Sedgwick County Public Works Director and County Engineer Lynn Packer told Commissioner Jeff Bluebaugh in a recorded interview that flat budgets and staff reductions have left the county doing "less with less" and struggling to keep up with routine road and stormwater maintenance. "We've been asked for a quite a long time now to keep a flat budget," Packer said. "The dollar just doesn't stretch as far as it used to."

Packer said a local sales tax historically funded the county's capital improvement program for roads and related projects but that revenue now covers fewer projects than it once did. He also said the county has "lost, probably about 15% of our workforce" since 2003, a reduction that has made some services less frequent; for example, mowing cycles have been reduced compared with past years.

The director described stormwater as a particular pinch point. "We used to have 5 personnel in stormwater, engineers and technicians. We now have a stormwater manager, just 1," Packer said. He added that without dedicated funding for everyday stormwater maintenance, the county is not making headway on many flood and drainage projects.

Residents, Bluebaugh said, are hearing rising property-tax bills and want visible improvements on roads and other services. Packer acknowledged that expectation and framed the shortfall as structural: inflation on labor and materials, reduced staff capacity and constrained operating funds. "We literally, for the last several years, have been doing less with less," he said.

Asked about revenue options, Packer listed possibilities and the trade-offs: increasing a sales tax dedicated to maintenance, creating a fee, or adjusting property taxes, each of which presents political and operational challenges. He said the county would need to consider dedicated funding for maintenance (separate from CIP) to address backlogs in stormwater and routine upkeep.

Packer also described winter preparations: crews completed mandatory snow and ice training and the county is converting trucks to plows and topping off hot-mix paving projects before the season. He recalled a recent year when "two consecutive storms kept our guys out working 24 hours a day for 7 straight days," underscoring operational strain during extreme weather.

Packer and Bluebaugh closed the interview without announcing specific new funding measures; Packer encouraged residents to contact the public works department for service requests and details on maintenance priorities.