From the Alvin and Rosalie Stereo Check Studio.

PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week.

The primary races for Kansas governor enter the homestretch, as Governor Laura Kelly's endorsement of one Democratic candidate sparks a fight within the party.

Plus, campaign cash is taking center stage in Wichita as city leaders consider quadrupling contribution limits ahead of next year's elections.

But first, a battle over taxes, spending and leadership at Wichita City Hall as the mayor and city council clash over next year's $880 million budget.

That's what we're talking about right now on Kansas Week.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week.

I'm Jared Cerullo.

A battle over taxes, spending and leadership has erupted at Wichita City Hall this week as the first fight over next year's budget gets underway.

The proposed $880 million budget increases spending on public safety, infrastructure, employee pay, and homelessness programs.

While the property tax rate would essentially remain the same, rising property values are expected to generate about $17.4 million more in property tax revenue.

Mayor Lily Wu voted against the plan, saying she wants about $4.2 million in budget cuts before she can support it.

But Council member Becky Tuttle challenged the mayor to spell out those cuts, telling Wu to, quote, do the work.

The city council will hold public hearings on August 4th and 18th, before a final vote on the budget is expected August 25th.

Here to discuss this and some of the week's other state and local news is State Representative Tom Kessler, State Representative Abby Boatman.

State representative Tom Sawyer and District Court Judge Phil Journey.

Thank you to all of you for joining us today.

Tom Sawyer, you're a budget guy, so I'll start with you.

Even though you're a state lawmaker, this is a city budget.

But what what have you noticed about this budget in general?

Well, what irritates me about this budget in general is a large property tax increase.

You know, the overall budget is about 3.2% increase, which to me is reasonable inflation and stuff.

That's not too bad.

But you look at that $17 million property tax increase.

They get about 24% of our budget from property taxes by 198 million.

So that's a 7.5% property tax increase.

And you know, when people are upset with property taxes and stuff, I think they should work harder on keeping the property taxes down.

And I know part of the problems they have is some of the other, when you have a budget that big, you have different things to go up and down.

If you look at interest, I'll take that.

My 9%.

But it was last year that got 37 million, if I remember right.

Next year they're expecting 29.8 million.

So you know that's a drop a 7 million.

So they have to make that up somewhere.

But but the thing I really don't like about the way the city does property taxes is they've done this forever.

If you go in there, if you go on their website, you can go back to 2010.

They've done the same thing.

They keep the levy the same.

Right.

So what happens is valuations go up 10%, 12%.

You get a 10 to 12% property tax increase.

They just take that increase.

So even in years when there were years when their interest went way up, but not they still took the big property tax increase.

And a lot of people just frankly don't understand that it's it's getting into the weeds a little bit.

But Tom Kessler keeping the mill levy rate the same state lawmakers changed the rules on revenue neutral here just a few years ago.

Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

But I mean, part of the getting in the weeds talking about, I mean, we can you can continue to keep the same mill levy, but with the housing, the rising property values.

I mean, you're right that check bigger they can the cities can tell you that, hey, we didn't raise property taxes.

We kept the same.

But but why am I writing the $7,000 check or $10,000 check more?

And it's like because of the property prices keep going up.

And it's interesting too, that last year, I believe it was last year.

It may have been two years ago, but I believe it was last year.

The city council actually did cut the mill levy rate, not much, but they did cut the mill levy rate.

They still brought in more money because of rising valuations.

But council member Dalton Glasscock championed some of that.

And, you know, he prided himself on being able to slash the mill levy rate.

But now we're seeing that's not sustainable.

Apparently we have, you know, in four years, Phil, the city of Wichita budget has gone from about $650 million to $880 million.

Is that sustainable?

You know, I don't know what's going to happen in the economy.

And that's really the answer to that question.

Is that sustainable?

I think that the things that they're trying to do are all worthy things.

I mean, all you have to do is go look downtown and see what's happened over the last five years and see that degradation that has occurred area wide, because the homeless rate is just through the ceiling.

The homeless rate for senior citizens has doubled in the last two years or so.

And it's really something that has to be addressed.

We can't just keep sweeping the dirt under the carpet because soon you're going to be a pile like that.

Yeah, yeah.

They've tried to real quick on this homelessness issue.

They've tried to ramp up the second light shelter.

Is that having any impact?

Do you think on on the homeless problem?

Anything is better than nothing.

So, you know, I'm sure it does.

But it I'm concerned that it may be just like a drop in the bucket.

I mean, they're doing more, but, you know, we do need more fire and police services.

We do need a real time information center.

That would be awesome for law enforcement out there.

Wichita Police Department, by the way, is asking for 50 new, more police officers in this budget.

I believe that does not surprise me in the least.

Eyes in the courts, I see the police reports and stuff all the time, and it's not unusual to see that the sheriff has to respond because all the PD guys are busy with other calls.

So, you know, I don't doubt that that's really necessary.

I like the idea of putting cameras in the cars, too.

And, I'm sure we need another fire station and the Child Advocacy center, so, you know, they're all good things.

But what the city councilman said is true.

The tough thing is trying to figure out where to cut.

I mean, we've watched cuts in government this last couple of years that were a mess, and they ended up having to re implement them on a federal level.

So, you know, it's important.

It is a representative voting and you're a relatively new lawmaker.

So what are your what are your thoughts on on this how how you know you're going to deal with the state budget obviously.

But how how can how how does the state budget relate to what the city of Wichita is doing?

You know, I really wanted to bring up, going back to a little bit about what you said about, just the real time information center and the 15 new police officers and things like that.

You know, I did read the budget.

I'm not a budget expert.

I leave that up to Tom here.

But I was reading the budget and reading over the news stories and hearing that the Wichita Police Department is asking for 50 new officers, 50 new in-car cameras, a half $1 million to build out their real time information center.

And at the same time, our library is reducing their hours because they're asking for funding for additional staff to keep the libraries open was denied.

And so now, just a few years ago, you know, we expanded hours for our all a lot of our libraries.

And that was really lauded by the communities that they're in.

That was something that they really liked.

And so now we're going backwards, but we're still doing these giveaways to the police.

So I'm not in the weeds on the budget, but for me, it's really about prioritization.

We want to keep giving these handouts to the police.

And these are the same police that had an 11 hour standoff at an empty house a few days ago.

They had another standoff with an empty house back in November of 2021.

They hit a light pole with their rookie vehicle and then lied to the community, saying that they had intentionally cut the power and didn't admit that it was an accident until someone went on social media and pointed that out.

So I think we really need to, regardless of whether a year for revenue, revenue neutral rate, our budget or expanding the budget, I think we really need to look at the priorities within the budget.

Do either of the Republicans at the table have any response to that?

Should you know the police stuff?

Let me let me let me rephrase something.

The police department budget, you know, as far as going back about ten years ago was about 25% of the overall city budget.

That's now increased almost double that in ten years.

Tom.

Go ahead.

Well, so that brings up a pretty good point there.

I mean, if you have a particular interest in something, whether it's libraries or something or whether or not you think it should be expanded or you think it should be held held where it's at, or you should be or should be reduced every whatever your stance is on that, you should really get a hold of your council people and let them know how you feel.

I mean, that's their job.

It's a complicated process, but if you're not letting your voice be heard, you're you're you're missing the boat.

Yeah.

Anything else?

Well, you know, they could go to the forms that you just announced.

And, I wanted to say, by the way, the news today was the county commission is going to cut their mill.

Yeah, and they cut their mill levy last year, too.

The Sedgwick Sedgwick County seems to have figured it out.

Now, granted, Sedgwick County doesn't have nearly the size of a police force, so the sheriff's office isn't nearly the size of.

Don't forget which your fire department isn't nearly full size is Wichita Fire Department.

So, it but still, on a scale of a level, Sedgwick County did cut it, actually.

You know, the county lies much more heavily on property taxes.

You like it?

About 40 and 45% of their budget from property taxes.

The city's 24%.

So it's harder for them, actually a lot of ways to cut, cut, cut that mill levy.

So I'm glad they're doing I mean, anytime values go up, mill levy should go down.

It's just a question of how much they go down.

But so it's really frustrating when the city just decides year after year to keep it level.

But again, budgets are about priorities.

And, you know, $880 million budget, it seems like there's probably a room to to get them to change buyers a little bit more in libraries or move things around a little bit without having to increase property taxes 75%.

And you know, one other thing before we move on, one other thing I didn't want to break it was there was a little tussle, I guess you could call it between Council member Woo or excuse me, Mayor Woo and Council Member Tuttle about, you know, Becky Tuttle is basically telling the mayor it's it's meaningless to say you're not going to vote for the budget if you're not going to propose.

Where should we cut things?

Does does Becky Tuttle have a good point in saying, hey, it's if you're not going to vote for the budget, tell us where to cut?

I think back to Tuttle.

Exactly right.

You know, a lot of being a representative or being a council person is doing what is right by your constituents and actually getting in the weeds of the work.

Anybody can sit behind a bench and say, well, we should do this, or we should do that.

It's another thing entirely to come to the table with real ideas and real proposals.

And I think that's just what Councilwoman Tuttle is asking or, or pointing out.

And I think that's a really reasonable request.

All right, one more city story.

Wichita's 2027 city elections could see a flood of new campaign cash as council members consider a major change to local donation limits.

The city council is considering quadrupling the amount individuals and organizations can give to local candidates.

The current limit is $500, but the proposed change would allow donors to give up to $2,000 during the primary and another $2,000 ahead of the general election.

City leaders say the change would bring Wichita's rules in line with a state campaign finance law that was passed last year.

The council is expected to discuss the proposed change July 21st.

Just months before a majority of the council, including Mayor Wu, will be up for election in 2027.

So I'll come to you first on this one.

You know, a couple of council members, I believe it was council member shepherd and council member Ballard, actually had to give some campaign cash back during their first campaign because they were going along with the state line and the state law, and they were taking a couple of $2,000 donations.

And the city's rules are different.

So is this a good thing for the city to come in line with the state law or, I'll follow up with another question, but do you think this is a good idea?

Okay.

What this will do is fundamentally change the relationship between candidates and the people.

All right.

All campaigns are three things time, money, and volunteer.

These are city council elections.

And the reason they have the low budget so low is because they want the candidates to get out there and knock on doors and do the grunt work.

It takes in a campaign.

Candidates don't like that.

I've worked with over 100 and they don't like that.

They want to sit there and have somebody do it for them and go serve in office.

And the reality is that they will become more isolated from their constituencies because they won't be out there knocking on doors.

They'll be waiting for social media, paid social media or TV spots to do that work for it and it will change city government also.

It gives those in our community with the funds and the resources, far more influence than the guys given in 20 or 50 bucks.

And I think that that also creates a problem when it comes to serving in office and that donors going, hey, because they all think you own, I don't care what you're going to do.

They all think you, especially the developers and business people.

Oh, you're so kind.

It's not just limited to that, you know.

It's not ever spoken for sure.

But yeah, I know, but it'll fundamentally change campaigns.

It'll be fundamentally change the way the city responds to constituents.

I think it's good where it's at.

So you're against this change.

I think it's a big mistake.

Okay.

I think it's a big mistake.

All right.

Unless they want them to be like state officeholders and not see them and not hear from them until they want something.

Abby Bowman, you're relatively new, but you're you're raising campaign cash right now.

I assume you're running a campaign yourself.

Mayor woo raised over $1 million on her first campaign.

About 440,000 herself and AFP, I believe, raised about another $600,000 for her.

Nobody seems to be willing to admit who's behind this.

Ask to change the campaign donations.

But let's let's face it, presumably it's Mayor Woo.

Does this Mayor Woo or any of the council members really need more cash?

When the mayor just raised a record shattering $1 million in her first campaign.

Right.

And that's kind of the question to me is, I understand the the reason behind, you know, the $500 limit.

But at the same time, if you have a $500 limit, you can still bring in $1 million or more.

How well is that $500 limit actually working?

I think Phil has a really good point.

When it comes to how it changes campaigns.

Because I will admit, you know, this is my first go round, but the doorknocking and the campaigning is the hard part.

I definitely enjoyed my time in the session, but I'm not I'm not the representative just to go sit in Topeka.

And so, you know, I'm out knocking the doors and putting up the signs and trying to get that lit.

And the money is important.

So I think there's good points, pros and cons on both sides.

I think it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Tom.

So I any I agree with him actually.

You know, I, I actually voted against the bill in the legislature to increase ours because I think it's more important for members to get to get as much support from a broad base people than you want to get a lot of wide support for a lot of people.

Small amounts from a lot of people is a lot better in large amounts when a few bill is not good.

So I think the city's taken the wrong approach.

I mean, I like that the city had it state lower than the state law.

It's like I said, I agree with the judge.

I think it's a better we're more representative government.

We're better at represent our constituents.

If we keep those limits lower.

Tom Kessler, any thoughts here?

You've run plenty of campaigns.

Well, on the states, on the state level side, I think it helps a lot of people that are trying to get into politics for the very first time.

Right?

They don't have, they don't have a lobbyist list to kind of go through and stuff like that.

So they're relying on their friends and family.

And I'll be honest with you, from my very first campaign to what this campaign, you know, like it was last time or even this time, the cost is a lot different than it was a few years ago.

Some of our costs have tripled or quadrupled just in that very short time.

So I can see where if you're relying pretty much on, on, on close, you know, closer family, neighbors and friends like that to start off, you can I can see where the higher limits could definitely be needed for that.

All right.

The race for Kansas governor is heating up with Democratic primary battle now centered on a high profile endorsement from Governor Laura Kelly, Kelly is throwing her support behind state Senator Ethan Clawson, launching a new campaign ad promoting his record on Medicaid expansion, abortion rights, and his willingness to stand up to President Donald Trump.

But the governor's endorsement has sparked some pushback from fellow Democratic candidates Cindy Holsinger and Curt Skoog.

Holsinger.

Pardon me?

Holzer says she is being labeled too liberal for challenging corporate incentives and pushing issues like Medicaid expansion, property tax relief and public education funding.

Skoog says Kansas Democrats need a different kind of candidate.

He points to his record as mayor of Overland Park, and his approach of working across party lines.

Abby Bowman, I'll start with you this time.

Tell me your thoughts.

This is going to be your first governor's race.

As an actual lawmaker, what are your thoughts here on the, Governor Kelly supporting, any candidate in the primary before the general election happens?

Yeah.

I don't know that I necessarily agree with the governor, and coming out and supporting the candidate before the primary is over.

I think it definitely gives a lot of ammunition to the Republican Party to use in the general election.

But, you know, honestly, I've met Cindy several times, and I think anybody who's met Cindy for more than 30s knows that she's not a far left extremist.

And calling her that, I think, is disingenuous at best.

One thing that frustrates me about the Democratic Party is the, to me, that seems to be an over focus on trying to message Democratic priorities, as palatable as possible for the Republican Party.

The Republican Party does not prioritize what Democrats think about their party platform or their priorities.

And, you know, that can't be said the other way around.

And, you know, Democrat Party priorities aren't extremist priorities.

You know, we want good infrastructure.

We want affordable health care.

We want low property taxes, just like the people on the other side of the aisle.

Do you know these are not extremist far left, policies.

And I think the governor's endorsement of Ethan before the primary is just sort of another example of this aspiration to settle for the Democratic Party.

Phil, journey, what about the polls?

The polls don't seem to show Nathan Corson is getting much support from this.

No, no, not the one poll I've seen and it's questionable on it's reality.

But what I am enjoying seeing is the Democrats are finally at a knife fight in the primary.

You know, Republicans have been doing it for so long.

And and this is a this is just a little microcosm of what's really going on across the nation.

You look at Democratic primaries in New York and SDS or whatever you want to call them.

They've swept that.

I think it's really important that, Democrats watch, and Republicans watch Minnesota and Michigan right now and see what happens in those Democratic primaries, because those will probably set the tone for the party on a national level.

And what is happening here is the governor, in her experience, is saying, I think this is the best general election.

It it might not be the best one for all our Democrats, but this one is the best general election candidate.

And having watched the worst general election candidate get through so many primaries so far this cycle, I think that's a word of wisdom that Democrats should listen to.

You know, I know I don't know the mayor of Overland Park, but I've met both of the others.

And, you know, I think there's a significant difference between them.

And Democrats have a big choice to make.

And you know, what they base that choice on is going to maybe determine the outcome in November.

Tom Kessler, let me move over to you.

Abby mentioned that this fight within the Democrats is only helping Republicans.

Do you agree?

I don't know if I totally agree with that, but I know this this our governor is no stranger to, supporting people.

And even in the even in the, primary race, she, she supported primary candidates at the last election cycle.

Right.

Either try to have somebody move forward or somebody not move forward.

But, she's no stranger to this, so, it doesn't surprise me that she's played around long enough to remember when Republicans did that, too.

Yeah, yeah.

And, Tom, you're a long time lawmaker.

Tell me your thoughts on this.

I know both Cindy and and, Ethan very well.

They're both very good people.

They work hard.

And the actually what's interesting is their views are very close.

I mean, for the most part, they're not much difference in their views.

So it's interesting trying to say it's a ideological difference.

But Cindy is much more of a people person.

So I could see, you know, and when you're dealing with a statewide race, she's connecting with people.

You know, Ethan is a good hard worker.

You know, I served with them on conference committees and worked on bills.

But, you know, he's not warm and friendly like Cindy is.

So I think he's making those connections.

I think the governor's be a little bit careful.

You know, I think, you know, my guess would be the election for today.

Cindy is probably going to win because she is connecting now.

You know, it is also raised a lot of money and you know, maybe TV can make the difference in the next.

Their money can make a difference in the next couple weeks.

But but, the governor, as, as, Tom pointed out, she doesn't mind getting her hands dirty in primaries.

I mean, she took out Whitmer, who was the city minority leader last through the House because she got mad at them and took them out primary.

So so I think that she, you know, she doesn't mind getting the ball, get her hands dirty.

If I could just go and bang.

On the Republican side, I think farm bills endorsement, farm bill pack endorsement of Vicky Schmidt is going to affect the outcome of the Republican primary.

Significant positively for her?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

I know I know why they did it too, because all the other three don't want anybody from outside the United States working on farms when they can't get their kids to stay and do it either.

You know, that may get her very farm western Kansas vote.

That may definitely get her.

It may make a big difference.

All right.

A fight over the future of El Dorado.

Groves is now headed to court after city leaders rejected a citizen petition aimed at stopping large data centers and industrial energy projects.

The El Dorado City Commission voted Monday to declare the petition invalid, despite more than 700 residents signing on in support of the proposed ordinance.

City Attorney Ashland Lipscomb says the petition deals with zoning issues that require specialized knowledge and cannot be changed through the citizen petition process under Kansas law.

But commissioners also approved a temporary moratorium blocking new applications and building permits for high impact data centers and certain battery energy storage systems.

The moratorium is set to remain in place through November of 2026.

While the city asks a Butler County District Court judge to decide whether the petition is legally valid.

Tom Kessler, let me let me start with you on this one.

Tell me, tell me your thoughts.

The so it sounds like the city attorney is telling petition signers they don't know what they're talking about.

So now just because they're not smart enough.

Well, just because the petition was, considered to be invalid doesn't mean that, it doesn't count, right?

I mean, you've had they've had hundreds of people get behind this and sign it.

I mean, they're their leaders.

Better be paying attention to them.

So that's what I got to say.

But I see the pros and cons about this.

I understand I've been here, and, we have some dear friends of ours who live out in the, andale area, and they've they've I mean, you can't drive out there without seeing 100 no to signs all over the roads, but, and I can understand some of their perspectives that I also understand the perspectives from the they have the, the economy scale of of what data centers do.

So, but but once again, just because it's invalid doesn't mean it doesn't count.

Yeah.

Tom Sawyer, let me move over to you, dad.

Sedgwick County is dealing with the data center debate right now.

Yeah.

I think the most important thing with data centers is to make sure local officials.

There's three things that are very important.

One is the cost of electricity.

Make sure the data centers provide their own electricity.

They don't cause our electric bills to go up.

I think they also have to deal with the cooling.

The data centers get very hot.

They need to be cooled.

So deal for water issues.

Water is a big issue in Kansas.

So if the data centers don't have some way to cool without using water or some other method, or provide the water, that's extremely important.

The third thing is to make sure they don't increase property taxes.

You're not doing this.

Data centers are huge.

So if you do any any infrastructure or anything to help build that center, make sure they pay for that.

I mean, if you take care of those things, I because data centers probably are going to be here as long as we use our cell phones as much as we do on our laptop.

All the things we do, we're going to have them.

Now.

They don't necessarily have to be in Kansas, but if they were here, we got to make sure that they take care of those three things.

Abby Bowman, any thoughts very quickly about 20s left?

Yeah.

I really think that regardless of party affiliation, that we really need to do right by all Kansans and not rush through this process, there's there's a lot of unpopular opinions.

And I think that we really need to slow down and take a look at exactly how this is going to work out, because it's going to be too big of a mess up if we don't start going away.

Filter any name BS name BS, maybe, you know, look, you want a nice fun, you want good throughput.

I want a people want their water to me.

Well, I understand that.

I understand that and there are ways to engineer around that.

There's got to be a way to cool those things other than water.

All right, all right, all right.

It's not like.

It's not like they could listen to me.

It's not like they couldn't pull water out.

I got a rap.

I got it right.

I know, I know, there's salt water under our ground as well as fresh water.

They could run the well down deeper, cool it with salt water and pump it back down in there.

All right.

These people I gotta I gotta cut you, y'all.

That's what I have for this week.

We'll see you next Friday.

I'm Jared Zarrella.

Thank you.

For.