capital plan, highlights Comcare campus and forensic lab needs

Sedgwick County staff on Wednesday presented a tentative 2026–2030 capital improvement program to the Board of County Commissioners that packages dozens of facility and drainage projects and proposes a funding plan that mixes cash and bond financing.

The proposal, delivered by Lindsay Poverizzo, was explicitly labeled tentative. “This is, we're going over 2026 through 2030, the tentative, I emphasize tentative, capital improvement program,” Poverizzo told commissioners, adding the document was for discussion and refinement rather than final approval.

The plan groups projects by urgency and finances: priority (category 1) projects that staff say should be addressed in the next year, category 2 projects planned for years two and three, later-year items and a watch list of projects that need more study. Poverizzo said the package presented to the commission improves the county’s financial forecast compared with earlier projections and that staff prefer cash funding when feasible but will use debt for long-lived assets.

Staff highlighted several large or emergent facility projects. A proposed Comcare campus would consolidate administrative and clinical services currently spread across multiple leased sites; staff said the county could use increased Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) reimbursement to repay debt rather than property tax revenue. “We would anticipate going and using these dollars in our next rebasing so that we could begin to pay off bond proceeds using CCBHC revenues,” Poverizzo said. Commissioners asked for a workshop to flesh out size, timing and site options; staff said the presentation is a first step, and the county will pursue existing buildings or new construction depending on what the market offers.

Staff also described a re-scoped Regional Forensic Science Center project. The county previously planned a smaller project that depended on acquiring nearby property; when that purchase failed, staff said the alternative is a new, larger facility to house DNA, firearms, drug identification and fire debris labs, with the current DNA space repurposed for toxicology and medical investigations. Poverizzo said debt that had been planned for an administrative building can be redirected to the forensic center, limiting net forecast impact. “We had authorized a $27,000,000 bond issuance total for an Admin Building. We issued half of that funding up front...we're able to take the debt service that had been planned for the Admin Building and divert it to the regional forensic science center,” she said.

Other facility items on the tentative plan include elevator modernizations, roof and parking-lot maintenance, building automation system and HVAC replacements across multiple county buildings, courthouse perimeter security bollards, elevator and public-elevator updates, a public-works salt storage building and phased replacements of jail domestic hot water heaters. Poverizzo said the county’s building-automation system is more than 20 years old and requires replacement; commissioners asked for a cost–benefit analysis and earlier analyses of energy savings.

Public-safety projects called out in the packet include: replacing or upgrading sirens, a county emergency preparedness center (which includes a FEMA-rated emergency operations center portion), and reimbursements planned for recent work such as the main-courthouse chiller replacement and certain adult detention electrical repairs. Poverizzo said the emergency preparedness center is planned for bond funding with issuance timing later in the plan, and staff will continue to pursue federal grant opportunities but were skeptical of near-term success.

Commissioners and department leaders pressed staff on implementation details and timing. Commissioner Meitzner asked where the new forensic building might locate; Poverizzo identified available county-owned parcels and adjacent lots near the health department as potential options but said staff would return with maps and a formal recommendation. Multiple commissioners asked for workshops on the Comcare campus and a planned training facility for the county fire partners so policy makers could weigh siting, financing and partner roles.

Staff presented high-level funding totals: the tentative facilities and drainage package was described during the meeting as roughly a $104,000,000 facilities program plus about $3,700,000 of drainage requests (Poverizzo at one point summarized a combined facilities-and-drainage total as $107,000,000). Poverizzo said much of the county’s five-year roads-and-bridges proposal (covered separately by Public Works) is funded from other sources; roads-and-bridges funding is addressed in a separate presentation. She also noted the county held about $37,000,000 of excess unassigned general-fund balance under the accounting measure staff use for capital planning and that the county’s debt policy favors cash funding when appropriate and sets structural targets for bond amortization and principal paydown.

Commissioners did not vote on any item; staff framed the CIP as a tentative recommendation and said additional workshops and one-on-one briefings will follow ahead of the recommended budget and final decisions.

Ending: County staff asked commissioners to flag priorities and schedule follow-up briefings. Poverizzo said staff will return with additional detail, a rebasing timetable for the CCBHC revenue discussion, and maps or options for the forensic center and Comcare campus if the commission wants to move forward toward a formal CIP recommendation.