Wichita City Council members say despite community questions about transparency, timing and motivation, a sales tax proposal by a new nonprofit is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the city.
"Wichita is at one of the rare moments where we get to choose the future instead of just settling in one by default,” council member Dalton Glasscock said Tuesday.
“I support today's ask because I believe [in] investing ourselves in safer neighborhoods, stronger infrastructure and the kind of spaces and opportunities that make Wichita home."
The “ask” of the council was a request by Wichita Forward to call a spring special election on a city sales tax. The council took the first step toward that goal on Tuesday, approving the first reading of the special election request.
A yes vote by the council on a second reading of the request on Dec. 16 means that Wichita Forward’s sales tax plan will be put to voters on March 3.
The council’s vote came after extensive public comment. Resident concerns varied, with some taking issue with a perceived lack of transparency and quick timeline for the effort.
“Good ideas don’t require force,” Faith Martin said. “People that care and pay attention and love this city would like to see the council do the due diligence to give us the time needed to make sure our questions and your questions are addressed before we rush something.”
Other residents criticized the decision to add a tax as residents continue to struggle with cost of living increases.
“You start taxing food and diapers, you'll only put more families at risk and make more people homeless,” Mark Barlow said. “No new taxation on the poor.”
The birth of the pitch
Wichita Forward was formed in September by local CEOs Aaron Bastian of Fidelity Bank, Ben Hutton of construction-design firm Hutton and Jon Rolph of Thrive Restaurant Group. They wanted to organize local support for a sales tax.
Over the last several weeks, Bastian, Hutton and Rolph have gathered supporters from their companies, local businesses and several cultural nonprofits to endorse the seven-year, 1% sales tax.
A web page described the broad strokes of Wichita Forward’s plan. During a public information session on Monday night and at the council meeting Tuesday morning, the proposal had its real public debut.
The plan goes like this: If passed by voters in a special election in the spring, Wichita would start levying a local sales tax July 1, 2026. That tax would remain in place until June 30, 2033. A local sales tax would cover the same items as the state sales tax with the addition of groceries.
Wichita Forward used information from a May council workshop to estimate that a seven-year sales tax would generate $850 million from 2026 to 2033.
The group’s plan calls for that money to be divided between five focuses. The plan would direct $250 million to Century II and the Bob Brown Convention Center; $225 million to public safety investments; $150 million to property tax relief; $150 million to housing and homelessness efforts, and $75 million to a new downtown performing arts center.
A 15-member oversight committee would also be formed to audit the use of the tax dollars and make recommendations.
Members of the public who heard Wichita Forward’s proposal over the last two days said they wanted more information about the group’s decision-making and timing for the tax proposal.
Why now?
Matt Burchett, a member of the Wichita Forward board and vice president of strategic development for Thrive Restaurant Group, said that the nonprofit saw a looming financial problem between city needs and resources in the coming year.
Wichita City Manager Bob Layton said Tuesday that the city’s budget is balanced for 2026 and 2027, but there’s an anticipated $4 million deficit in 2028 and $8 million deficit in 2029.
The deficits come as the city prepares to spend $197 million over the next decade on public safety projects like new police stations, improved fire stations and new equipment.
The deficits coincide with the end of American Rescue Plan funding, which Wichita used in part to launch and renovate the Second Light homeless shelter.
"We believe they're worthy and essential investments,” Burchett said on Monday. “We also recognize that as a city that we don't currently have the resources to execute those investments in a way that would be, we think, financially viable."
Layton told the council Tuesday that the city’s working plan is to take out bonds for the public safety improvements. The city’s policy of financing capital improvement projects with 50% cash and 50% bonds could add as much as $30 million to $35 million in interest, according to finance director Mark Manning.
Funding has been identified for the Century II renovations planned by the city, but not for renovations or expansion of the Bob Brown Convention Center.
Second Light board chair Steve Dixon said that next October, city funding for the shelter’s budget will dry up. That would leave Wichita’s new year-round facility to try to come up with its $4 million to $4.5 million operating budget elsewhere.
“I don’t think failure is an option,” Dixon said. “But unfortunately, reality is reality. If the dollars are not there and we can’t pay staff, the building would have to close.”
If the sales tax question is passed in March, the city could begin levying the tax before it needs to begin borrowing for public safety projects or the Second Light funding runs out.
The Wichita Forward plan would put $125 million of tax revenue for homelessness into an investment account intended to permanently fund a multiagency center.
Besides the approaching deficit, Wichita Forward’s timing may also be an effort to beat Sedgwick County and Wichita Public Schools to the polls.
County officials have indicated that they’re considering a 0.25% sales tax sometime next year to fund county recreation programs. Wichita Public Schools officials may make a second bond attempt in November 2026 after a $450 million bond issue failed earlier this year.
Kansas Rep. Henry Helgerson of Wichita said Tuesday that with all these tax and bond issues percolating, “It's going to be difficult to try to decide what dollar goes.”
A new cost
Helgerson advised the council against making a run at a sales tax in the coming months, in part because of concerns over the taxation of groceries.
Kansas stopped collecting state sales tax at the start of the year. The Kansas Department of Revenue estimated the end of grocery taxes saved Kansans $13 million each month this year.
But state law does not exempt groceries from local sales tax.
A city staff estimate from May projected that a 0.5% sales tax would cost the average Wichita family $27.50 in food-related sales tax each year. That amount would double under a 1% sales tax.
Helgerson is a member of the Kansas House committee on taxation. He volunteered to work on legislation that would change that, creating a similar carve out for food for both state and local sales taxes, but said that it would be “a difficult session to get anything through.”
“I won’t waffle on this,” Helgerson said. “I’m not in favor of this at this time because I think that there are other decisions that have to happen first.”
Council member Mike Hoheisel said the grocery tax issue above all others gave him the most pause. Hoheisel tried to convince his colleagues to postpone the ballot question until August in order to develop a plan for furthering legislation.
Hoheisel eventually supported the initial vote on the special election. He said he plans to spend the next week developing a model for a rebate on groceries for low-income households. He’ll bring that proposal to the council for a vote before the final sales tax vote.
"I have to make sure that we're not going to be hitting people over the head who can't take it,” Hoheisel said.
The final votes on the special election and rebate proposal are set for Dec. 16.
