Voice For Liberty

Tag: Economic development

  • Wichita tourism fee budget

    Wichita tourism fee budget

    The Wichita City Council will consider a budget for the city’s tourism fee paid by hotel guests.

    If you stay at a hotel in Wichita, you’ll pay sales tax of 7.5 percent, hotel tax (transient guest tax) of 6.00 percent, and since 2015, a tourism fee of 2.75 percent. The tourism fee arises from the city’s creating of a Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID), with boundaries matching those of the city. 1 Funds collected from this fee go to Visit Wichita, the city’s visitor and convention bureau. (Of note, the TBID ordinance specifies that if the tax is itemized on hotel bills, it is to be called the “Tourism Fee.” Everyone pays, even those who are not tourists.) (Also, some hotels are in Community Improvement Districts, charging up to another 2 percent.)

    Coming to Wichita for business. (Click for a larger version.)

    This week the Wichita City Council will consider the budget for the use of this tourism fee revenue. 2 City documents (the agenda packet) show actual results and goals for economic impact. As can be seen in the nearby excerpt, for leisure travel in 2017, Visit Wichita claims $81,343,227 in economic impact. This figure comes from summing identifiable dollars, which comes to $20,433,737. Then a multiplier is applied to produce the economic impact. All this results in a return of investment of $53 dollars for every dollar of investment (“Media Leisure Investment”), Visit Wichita says. (This is for the “leisure” market segment only. There are separate goals and statistics for group travel, which is meetings, conventions, or sporting events.)

    This data represents what is called “incremental” travel, for which Visit Wichita takes credit: “The rate of travel by those who are ‘unaware’ is considered the base rate of travel, which would have been achieved if no advertising were placed. Any travel above this base by ‘aware’ households is considered influenced — or the rate of incremental travel.” 3

    As for the performance of the overall Wichita hotel market, growth is slow. Looking at growth in hotel tax collections, only two of the ten largest markets in Kansas have grown slower than Wichita. This is since January 1, 2015, which was when the tourism fee started. (Hotel tax collections collected by the Kansas Department of Revenue do not include local taxes like the city tourism fee.)

    Further, if we were expecting a boost in hotel sales from the recent hosting of NCAA basketball tournament games, that didn’t happen. See Effect of NCAA basketball tournament on Wichita hotel tax revenues.

    Kansas transient guest tax collections are available in an interactive visualization here.

    Example from the visualization. Click for larger.

    —
    Notes

    1. City of Wichita, Ordinance No. 49-677. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/CityClerk/OrdanicesDocuments/49-677%20TBID%20Ordinance%20-%20version%204.pdf. ↩
    2. Wichita city council agenda packet for May 1, 2018. ↩
    3. City council agenda packet. ↩
  • Liquor tax and the NCAA basketball tournament in Wichita

    Liquor tax and the NCAA basketball tournament in Wichita

    Liquor enforcement tax collections provide insight into the economic impact of hosting NCAA basketball tournament games in Wichita.

    In Kansas, a tax is collected at liquor stores, grocery stores, and convenience stores on the sale of alcoholic beverages. The same tax is also collected on sales to clubs, drinking establishments, and caterers by distributors. 1 This tax is called the liquor enforcement tax. The rate has been 8 percent since 1983, when it was raised from 4 percent. 2

    This tax provides some insight into the level of sales of alcoholic beverages at bars, clubs, and restaurants. It is not a perfect measurement of that, and perhaps not even a very good measurement, as it also includes sales at retail outlets for consumption offsite.

    Nonetheless, it’s data we have. The Kansas Department of Revenue provides this data on a monthly basis for each county. With the touted influx of visitors for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament games in Wichita in May — along with the generalized party atmosphere — we might to expect to see these tax collections rise during March. Here’s what happened.

    The liquor tax collections exhibit pronounced seasonality, so it’s useful to compare the same month of the previous year, as follows for Sedgwick County:

    March 2017: $1,315,653
    March 2018: $1,085,214
    Change: -$230,439, a decline of 17.5 percent.

    Not only was March 2018 lower than March 2017, it was lower than five of the previous six months of March.

    The monthly average for the 12 months prior to March 2018 was $1,243,793. March 2018 didn’t meet that standard.

    Kansas liquor enforcement tax collections are available in an interactive visualization here.

    Liquor enforcement tax collections in Sedgwick County. Click for larger.

    —
    Notes

    1. “Liquor Enforcement or Sales Tax. The second level of taxation is the enforcement or sales tax, which is imposed on the gross receipts from the sale of liquor or CMB to consumers by retail liquor dealers and grocery and convenience stores; and to clubs, drinking establishments, and caterers by distributors.”
      Also: “Enforcement. Enforcement tax is an in-lieu-of sales tax imposed at the rate of 8 percent on the gross receipts of the sale of liquor to consumers and on the gross receipts from the sale of liquor and CMB to clubs, drinking establishments, and caterers by distributors.
      A consumer purchasing a $10 bottle of wine at a liquor store is going to pay 80 cents in enforcement tax.
      The club owner buying the case of light wine (who already had paid the 30 cents per gallon gallonage tax as part of his acquisition cost) also now would pay the 8 percent enforcement tax.”
      Kansas Legislative Research Department. Kansas Legislator Briefing Book 2017. Available at http://www.kslegresearch.org/KLRD-web/Publications/BriefingBook/2017Briefs/J-4-LiquorTaxes.pdf. ↩
    2. Kansas Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association. A Brief Review of Alcoholic Beverages in Kansas. Available at http://www.kwswa.org/KSBeverageAlcoholHistory.pdf. ↩
  • Effect of NCAA basketball tournament on Wichita hotel tax revenues

    Effect of NCAA basketball tournament on Wichita hotel tax revenues

    Hotel tax collections provide an indication of the economic impact of hosting a major basketball tournament.

    The Kansas Department of Revenue has released transient guest tax collections for March 2018. This is a tax added to hotel bills in addition to sales tax. The rate in Kansas is 6.00 percent, although some localities add additional tax to that.

    For the city of Wichita, here are the collections:

    March 2017: $538,539
    March 2018: $543,844
    Increase: $5,305 or 0.99 percent

    With the hotel tax at 6.00 percent, that increase implies additional sales of $88,417 for the same month of the prior year. (The 2.75% tourism fee that is also added to Wichita hotel bills is paid directly to the city, so it does not appear in the statistics from the Kansas Department of Revenue.)

    While an increase from the same month of the previous year is good, the average monthly hotel tax collections for the year before (March 2017 through February 2018) was $590,770.

    So March 2018 didn’t exceed the average month of the previous year. It also didn’t exceed March 2016. Whatever was happening in Wichita during that month, the city generated $665,854 in hotel taxes.

    Kansas transient guest tax collections are available in an interactive visualization here.

    Wichita hotel tax collections. Click for larger.
  • Why Wichita may not have the workforce

    Why Wichita may not have the workforce

    If Wichita-area companies can’t fill jobs, the declining labor force may be the reason. Who is responsible?

    The Chung Report has a recent article noting the low unemployment rate in Wichita. That may make it difficult to fill jobs: “Wichita also has a low unemployment rate, which has seen steep decline in the past five years and now sets at 3.9 percent, below the national average of 4.1 percent. So even if companies are dead set on hiring, do we have the available workforce?” 1

    It’s a useful article. But where it could be better, especially when discussing how Wichita companies will find workers to fill anticipated new jobs, is to note the shrinking Wichita labor force.

    Here is a table of data for the Wichita MSA from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. 2 It is part of the Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), which is a “monthly survey of households conducted by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” 3

    I chose the year ending January 2011 as a comparison point, as it is near the low point of the great recession. Since then, the unemployment rate has fallen greatly, and is just half the rate of 2010.

    But that isn’t the total story. It isn’t even the most important part of the story. Since the unemployment rate is a ratio, it has two moving parts, specifically the number of unemployed people and the number of people in the labor force. (The labor force, broadly, is the number of persons working plus those actively looking for work.)

    It is possible that the unemployment rate falls while the number of people employed falls or rises slowly. This is the general trend in Wichita for the past seven years or so. The nearby table illustrates this. The labor force has fallen, and by a lot, while employment growth has been modest.

    In fact, of the changes, we can say that 35.2 percent of the change in the unemployment rate is due to new jobs, while 67.8 percent of the change is due to a smaller labor force.

    So when Wichita leaders ask “Do we have the workforce?” the answer might be no. The next question ought to be “Why not?”

    Our leaders are quick and eager to take credit for economic development gains. But what about the shrinking labor force caused by the many of the same leaders and their policies?

    As the proverb says, “Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan.”

    —
    Notes

    1. The Chung Report. Predicting Future Jobs. Available at https://thechungreport.com/where-are-all-the-new-jobs/. ↩
    2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. Available at https://www.bls.gov/lau/. ↩
    3. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey. Available at https://www.bls.gov/cps/. ↩
  • Project Wichita, remember Visioneering Wichita

    Project Wichita, remember Visioneering Wichita

    As Project Wichita gets ready to gather information and set goals, let’s be aware that we’ve done this before, and not long ago.

    Project Wichita is a new initiative to do something about the future of Wichita. I hope it works. But we’ve been down this road before, and I don’t know of anything created that has been of lasting value.

    That past effort was Visioneering Wichita. I’d supply a link to its website, but the site went stale from lack of updates. Eventually it was abandoned, although its remnants may be found at archive.org. (Visioneering Wichita does have a Facebook page, although it hasn’t been updated for eight years.)

    Here’s one of the goals that Visioneering Wichita created for the city:

    Income Growth: The Wichita MSA must increase its focus on those non-manufacturing job sectors that generate higher pay. Since 2002, the Wichita per capita income as a percent of the United States per capita income has slowly increased, and in 2006 and 2007, the value exceeded 100%, for the first time since 1987.16 In spite of the recent uptick in Wichita’s per capita income as a percentage of the United States, it is expected that it will continue the longer term decline c until: a) the decline in manufacturing jobs stops b) the gap between the United States and Wichita in non-manufacturing earnings per job begins to decrease and c) the gap in minority income is decreased. 1

    Charts from Visioneering Wichita, May 2009. Click for larger.

    Per Capita Personal Income, Wichita and Visioneering Peers. Click for larger.
    I’ve gathered data on per capita personal income through 2016, the latest year for a full year of data, and prepared charts similar to those Visioneering used. Wichita per capita personal income continues to be lower than the cities identified as Visioneering peers, except for Oklahoma City. In fact, Wichita per capita personal income was lower in 2016 than in 2014.

    Wichita and United States Per Capita Personal Income. Click for larger.
    Comparing Wichita to the nation, we see that Wichita took a downturn the past few years.

    Personal Income, Wichita and Visioneering Peers. Click for larger.
    Per capita measures, while useful, are not without caveats that need to be understood and considered. For example, if half the people of Wichita moved to other cities, the per capita income would not change if the income of those who left was evenly distributed compared to the original distribution.

    Staff of the Visioneering Wichita project used to provide updates on these statistics from time to time. The last update provided to officials that I can recall was in 2013.

    Wichita civilian labor force through January 2018. Click for larger.
    Speaking of moving from Wichita, one of the things our region needs to address is the shrinking labor force. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Wichita labor force is on the decline, while it is rising for the nation.

    Of the declining labor force, Wichita government and civic leaders use this in two different, and conflicting, ways. First, the declining labor force means that even though job growth is very low, the unemployment rate has dropped, and by a lot. This improved unemployment rate is trumpeted by politicians and bureaucrats. Second, we see concern that Wichita may not have the workers necessary to fill jobs in expanding companies like Spirit Aerosystems. This is used to promote increasing spending on incentives and training infrastructure.

    Wichita manufacturing jobs, through January 2018. Click for larger.
    By the way, the Visioneering report mentioned the decline in manufacturing jobs. The data shows that since the end of the Great Recession, the number of manufacturing jobs in the Wichita area is slowly declining, while rising for the nation at the same time.

    Perhaps the best thing Project Wichita could do is to reveal the truth about the Wichita economy and the economic development infrastructure we’ve built. The Chung Report has done a bit of this. But I don’t think our civic leaders act as through they know and understand. It is against their self-interest to admit that what they’ve done hasn’t been working.

    —
    Notes

    1. Visioneering Wichita Revised Vision Document, May 2009. ↩
  • Free standing emergency department about to open in Wichita

    Free standing emergency department about to open in Wichita

    A project in Wichita received substantial subsidy from taxpayers. How have public policy issues been reported?

    Free standing emergency rooms are a recent trend in medical care. This is a facility that has equipment, personnel, and capability like a traditional hospital emergency room, but is not connected to a hospital. The first in Wichita is nearly ready to open, on Twenty-first Street east of Webb Road.

    Regarding the Wichita facility, the Wichita Business Journal quoted Malik Idbeis, chief information officer for Kansas Medical Center: “We see a lot of patients from the northeast side of Wichita. We thought it’d be nice to bring our style of care closer to them. There are a lot of neighborhoods and families in that area.” 1

    Here, the spokesman is promoting that facility is located convenient to (affluent) families in northeast Wichita. That wasn’t the argument made to the Wichita City Council last year when the facility applied for tax relief through the Industrial Revenue Bonds program. At that time, the facility was pitched as an attraction that would serve many out-of-town customers. City documents reported: “The current Economic Development Policy requires medical facilities to attract at least 30% of patients from outside the Wichita MSA. Kansas Medical Center reviewed the location of patients utilizing the emergency room in Andover, which revealed that 37% come from outside the Wichita MSA.” 2

    It seems a stretch to assume that the demographic characteristics of a hospital in Andover would also apply to an emergency room in Wichita, but the city council accepted this reasoning.

    Aside from this, the Wichita Business Journal article contains problems in its reporting of public policy issues. The reporter wrote: “Last summer, the Wichita City Council authorized issuing industrial revenue bonds for the project to help finance land and construction costs. With IRBs, the city serves as a pass-through entity for developers to obtain a lower interest rate on projects. IRBs require no taxpayer commitment.” (For background on IRBs in Kansas, see Industrial revenue bonds in Kansas.)

    It’s not likely the facility will save on interest costs with IRBs. It might save if the bonds were non-taxable, but these bonds are taxable, according to the agenda packet for this item. The article is correct in that IRBs require no taxpayer commitment — at least superficially. Here, I believe the reporter is letting readers know that the city makes no guarantee as to the bond repayment. If the city guaranteed repayment, that would help the borrower obtain a lower interest rate. But there is no guarantee.

    Instead, the benefit of the IRB program is lower taxes. The city estimates the first-year property tax savings to be $61,882, allocated this way: City of Wichita: $17,226. State of Kansas: $792. Sedgwick County: $5,520. USD 259 (Wichita public school district): $28,345. Savings like this would be realized for five years, plus another five years if employment commitments are met.

    This property tax forgiveness is, in many ways, a “taxpayer commitment.” If we don’t recognize that, then we must reconsider the foundation of local tax policy.

    In Wichita, as in most cities, the largest consumers of property tax dollars are the city, county, and school district. All justify their tax collections by citing the services they provide: Law enforcement, fire protection, education, etc. It is for providing these services that we pay local taxes.

    But through the Industrial Revenue Bond program, properties don’t pay property tax. (In the case of this facility, the property tax abatement is limited to 88 percent of the full tax burden.)

    Yet, this new facility will undoubtedly demand and consume the services local government provides — law enforcement, fire protection, and education. But it won’t be paying property tax to support these services (except for the 12 percent not abated). Others will have to pay this cost.

    We’re left with an uncomfortable and awkward circumstance. City officials tell us that we must pay property tax so the city can provide services. (In fact, last year the Wichita city manager recommended increasing property taxes to pay for more police officers.)

    At the same time, however, the city creates special classes of people who use services but don’t pay for them.

    Often the justification for economic development incentives is economic necessity, that is, the project could not be built without the incentive. That argument was not made for this project.

    Free standing emergency rooms

    Free standing emergency departments are controversial. The notes to this article hold references to news articles and academic studies looking at the costs and usage of these facilities. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

    Researchers note that the emergency rooms are much more expensive than traditional doctor offices or urgent care facilities, yet many of the diagnoses made at the ERs are the same as made at non-emergency facilities.

    —
    Notes

    1. Heck, Josh. Medical group sets opening date for free-standing ER. Wichita Business Journal. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2018/04/06/medical-group-sets-opening-date-for-free-standing.html. ↩
    2. City of Wichita. Request for Letter of Intent for Industrial Revenue Bonds (E Wichita Properties, LLC/Kansas Medical Center, LLC). City Council agenda packet for June 6, 2017. ↩
    3. NBC News. You Thought It Was An Urgent Care Center, Until You Got the Bill. Available at https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/you-thought-it-was-urgent-care-center-until-you-got-n750906. ↩
    4. Carolyn Y. Johnson. Free-standing ERs offer care without the wait. But patients can still pay $6,800 to treat a cut. Washington Post, May 7, 2017. Available at http://wapo.st/2pUCskD?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.21bb76a447aa. ↩
    5. Rice, Sabriya.Texans overpaid for some medical services by thousands, study says. Dallas Morning News. Available at https://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/2017/03/23/texans-overpaid-medical-services-thousands-study-said. ↩
    6. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas. Rice U. Study: Freestanding Emergency Departments In Texas Deliver Costly Care, ‘Sticker Shock’. Available at https://www.bcbstx.com/company-info/news/news?lid=j0s5sm9d. ↩
    7. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc. Dissecting the Cost of a Freestanding Emergency Department Visit. Available at https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/ucaoa.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/Alan_Ayers_Blog/UCAOA_Ayers_Blog_FSED_Pricin.pdf. ↩
    8. Michael L. Callaham. Editor in Chief Overview: A Controversy About Freestanding Emergency Departments. Annals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 70, Issue 6, 2017, pp. 843-845. Available at http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(17)31505-6/fulltext. ↩
    9. Ho, Vivian et al. Comparing Utilization and Costs of Care in Freestanding Emergency Departments, Hospital Emergency Departments, and Urgent Care Centers. Annals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 70 , Issue 6 , 846 – 857.e3. Available at http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(16)31522-0/fulltext. ↩
    10. Jeremiah D. Schuur, Donald M. Yealy, Michael L. Callaham. Comparing Freestanding Emergency Departments, Hospital-Based Emergency Departments, and Urgent Care in Texas: Apples, Oranges, or Lemons? Annals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 70, Issue 6, 2017, pp. 858-861. Available at http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(17)30473-0/fulltext. ↩
  • Wichita baseball consulting contract extension may have no discussion

    Wichita baseball consulting contract extension may have no discussion

    The City of Wichita proposes to extend a baseball consulting contract without public explanation or discussion.

    Wichita city leaders want a better baseball team, not to mention a new stadium. To help find a minor league baseball team, the city engaged a consultant last October. 1 That contract called for a spending limit of $50,000. 2

    You may have noticed that there has not been an announcement of a team. It also appears that the $50,000 spending cap of the October contract has been reached (or nearly so). So next Tuesday the city council will consider spending (up to) another $50,000 with the same consultant. 3

    Why the need for a contract extension? City documents explain: “Over the course of the past six months, Beacon has made successful inroads into the affiliated baseball community presenting the opportunities for MiLB and its teams. Due to the success in attracting the interest of affiliated baseball, staff believes it is imperative to further pursue affiliated baseball discussions with the assistance and expertise of Beacon Sports Capital Partners, LLC.”

    I’m afraid I just don’t understand. The consultant’s effort has been successful, says the city, but yet there is no team. It’s really puzzling because last August Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell was confident there would be an announcement before the end of 2017:

    “By the end of this calendar year, we feel confident that we will be able to announce a team, who the team is, all of the above,” Longwell told The Eagle Tuesday afternoon. “We hope that we can complete all of those conversations by the end of this year and be able to announce a contract in place.” 4

    That confidence was expressed before the engagement of the consultant in October.

    Consent agenda, again

    The city council will deal with this matter on its consent agenda. A consent agenda is a group of items — perhaps as many as two dozen or so — that are voted on in bulk with a single vote. An item on a consent agenda will be explained and discussed only if a council member requests the item to be “pulled.” If that is done, there will be discussion. Then the item might be withdrawn, delayed, voted on by itself, or folded back into the consent agenda with the other items.

    “Pulling” an item is uncommon, as items on consent agendas are not controversial, at least according to the city’s reasoning. I suppose that applies to this item, as the first contract with this consultant was also handled on the consent agenda. And on March 27 the council authorized the spending of over $7 million on a consent agenda item. 5

    —
    Notes

    1. Weeks, Bob. A consultant to help Wichita’s confidence factor. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/consultant-help-wichita-confidence-factor/. ↩
    2. “MiLB Baseball Consultant Contract.” Wichita City Council Agenda packet for October 24, 2017. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/10-24-2017%20City%20Council%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
    3. “MiLB Baseball Consultant Contract Amendment.” Wichita City Council Agenda packet for April 10, 2018. Agenda Report No. II-15. Available at <a href=”http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/04-10-2018%20City%20Council%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
    4. Salazar, Daniel. Expect affiliated baseball team announcement by end of 2017, Wichita mayor says. Wichita Eagle, August 29, 2017. Available at http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article170095417.html. ↩
    5. Weeks, Bob. In Wichita, spending semi-secret. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-spending-semi-secret/. ↩
  • Project Wichita right to look ahead at city’s future

    Project Wichita right to look ahead at city’s future

    We can understand self-serving politicians and bureaucrats. It’s what they do. But a city’s newspaper editorial board ought to be concerned with the truth.

    In February the Wichita Eagle editorialized about Project Wichita, a ramping-up effort to do something about the future of Wichita. 1 It’s worthwhile to take a look at the op-ed, if only to learn something about the quality of Wichita Eagle editorial writing.

    I understand civic boosterism; the desire to paint a positive image of the future. But this rosy outlook has to be based, at least loosely, on facts. Following, a look at a few claims made in the editorial.

    “Our downtown is becoming more of a destination and place to live.”
    The problem is this: Wichita economic development officials use a circuitous method of estimating the population of downtown Wichita, producing a number much higher than Census Bureau estimates. Downtown Wichita, the city’s economic development agency responsible for downtown, says the population of downtown is 2,138, which is far — really far — outside the range the Census Bureau gives. For more about this, see Living in downtown Wichita.

    As far as a destination for business, the U.S. Census Bureau tracks business trends by zip code. For zip code 67202, which is downtown Wichita, results since 2007 show fewer business establishments, fewer people working downtown, and lower earnings generated in downtown Wichita. In all cases, the trend is lower. For more about this, see Downtown Wichita business trends.

    Further, Wichita leaders have exaggerated the number of people working in downtown. For years our leaders told us there were 26,000 daytime workers in downtown Wichita. But this claim is based on misuse of data so blatant it can be described only as malpractice. In fact, this figure is now omitted from the state of downtown reports. No one will accept responsibility for this mistake. See Downtown Wichita jobs, sort of and Downtown Wichita report omits formerly prominent data.

    “But Wichita feels pretty good about itself, which suggests the community is at the perfect time to think about its future.”
    I have to say, we’ve been hoodwinked, and by our top leaders. Recently both the mayor of Wichita and chair of the county commission penned upbeat editorials praising our economy. See Mayor Longwell’s pep talk and Sedgwick County’s David Dennis on economic development.

    But the reality is quite different. See:

    Given this, why do the mayor, county commission chair, and our newspaper’s editorial board say what they do? The first two are politicians, but we ought to ask that our newspaper seek the truth, not personal political gain.

    “It will get more serious in March, when students and volunteers from Wichita State University’s Public Policy and Management Center …”
    This is the same organization on which the city relies for many services, including the gathering of public input in past campaigns like the 2014 sales tax election. The city seemed sure that tax would pass, but voters rejected it by a wide margin. 2

    “Public Policy director Misty Bruckner and her group will deliver feedback and conclusions to Project Wichita’s four co-chairs.”
    A few years ago Bruckner co-authored a paper titled “Citizen Attachment: Building Sustainable Communities.” 3 My reporting on it was titled Wichita needs more, and willing, taxpayers. An excerpt: “Increasingly, citizens are retreating from their responsibilities to community and demanding more from government than they are willing to pay for. But changes in local government behavior can be instrumental in reversing this trend, by strengthening citizens’ commitment to the well-being of their communities. Citizens who are committed to community are more willing to accept responsibility for the well-being of their fellow citizens and are also more likely to join with government and other parties to improve their communities. Citizens who are committed to community are also more willing taxpayers — that is, when government demonstrates that it can be trusted to invest public resources in ways that strengthen the community. The central thrust of this model is getting citizens and governments to work together, but realistically, many communities will require new revenue — including additional tax dollars — if they are to assemble the critical mass of resources necessary for meaningful change. Accordingly, citizens who are willing to pay increased taxes are an important component of building sustainable communities.” (emphasis added)

    Please don’t fault me for being cynical when I suspect that this entire operation is designed to prepare Wichitans (or the region) for a tax increase.

    “Community input will be as wide as the city limits.”
    Wait a moment. I thought we were supposed to think regionally.

    “Project Wichita seems similar to Visioneering Wichita …”
    I wonder if anyone remembers anything positive that resulted from Visioneering Wichita. After a few years, the organization’s website went stale, and staff discontinued making presentation to the city council and county commission See Visioneering asks for money. Let’s ask these questions.

    “Unlike Visioneering, Project Wichita isn’t headed by city or county government.”
    Visioneering Wichita was led by the Chamber of Commerce, not government. Local governments made financial contributions to Visioneering, just as they are also contributing to Project Wichita. 4

    —
    Notes

    1. Wichita Eagle Editorial Board. Project Wichita right to look ahead at city’s future. Available at http://www.kansas.com/opinion/editorials/article198178899.html. ↩
    2. Ryan, Kelsey. Voters soundly defeat Wichita sales tax proposal. Available at http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article3567045.html. ↩
    3. See http://www.gfoa.org/sites/default/files/GFR_OCT_10_24.pdf. ↩
    4. Wichita Business Journal. Sedgwick County Commission approves Visioneering Wichita funding. Available at https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/2012/12/sedgwick-county-commission-approves.html. ↩
  • Wichita employment down, year-over-year

    Wichita employment down, year-over-year

    At a time Wichita leaders promote forward momentum in the Wichita economy, year-over-year employment has fallen.

    Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment statistics through February 2018. 1

    One of the tables released is “Over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for metropolitan areas, not seasonally adjusted,” which shows changes in jobs from February 2017 to February 2018. 2 For this time period for the Wichita metropolitan area, the number of nonfarm jobs fell from 294.7 thousand to 292.3 thousand, a decline of 2,400 jobs or 0.8 percent.

    In February, 313 metropolitan areas had over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment, 69 had decreases, and 6 had no change.

    Over the same period, the unemployment rate in the Wichita MSA fell from 4.6 percent to 4.1 percent. The labor force fell from 309,336 to 304,886.

    —
    Notes

    1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary. Available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm. ↩
    2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for metropolitan areas, not seasonally adjusted. Available at https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/metro_oty_change.htm. ↩