From the Wichita Pachyderm Club: Sedgwick County Commission candidates Richard Ranzau and Hugh Nicks. These are Republicans vying for the District 4 nomination. Recorded June 8, 2018.
The primary election is August 7, 2018. District 4 includes downtown and north-central Wichita, Park City, Maize, and Valley Center.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Kansas Representative Susan Humphries, a Republican who represents district 99 (east Wichita and Andover), gives an update on Kansas legislative affairs. View below, or click here to view at youTube. Episode 199, broadcast June 9, 2018.
Sedgwick County had fewer jobs in 2017 than in 2016.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released new data for the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. This represents data for the complete year of 2017, on a preliminary basis.
From December 2016 to December 2017 Sedgwick County employment was level, changing by 0.0 percent. According to the BLS news release, that ranked 317 of the 347 largest counties.
As can be seen in the chart of change in job levels, 2017 continues a trend of slower job growth in Sedgwick County, with the growth trend turning negative.
Nonetheless, Sedgwick County leaders, as well as other local leaders, proclaim momentum in the local economy. Earlier this year Sedgwick County Commissioner David Dennis penned a column for the Wichita Eagle praising the county’s efforts in economic development. 1 Dennis is also chair of the commission this year. 2
In his column, the commissioner wrote: “Economic development is a key topic for the Board of County Commissioners and for me in particular. Right now we have a lot of momentum to make our community a more attractive place for people and businesses.”
In the same column he also wrote “There is a lot of momentum and forward movement in our community right now and I’m encouraged to see what we can achieve as a team.”
Looking at these statistics, it’s difficult to see how anyone could come to these conclusions.
According to BLS, “The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers covering more than 95 percent of U.S. jobs, available at the county, MSA, state and national levels by industry.” Also “The primary economic product is the tabulation of employment and wages of establishments which report to the Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs of the United States. Employment covered by these UI programs represents about 97% of all wage and salary civilian employment in the country.”
Source of data is Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, specifically series ENU2017310010: “All Employees in Total Covered Total, all industries for All establishment sizes in Sedgwick County, Kansas, NSA.” Data through December 2017.
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In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Project Wichita co-chairs join Bob Weeks to explain the goals and process of Project Wichita. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 198, broadcast June 2, 2018.
For more WichitaLiberty.TV, click here.
For April 2018, the unemployment rate in the Wichita metropolitan area fell, and the number of jobs grew.
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment statistics for metropolitan areas through April 2018. These are numbers that are not seasonally adjusted, so it’s not very useful to compare any month with the month before. But it is appropriate to compare a month with the same month of the prior year.
The good news, sort of: The unemployment rate for the Wichita metro area declined to 3.6 percent in April 2018, down from 3.9 percent in April 2017. The number of unemployed persons also declined by 8.9 percent for the same period.
These numbers should be good news. But these two statistics don’t exist in a vacuum. Specifically, the unemployment rate is the ratio of the number of unemployed persons to the labor force. While the number of unemployed persons fell, so too did the labor force. It declined by 2,676 persons over the year, while the number of unemployed persons fell by 1,071. This produces a lower unemployment rate, but a shrinking labor force is not the sign of a healthy economy.
A further indication of the health of the Wichita MSA economy is the number of nonfarm jobs. This rose by 100 from April 2017 to April 2018, an increase of 0.03 percent. This follows a decline of 0.5 percent from March 2017 to March 2018.
For April 2018, BLS reports:
Unemployment rates were lower in April than a year earlier in 305 of the 388 metropolitan areas, higher in 63 areas, and unchanged in 20 areas, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Eighty-eight areas had jobless rates of less than 3.0 percent and three areas had rates of at least 10.0 percent. Nonfarm payroll employment increased over the year in 312 metropolitan areas, decreased in 70 areas, and was unchanged in 6 areas. The national unemployment rate in April was 3.7 percent, not seasonally adjusted, down from 4.1 percent a year earlier. 1
Sources:
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and metropolitan area, not seasonally adjusted. Available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t01.htm.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Table 3. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by state and metropolitan area, not seasonally adjusted. Available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t03.htm.
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An ongoing study reports that property taxes on commercial and industrial property in Wichita are high. In particular, taxes on commercial property in Wichita are among the highest in the nation.
In Kansas, residential property is assessed at 11.5 percent of its appraised value. Commercial property is assessed at 25 percent of appraised value, and public utility property at 33 percent. (Appraised value is the market value as determined by the assessor. Assessed value is multiplied by the mill levy rates of taxing jurisdictions to compute tax.)
This means that commercial property faces 2.18 times the property tax rate as residential property. The U.S. average is 1.67. Whether higher assessment ratios on commercial property as compared to residential property is desirable public policy is a subject for debate. But because Wichita’s ratio is high, it leads to high property taxes on commercial property.
For residential property taxes, Wichita ranks below the national average. For a property valued at $150,000, the effective property tax rate in Wichita is 1.22 percent, while the national average is 1.39 percent. The results for a $300,000 property were similar.
Of note is the property taxes on a median-valued home. In this case Wichita is a bargain, due to our lower housing prices. A home at the median value in Wichita pays $1,513 in taxes, while the nationwide average is $3,343. (The median home value in Wichita is $124,400, and for the nation, $262,772, according to this report.)
Looking at commercial property, Wichita taxes are high. For example, for a $100,000 valued property, the study found that the national average for property tax is $2,319 or 1.93 percent of the property value. For Wichita the corresponding values are $3,261 or 2.72 percent, ranking ninth highest among the 50 largest cities. Wichita property taxes are 41 percent higher than the national average, for this scenario.
For industrial property taxes, the situation in Wichita is better, with Wichita ranking near the middle of the 50 largest cities. For an industrial property worth $1,000,000, taxes in Wichita are $29,681. The national average is $32,264.
According to the 2017 report from Wichita Downtown Development Corporation (now known as Downtown Wichita), over the past decade there has been $593,868,858 in private investment, $160,522,002 in public investment, and $171,087,276 investment in Intrust Bank Arena. That’s $925 million of investment in downtown over this period, with more before. 1
What has been the result of this investment? If you expected business growth in downtown Wichita, you may be disappointed. For the past decade business activity in downtown Wichita has been on a downhill trend. The data for 2016 is a bit of good news, with the decline stopping and business activity remaining mostly unchanged. It isn’t the vibrant growth we’ve been told is happening in downtown Wichita, but at least things are not getting worse.
Nearby are results for zip code 67202, which has nearly the same boundaries as the Self-Supporting Municipal Improvement District (SSMID). This is a district that pays extra property tax for supporting the WDDC. Its boundaries, roughly, are from Kellogg north to Central, and the Arkansas River east to Washington. It is greater Downtown Wichita plus Old Town.
The results since 2007 show fewer business establishments, fewer people working downtown, and lower earnings generated in downtown Wichita. In nearly all cases for nearly all years, the trend is lower — except for 2016.
For 2016 the numbers are nearly unchanged, with only small changes from the previous year. The number of business establishments is down slightly, while the number of employees and annual payroll rose, also slightly.
Except for 2016, this is movement in the wrong direction, the opposite of progress. And 2016 represents merely a stop in the downhill slide, not growth. There may be good news in that the number of people living downtown may be rising. But in estimating the population of downtown Wichita, economic development officials use a circuitous method. The result of their calculations is a population much higher than Census Bureau estimates, far outside the range of probable results. 3
But business activity has been declining.
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I’ve noticed a new conservative blog in Kansas, Cold Friday. It describes its goal as “to provide thoughtful opinions on current events and the moral issues of the day.”
The founder is J. Christopher Pryor of Topeka. He has been published with the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog, The Remnant, and Catholic Family News among others. He has a J.D., M.B.A. and B.A. in Philosophy. Pryor writes predominantly on issues of antisemitism, philosophy, current events and his hobbies of science and ham radio.
To view the blog, click on coldfriday.org.
Kansas school assessment standards remain at a high level, compared to other states. This is a welcome change from the past.
To evaluate the performance of their schools and students, states have their own assessments or tests. Some states have rigorous standards, meaning that to be considered “proficient,” students must perform at a high level.
But some states are less rigorous. They rate students “proficient” at a much lower level of performance.
How can we tell which states have high standards, and which states have low standards? There is a test that is the same in all states, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The U.S. Department of Education, through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), administers this test every other year. Known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” it is “the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.” 1
By comparing scores on NAEP and a state’s own tests, we can learn about the state’s standards. Does a state have a large percentage of students score “proficient” on its own test, but have a much lower percentage score “proficient” on the NAEP? If so, that state’s standards are weak.
After NAEP scores are released, Education Next, a project of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, compares state and NAEP results and assigns letter grades to each state. 2
It’s important to know that this analysis does not tell us how well a state’s students perform on any tests, either state tests or NAEP. Education Next emphasizes:
To be clear, high proficiency standards do not necessarily reflect high student performance. Rather, good grades suggest that states are setting a high proficiency bar — that students must perform at a high level to be deemed proficient in a given subject at their grade level. Grades gauge “truth in advertising” by indicating the degree to which states inform parents of how well their students are doing on an internationally accepted scale. 3
The good news is that Kansas grades well in the analysis of its state proficiency standards for 2017, earning an overall grade of A (A in grade 4 math, B+ in grade 4 reading, and A in both grade 8 math and reading). This is the sixth highest score among the states and means Kansas assessments have a high degree of “truth in advertising.” These grades are nearly unchanged from 2015.
This high grade has not always been the case for Kansas, however. In 2013 the state received a grade of D+ and ranked forty-first. That was a little better than 2011, when the grade was D and rank was forth-forth.
Does this mean Kansas students are doing better on tests? No. NAEP scores are mostly unchanged, or changed very little. Instead, between 2013 and 2015 Kansas adopted more realistic and rigorous standards for its tests. It raised the bar for what students needed to know to be called “proficient.”
Here is an example of how low a bar Kansas once set: In 2009, 87.2 percent of Kansas students were judged “proficient” on state tests in grade 4 reading. But only 35.1 percent were judged “proficient” on the NAEP. For that year the average difference between “Kansas proficient” and “NAEP proficient” was 45 percentage points.
Despite this large difference, Kansans were being told the state’s schools are doing very well. In 2012, Kansas Commissioner of Education Diane M. DeBacker wrote this in the pages of The Wichita Eagle: “Kansans are proud of the quality of their public schools, and a steady and continuing increase in student performance over the past decade has given us ample reason for that pride.” (Diane DeBacker: Pride in Kansas public schools is well-placed, March 20, 2012.)
Bragging like this was common, and it was unfounded. It was a lie, and a harmful lie. Being told our schools are top quality based on state standards, when those standards are very weak, is politically expedient but untruthful, and the case for needed reform is dismissed as unnecessary.
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