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Sedgwick County to launch online budget simulator May 5 to boost early public input
Summary
County staff and academic partners previewed a draft budget-simulation tool designed to let residents trade off services and property-tax changes; commissioners raised concerns about sample bias and asked for clearer context on how the simulator relates to the county's full budget.
Sedgwick County staff and a Wichita State University researcher previewed a draft online budget simulator the commission plans to launch May 5 and keep open for three weeks to solicit public input on spending priorities funded by county property tax.
The simulator is intended to give residents a hands-on way to see trade-offs between service levels and property-tax changes, county staff said, and county finance staff will analyze results and report back in early June. The tool focuses on the general-fund portion of the county budget that is funded by property taxes and does not show the county's entire budget of roughly half a billion dollars.
County staff said the simulator is designed to address two recurring problems with traditional public hearings: participation that is both low and unrepresentative, and engagement that often arrives too late in the budget cycle to shape decisions. The project team showed a draft interface modeled on software used in other jurisdictions and said it ties service-level choices to dollar amounts so participants can see how decisions affect a stated $5.3 million shortfall in the county's requested general-fund forecast.
Project presenter (Wichita…
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