Wyandotte County’s spending is ‘out of control,’ candidates say. How will they fix it?

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Most candidates vying for seats on Wyandotte County’s governing body say balancing the budget amid concerns about potential bankruptcy is one of the region’s most pressing issues.

But in public forums leading up to Tuesday’s election, they have offered mostly general solutions. Among them: Limit borrowing, hire auditors, survey community members before making cuts.

“If we can’t get our budget in order, then it doesn’t matter what other priorities we have,” District 3 Commissioner Christian Ramirez, who is seeking re-election, said at a forum over the weekend.

In the last few weeks, Tyrone Garner, mayor and CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, has publicly sounded the alarm about the UG’s finances, suggesting the government is on a pathway to bankruptcy by 2026 or 2028 unless spending habits change in the coming years.

During budget hearings this fall, David Johnston, who was appointed county administrator in March, said the UG is too reliant on its reserves to balance the budget, which he called “not a good management practice.”

At the beginning of this year’s budget process, the UG had a structural deficit of nearly $11 million. Johnston has said staff worked to reduce expenses, buying additional time in the face of rising costs and “tenuous” revenue streams. The county and city spend a majority of taxpayer dollars on personnel and public safety.

Officials have said Wyandotte County needs to grow its population to support programs and infrastructure. The UG doesn’t bring in enough money: In 2024, for example, the county’s general fund is expected to bring in $81.9 million, but expenses total $84 million. Johnston has said reserves will be used to “cover the difference” while aiming to eliminate the practice in future years.

“The message I brought to the UG Commission is that we can no longer mortgage our future,” he wrote in a recent UG newsletter. “Bad habits of the past must be forgotten and a new fiscal discipline is required.”

Again this week, Garner in a Facebook post blasted what he called the “the status quo,” which he said includes “ballooning budgets, out of control spending” and “excessive borrowing.”

At a Wyandotte County Democrats forum, many candidates running for five seats on the UG’s 11-person Board of Commissioners, which sets policy and passes the budget, described tackling the budget as a top priority.

District 1 Commissioner Melissa Bynum, who has served since 2015 and is seeking re-election, said she plans to support a resolution being worked on by the county administrator that says the UG will not use any cash reserves to balance its budget.

Ramirez and District 6 candidate Steve Neal — a pastor running against Philip Lopez, who owns a tree trimming business — also voiced support for the resolution.

Tina Medina, a professional writer seeking to unseat Ramirez, vowed to work with other commissioners to reduce the UG’s borrowing for capitol costs by millions of dollars.

“In my humble opinion, it’s like living on credit cards,” she said, later adding: “If you and I live on credit cards forever, that would be a problem.”

Thanks to Johnston, potential bankruptcy has been pushed back to 2028, giving staff and commissioners time to “do a deep dive on the budget,” Ramirez said Saturday.

Asked about the causes of the UG’s financial troubles, Neal attributed it in part to the county’s “over-expansion” westward, where attractions and developments have gone up in the last few decades.

“Every time we expand westward, we take on more infrastructure that is ours forever,” Neal said, echoing similar comments from Bynum, who noted the UG has taken on debt with western growth.

Lopez, Neal’s opponent, has said he wants to tighten spending, calling the UG’s budget “a complete disaster” in one campaign video.

Likewise, Bynum’s challenger Ricky Smith — who ran a BBQ restaurant for nearly four decades — said the UG’s budget is “out of control.” He suggested bringing in outside auditors.

“That’s the only way I feel like we can come to a conclusion,” he said.

District 4 candidate Tarence Maddox, who held the seat from 2011 to 2015, said the commission has not properly prioritized spending and called for finding ways to make cuts.

Evelyn Hill, who is running against Maddox, has touted her experience of “working through tough decisions about budgets” when she served from 2014 to 2017 as president of the Kansas City, Kansas Board of Education.

Responding to The Star’s voter guide, Anna Cole, a Strawberry Hill neighborhood leader who is running for the District 2 seat, said there is a “tremendous amount of redundancy” in the government. Simply put, she said, “the blatant fat” should be cut.

Her opponent, Bill Burns, a retired Wyandotte County District Court administrator, said commissioners have to address the UG’s debt — which Garner has claimed is upwards of $1 billion.

“We need to depend on the (county) administrator to make those recommendations,” Burns said.