2023 Proposed Budget for Review Tonight

Seventy-two percent of community survey respondents ranked streets the most important community service across all eight commission districts. This is has been a recurring theme in the biannual community survey: we need better streets. The 2023 Proposed Budget increases spending on street preservation by 25%, for a total allocation of $8.5 million. While this is a much-needed investment, street conditions will not improve overnight. With two major bridges closed and many roads requiring substantial repairs, we must make strategic, impactful investments in infrastructure countywide to keep our economy moving forward. We are substantially behind in routine maintenance and, due to the age of our infrastructure, face a challenge that is worsening every day.

Over the past 15 months, the Commission Infrastructure Subcommittees have collaborated closely with our Public Works and Parks & Recreation Department to define strategies and recommendations that will chart a more sustainable future for our infrastructure while addressing critical deferred maintenance.

Our objective is to improve our pavement condition index to a rating of 65 by 2038.

The Commission recently adopted goDotte, our first-ever countywide strategy, which incorporates recommendations for the Unified Government to more closely align investment in development, transportation, and infrastructure. This fall we will be launching the update of our citywide comprehensive plan to help us further prioritize where we invest to help neighborhoods moving forward. These collaborative efforts to plan and prioritize our future will position us to be more competitive for federal infrastructure funding that we anticipate will be available in the very near future, allowing us to meet objectives for improving our Pavement Condition Index to a rating of 65 by 2038.

The Commission recognizes people are facing soaring inflation and other economic challenges requiring the need for tax relief. For the first time since 2009, the 2023 Proposed Budget recommends a County tax cut – a reduction of two mills – which will benefit all residents, whether you live in Bonner Springs, Edwardsville, or Kansas City, KS. The Unified Government, however, only accounts for 46% of our tax bill, so it will be important for the elected body to reach out to other taxing jurisdictions across the county to provide truly viable tax relief. 

The Unified Government is unique in its design with a City budget and a County budget, and the two are currently performing very differently. On the County side, revenues are growing faster than expenditures, meaning there is capacity for the proposed tax reduction without decreasing services. However, the opposite is true with the City budget operating in a deficit, which will require serious structural changes for long-term sustainability. 

Our City General Fund needs structural change for long-term sustainability.

Community comparisons show we need to review our expenditures: we spend less than average on our parks and general community services but spend more than average on public safety. These are not insurmountable issues to address and, as we heard from the community throughout this budget season, public safety is a priority. To balance the needs of residents with limited resources, the Unified Government must continue its ongoing assessment and evolve its priority-based budgeting efforts to cut waste, find efficiencies, and operate more effectively through data-driven decision-making.

UG Forward is a comprehensive approach to improving how we work through better policies, processes, engagement, and problem-solving, and it is accomplishing these goals by bringing together people to work together collaboratively. We are laying the foundation for the tough decisions necessary to ensure our organization is competitive and fiscally sustainable.

This is an important first step, and I appreciate your collaboration these past several months. The 2023 Proposed Budget will help us initiate critical capacity-building for the next 25 years while providing needed tax relief to residents throughout Wyandotte County. 

In a world where cybersecurity threats and severe weather events can completely immobilize local government operations, 2022 gave us valuable insight into our capacity to handle risk as an organization, and the actions we need to take to be truly prepared for an emergency. We have a myriad of emergency response plans in place, addressing public health crises, public safety concerns, weather events, and more, but being prepared to fully act on these plans requires greater collaboration across silos so we can address multi-faceted issues with multi-departmental responses. The Unified Government staff is diligently working together across the organization to implement strategies to mitigate risk and increase operational efficiencies and we must continue to support these collaborative efforts to transform organizational outcomes while addressing opportunities for improvement.

It is challenging for local governments to learn how to fully operate as one organization, to collaborate and communicate clearly across the entire Unified Government. With the 2023 Proposed Budget, we will tackle this challenge more forcefully, with a clear focus on building organization-wide strategies to transform the way we operate. 

With UG Forward, we will create an economic development plan to guide strategic, equitable investment in our growth and ensure our residents have access to the services and amenities they need. This essential strategy will be developed in conjunction with our community health assessment and update to our Community Health Improvement Plan, to confront the opioid crisis, our ongoing pandemic response, and more critical health issues facing local governments. 

We will be investing in our capacity to pursue grant funding and setting aside $7 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) revenue replacement funds for grant matches, helping us to secure competitive federal grants. We know we are not getting our share of available grant funds and must have shovel-ready projects lined up when funds become available. 

Our people are our greatest resource, and the Commission has made investing in them a clear priority. First, we need to ensure we have the right people in the right places to best benefit from their talent and cultivate their skills. We also must be competitive in our hiring and recruitment in an increasingly challenging jobs market. Our goal is to foster a culture of excellence and nurture a desirable place to work as we seek to better serve our citizens with a leaner organization. We will be launching DotteLEADS, a professional development program for all staff, to hone leadership skills with training tailored to the work we do. By teaching new skills and empowering our staff to be a part of our transformation, DotteLEADS will help us fortify and support our existing workforce while creating a workplace culture focused on continuous improvement and customer service. 

We will continue with our organizational assessment, strategic planning, and training efforts to ensure we are aligning with every available resource to measurable outcomes.

Through UG Forward, we will continue with our organizational assessment, strategic planning, and training efforts to ensure we are aligning every available resource to measurable outcomes. We will make it easier to collaborate with the Unified Government by eliminating red tape and aligning a shared vision fully vetted and supported by our community.

Parks not only contribute to our economic development potential, they bring many public health benefits to our community and support goals for a healthy, active quality of life in Wyandotte County. Throughout the 2023 Proposed Budget process, we heard from the community how access to walking and biking trails; park equipment; youth, adult, and senior services are all priorities among Parks & Recreation services. By shifting some of our tax dollars from the County General Fund to the Parks General Fund, we will be able to hire additional staff to increase recreation programming, extend the hours of our community centers, and launch a city beautification pilot initiative to address maintenance of parks facilities and amenities across the community. 

We will increase recreation programming, extend the hours of our community centers, and launch a city beautification pilot initiative.

Cleanliness and appearance across our community is also a top priority and a relatively affordable opportunity for improvement. In 2023, we will continue to support collaborative efforts that are already underway, such as the SOAR initiative to address blight and property maintenance, a demonstrated success. We will also be investing more in the beautification and improving the appearance of the community by working collaboratively and efficiently.

By strengthening our project and asset management, we will leverage the funds that have been invested in our parks over the past few years through the CARES Act and ARPA funds, ensuring we optimize the return on these important investments. Responsible stewardship of these federal funds is important to being able to catch-up on deferred maintenance and to improve our community amenities.