To provide an update on which how water works where we're out on repair of the clarifiers in particular, which hot water partners is here.

He'll provide details here in just a moment.

So we have May with Saltwater Partners made some temporary repairs to one of the six clarifiers so that we could uh bring the plant back online.

Simulate what the permanent repair will do.

So that clarifier has been operational.

One of the things that's done by us is to start getting our staff accustomed to operating the plant.

So they've been able to be at the controls more than in the past, which is real value to us.

We can start seeing what how this new how the repair clarifier is going to work.

So we do have water running through the plant.

Um permanent repairs are underway.

Ron will talk about details.

That's all that's starting moving forward a lot more here in the coming months.

Um, and hopefully sometime by this summer, and you can talk about that timeline too sometime this summer.

We expect to have all of our permanent repairs done.

Um start looking at uh performance testing again and see what we can do get to the point of having the plant fully online.

As of now, as I mentioned before, the plan is still a responsibility of Wichita Water Partners until it says time that we get through all these repairs, all of the testing, agree that it's time for the city to take it over.

So, with that, I'm gonna return it over to Ron.

Thank you, Gary.

Uh Mayor, members of the council, uh, Ron Coker with Burnson McDonald and Wichita Water Partners, project executive for Wichita Water Partners.

I'm gonna give you a quick update again.

Uh just like last month, we'll uh we'll walk you through uh the status of each of the clarifiers.

Uh easier to do it by clarifier now than by activities.

So uh you're gonna see a lot of slides that that work through this same progression uh as we go forward in the next couple of months.

Uh for the first uh for SEC one.

Uh we've completed wash down activities on that clarifier, uh wash the old lime scale out from previous activities.

Uh mixer inspection is complete.

Uh no required repairs required.

Let me make a clarification on that.

There's a we have a standard repair procedure uh from WestTech, the clarifier vendor that uh when looking at the that uh the mixers remember when we talked about the failure, uh part of it was interference of the mixer with the upper draft tube.

So there was concern that had we done any damage to the bottom of the mixer uh where that interference occurred.

We got a repair uh process and uh observation process or determination process from West Tech that indicates if there's uh any more than a sixteenth of an inch of material loss, it requires a repair.

Uh that process is still being considered by the city uh as to whether that's adequate or not, uh, or that amount of material loss is adequate or not.

So when I say on these slides, no repairs required.

I'm simply saying that there is not any uh there's not any material loss greater than a sixteenth of an inch in line with the repair procedure that uh we've been given by the vendor.

Uh city will continue to look at that, uh, and I'm sure if there's changes, we'll uh next month when that occurs.

Uh coding identifications are complete, coatings repairs are ongoing.

I will also just uh uh for a point of clarification on the coatings.

There are a lot of individual coating repairs uh on some of these clarifiers.

Uh the team continues to look at are there better ways to handle the coating uh to speed the process up.

Uh very weather dependent, uh, as you might uh imagine trying to do coatings uh in place.

Uh so uh so if we have any optimization on that, likewise we'll give you an update next month uh on that process as it occurs.

Uh SEC number two, washdown is is ongoing.

Uh the mixture inspections are complete again.

No uh requires identified uh encoding identifications uh will start after washdown.

SEC number three.

Uh we've completed the washdown.

This will be the first SEC put back in the actual operation uh for uh testing, uh, which should uh repairs uh I'll give you an update on on that here on the last slide related to the upper draft too.

Uh coding identification identifications are complete, and we're ongoing with coding repairs, and then we're also looking at the rate round modifications on this clarifier right now, since it's the first to uh or will be the first to complete.

Here we are with SEC four.

Uh again, wash down's complete, no requires uh repairs required on the mixture inspection.

Uh coatings identifications are complete, and coding repairs begin this week.

Uh, here's the clarifier that Gary mentioned that we put in an operation with temporary repairs.

I think I misspoke last time.

Gary actually said it correctly this time.

It's been operation since uh late February.

As Gary mentioned, city staff has been part of the operations team, which is a great opportunity for them to train, and something that would have had to be done quite frankly at some point in the process.

The city staff has to train and learn this system.

So this is a great opportunity to get ahead of that.

About 15 different city of Wichita staff have rotated through activities covering both day and night shifts.

And then our team and the city staff meets about three times a week to talk about operations.

While we're running this temporary clarifier, it's more than just learning how to run it.

Part of what we're doing is looking at other treatment options or different ways to operate the facility so that so that both our team and city staff are learning through the process as well, which is something we're better able to do when we're not in the middle of a PTA or a test period.

So that's been going on as well.

Clarifier speed was one of the items that's been looked at for the last couple of weeks.

They'll start looking at chemical optimization as early as next week, or maybe even this later this week as well to answer some of the questions on what we observed previously when we were in the testing process.

So gaining some value there as well.

So it will stay in operation until we get up and operating with one of the other clarifiers, and then this one will come down for repairs.

And the final repair will be similar to all the other five repairs.

And then here's the last clarifier.

Again, inspection complete, no repairs identified, encoding identifications to begin this week.

Here is the status of the upper draft tube material.

You'll remember that we required West Tech to provide new upper draft tubes.

That was the piece that experienced the most damage in the previous structural failures associated with the clarifiers.

The material for that solids contact clarifier showed up as this schedule indicates.

We are doing inspections.

I can't guarantee you that those dates are exactly right.

I gave them to you in the middle of last week, so they might flex just a day or two depending on when the inspections occur.

But we should be seeing the second set of materials show up soon if they haven't already, and then SEC4 inspections are scheduled or were scheduled for late last week.

So we continue to progress.

We told you they're going to come sequentially, they'll come in about pairs or estimated to come in pairs to the site for repair or for installation of those repairs.

Here's a couple, just so you can get a sense of the manufacturing process.

So on the left, you see a one of the upper draft tubes that has been put in place or put together, fitted up to make sure that all of the pieces fit together.

You can see that it's done in pieces that are that are then connected together.

And then on the right, you'll see some of the uh these are actually baffles that will go in inside the clarifier that are in the coding process as part of it.

So this is part of what's uh inspected as as our team's going up for final inspections that you see in the other uh in the other slides, and then uh this material then will be once it's coded, approved, it will be shipped to site for installation.

Any questions on that?

Yes, uh, just a few here.

So, can you explain a little more on the coatings and what the issues are here?

Is that something that affects the how does that affect the process?

Well, it doesn't affect the process per se.

And when you say processed, you mean the repair process or the the operations process?

Doesn't coatings don't affect the the process, or I wouldn't say uh any any kind of significant effect to the process.

Um really what the coatings are about is ensuring because these are submerged and trying to ensure that the material uh will stand the test of time in that kind of environment as part of it.

There are a variety of different kinds of repairs being looked at.

Uh it might be uh let's let's say maybe in some of those previous pictures you saw areas of corrosion, right?

But there are also uh areas of repair that might address uh coating thickness or uh or pitting that occurred that's not yet indicating or showing corrosion, but is something that should be repaired while we're doing it to try and uh make sure that coating uh meets its design life or specification.

Uh I do have our our startup project manager Dan Baker uh in the room.

Dan, wave your hand if you would.

Um Dan, any other kinds of coating repairs that would be significant to the council, do you think?

Yeah, just to reinforce the rodset.

There's just while we're in there, while they're gray, why can't we even do a holistic review and just making sure that no stones left on target?

So that's part of the place.

Okay, and just just to so everybody can hear if uh online if they couldn't hear Dan.

Uh it's really just a holistic review of the of the clarifiers and then uh fixed any repairs identified.

Councilman, does that answer your question?

Yeah, um, so are some of the areas of erosion, is that to be expected in certain areas, or is it corrosion on the material?

We're seeing it erode in the yeah, well, it's actually so it's uh there's there's uh there's corrosion, not not erosion, but corrosion on the material.

That's gonna be something that you're going to see uh throughout the life of these clarifiers.

I believe these clarifiers uh um in the in the operations uh expectations have an annual inspection, and if you see any areas of corrosion, uh you repair that uh that area of corrosion uh as part of the identification.

So it's not uncommon, it's not unexpected.

Um I think uh I think part of what uh we saw when we took these downs are probably more areas than uh we expected to see uh this early into the operational life of the clarifiers.

That's I think one reason that the coatings are more significant or the repairs are more significant through this process.

But in the end, hopefully that uh that puts the city in a much better position uh operationally with these clarifiers moving forward.

Okay, the uh sixteenth of an inch of um material um is that expected to have is it just a sixteenth of an inch of the material that gets around it, I guess.

Yeah, so really it's uh these are quarter-inch plate uh clarifiers, so these are made out of quarter-inch uh steel plates uh or uh yeah, steel plates.

Um this is and when I say sixteenth of an inch, it's uh the the specification from West Tech says if it's below 16 of an inch, it's allowable.

So, really what we're talking about is just not uniform material degradation, but instead a sprite or a gouge where you had interference.

So, yes, so West Tech has provided uh the justification on why that uh that amount is acceptable uh in the in the design.

Essentially, uh it's it's overdesigned according to West Tech, so you can have some allowable material loss uh as part of it.

If it if it's more than that, it's repaired uh uh per their specification so that you don't have that uh that exposure or loss of material that could shorten the life of the clarifiers.

Uh but again, that's part of what the city's asked for additional clarification on uh and was provided, I believe, late last week, Yuri, as well.

Do you have anything you'd like to add to that?

Yeah, I appreciate you getting that point, Ron, and thank you for the question, Council Member Hall.

We still have some concerns about that based on the information that we've seen.

Uh Ron mentioned that there was interference between the ever draft tube and the mixer, that's not supposed to happen.

Uh so it's not in our eyes, it's not necessarily just the concern with the material laws, but what might have happened to any concerns with the mechanism itself while that interference was happening.

So we have asked for additional information.

We are at the point, yeah, that's saying that we believe that that's necessarily acceptable.

We've seen the initial information from West Tech, but we're waiting a lot more detail.

Okay, when and when we do ongoing maintenance, how often, if ever, do we take like a clarifier off at a time to do to go back and look at like the coatings or we will especially in this case what we're working through with uh warranty and things like that before we wrap this project up is we will have these inspected on a regular basis initially during the warranty period, uh depending on what we see there, but even if we had not had these issues uh the course of time or the values having six clarifiers and the built-in redundancy of this plant that we've talked about for some time is we would take a clarifier down at a time, if not two for standard maintenance, chapter coatings, um tightened bolts, everything else that we need to do.

Okay, appreciate that.

Quick question, Carrie.

How long is our warranty after we take possession?

We'll have a two-year warranty on the clarifiers once we take possession of the plant.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Ron, I have a question for you too.

Uh, when do you expect the first upper draft to replacement to be completed?

Uh well, I it's gonna occur, it's gonna be close in the month of April.

Um so uh we had planned in April and it's being ready for the first PTA as early as April.

Uh I believe the latest schedule shows that in early to mid-May at this point, but there's still a little bit of flex in that schedule.

So I would say that uh it will be installed or the installation process will be occurring in April, and I think it's safe to say that in May.

Um, borrowing nothing that unforeseen that we don't uh have in the schedule today, uh, we'll be ready to start operation of that uh of that SEC.

Okay, did I hear correctly that you're doing two at a time?

Yeah, there they they were manufactured.

There's been some description, there's been some changes in that with the manufacturer.

Originally it was going to be they were manufactured in pairs and shipped to the site in pairs.

Then at one point, the SEC or excuse me, West Tech had indicated no, they were going to go ahead and proceed with all six uh simultaneously, and they would be shipped as they become available.

Uh right now, our installation process is built upon two at a time, so that uh the crew can bounce back and forth between SECs depending on where they are in the installation process or the repair process.

It's trying to optimize uh it's trying to optimize that downtime or repair time uh across all six.

Uh, but yes, we're we're our approach is SEC three and one will be the first two uh complete.

Uh the first PTAs, remember we talked about having three PTAs we needed to complete or rerun.

Uh the first of those uh will be on uh SEC three, so that will be the first clarifier up.

Uh as soon as it's up and operational, then those PTAs could begin.

Some of the uh PTAs require more than one clarifier.

I think uh I forget the P uh the PTA number, but one requires three clarifiers, so we won't be able to do that clarifier obviously until later in the process on just for clarification.

PTA stands for uh performance testing and acceptance.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

No, yes.

Other questions?

Uh thanks, council member Johnston for uh asking that question because I think that's really important for people to understand.

Just two questions for you.

Thanks for being here.

Yes.

Um, this one might be for Gary, but what is the timeline for staff to be trained on the technology side of things?

So I think you know, getting getting the water treatment plant operational is one side of it, but the technology is another side.

So where are we at in that process?

Well, it all happens at the same time.

Nothing that we're doing here is necessarily out of the realm of the experience of the staff that we have.

Obviously, this plant operates differently differently than our current plant, but um, there's not really a big learning curve for staff on the technology.

That's all part of what's happening with the training on the operations at the same time.

Um, we've had time, obviously, now for staff to also get more engaged with what's happening to see what was happening during the previous performance test, uh, what was happening with chemical dosing and everything else.

So I think we're in a good place technology-wise.

But the time frame, once we take over the plant, still know when that's gonna be.

We still have some things to discuss and work through on exactly what's gonna happen with performance testing because we had we don't have that part resolved yet because these are pretty significant changes or modifications have been made, so we've got to figure out what makes sense.

Once we take over the plant, my hope is our estimate is that we're gonna need to run this plant for about six months to bring it to the point of where we need to be to make sure we understand fully what's happening operationally so that we can get to a point, especially with chemicals, types of chemicals, dosing, exactly how we're gonna run this plant.

That's gonna take a little bit of time.

Make sure we keep our old plant operational all that same time too before we come fully online.

So there's still time here to make sure we've got staff fully educated on processes.

Thank you so much, Gary.

Um, and then you mentioned that we have a two-year warranty on the clarifiers, just and this may be a question out of my own ignorance.

Well, beyond that point, will we build into the budget?

Um finances to ensure that if there is an issue with the infrastructure or repairs required that we're building that in as we continue to budget every fiscal year.

We will uh it's part of our rate structure now.

The future operating costs are already included in that as we get into operations of the plant full time.

We'll have a better understanding of what those costs look like, especially from the chemical side.

We'll no longer have the costs, obviously, of our current plant.

But like anything else, um, you know, you saw in the last year or two here that there's funding now to start making upgrades to the airport, it's eight to ten years in.

Same thing happens here, just with any of our facilities, like we do with our other facilities on the utility side.

We've got funding in there for upgrades to our plants uh for uh upgrades, clarifiers, all of the equipment uh filters that are included in these plans.

We we certainly will have those included in the CIP going forward.

Thank you.

I see no further questions from council members.

Gary, I just have one final question for you.

Uh this is again to remind the community.

Um, we're doing these monthly updates.

Uh they started last February, um, so last month.

Can you just address uh what we are doing as a city to make sure that we are not going to take ownership of this water treatment plant and that we're still pursuing all legal action regarding delays?

So, as far as the ownership part, um that's for the contract based on where we get to operational status, and uh it's all contingent on the PTA, the performance testing, there's branders that have to be met for water quality.

Uh, once we agree where we're gonna go with performance testing with the repair clarifiers, uh, the primary trigger for us taking over the plan is for all that performance testing acceptance uh by both parties.

Don't know when that's going to be uh uh in the meantime.

We are still continuing our discussions on the claim side.

Uh we actually have some scheduled meetings coming up starting in the first week of April, and we'll be meeting on a regular basis to work through that part of it in parallel at the same time, so that hopefully we can wrap all of this up together.

Can you just give the community confidence that number one uh the water treatment plant will not be taken into possession by the city of Wichita until it is fully functional uh and has past testing, in addition, that late fees will still are being discussed uh in a different way.

Correct on the functional side, and of course when we're gonna take possession of the plant, we will not do so until we have met all the contract requirements that have been met for the performance testing.

So that part is per the original contract, and it effectively hasn't changed.

We still have some things again.

I'll say it one more time to work through on what that testing looks like now because we're in a little bit different place than we were.

So we won't take the plant over until we get to that point.

Uh, from a cost perspective, everything that you see that's happening here with the repairs of these clarifiers is no cost responsibility to the city to the right character tax base.

We won't even see how much that cost is.

That is a responsibility of Wichita Water Partners to make all of those repairs.

What we're working through now during our claims discussion is recovering our other costs associated with extending past the original completion date of April 1st.

Those discussions are ongoing, they will continue.

Uh what I talked about being in parallel, having those discussions at the same time.

Um, as we get to the point of taking over the plant, we hope to be wrapping that up at the same time.

Probably once we're able to start having our or have our next discussion in early April with both sides, somewhere within that month.

Uh, I would hope and expect to be able to get with the council a provided briefing on where we're at directly related to those discussions.

Thank you, Ron.

Thank you, Gary.

Our next item, Mayor.

Thank you.

And council, if you have any other questions, uh need to follow up, please let us know.

We do have another agenda item for you, as you've known from your past action and budget decisions.

We've made significant investment in technology in the police department, and so not just police but across the organization to continue to see how we can work uh smarter using technology, and we have a lot of great examples from the police department.

I'd like to ask the police chief to come forward and outline some of our strategies and using technology for our policing.

Chief Dolbin, yes, sir.

Thank you.

Good morning.

So I was asked to give a presentation on 21st century policing.

So we assume that you were referring to the uh the report for 2014, which uh Charles Ramsey led that discussion and uh drafting of that report, and that of course, as I've always practice my mentor back in Philadelphia.

So these are the pillars, trust and legitimacy, policy and oversight, technology and social media, community policing, training and education, officer wellness and safety.

It pushes the guardian mindset and prioritizes procedural justice.

I think that we will see you will see in this presentation how we have met all of those, but on top of that, we have our own city of Wichita strategic plan that we are also complying with.

Um I'm just going to let you read those, and then we can talk more about how we are achieving those.

On top of that, our 2026 goals are strengthened employee wellness and retention, a coordinated approach to violent crime and homelessness and optimizing personal personnel assignments and operational efficiency.

Building trust.

So first thing I did when I came here was restructure the professional standards bureau.

I elevated that to a bureau.

I promoted the lieutenant to captain.

Our words, our key words are comprehensive investigations that are fair and consistent discipline.

And I think that I've demonstrated that we we've put that together and we've gained the trust of the community as well as our officers to know that they will feel they will feel they have been treated fairly and everyone is treated in a consistent way.

One of the important uh things that we've done is created a PSP public dashboard so that you can any member of the public can go online on our transparency dashboard and track a complaint that they file or just look at general what we're working working at.

We've decreased the amount of time it takes to complete investigations.

Um that is a part of our the larger WBPD transparency page, where we continue to do our My 90 citizen satisfaction surveys, which gives us a great a lot of great impact uh feedback on where citizens are and what they're happy with, whether or not our drone dashboard that is rather unique, but is becoming less unique.

This was an initiative that the Wichita Police Department and myself insisted that Scottio create this dashboard so that every time a drone went up in real time, that flight was posted to the public facing dashboard so anybody can go online and see why there was a drone in the air, what was the flight path, what was the reason, what was the case number, and if they would like to, they can they can file a court request and and get more information.

Um that is now sold.

Other police departments are now buying this because it has been so popular that Sky Dio is now selling this as an option.

Um but this really did a lot when we did our community uh outreach uh to uh address any concerns, privacy concerns the community might have.

Our two-pronged prime reduction program is risk-strained modeling uh as well as uh our top involved model, and these were put together by our analytical section.

These are non-commissioned um rather young men and women from Wichita that drive this and make sure that our approach to crime is evidence-based and data-driven.

Gunshot detection dashboard again.

Uh our analyst created that detection dashboard, gunshot detection dashboard, and I will compare it to any other cities' gunshot detection dashboard anywhere in the country, as well as our flock transparency dashboard where you can pretty much get any questions you have regarding Flock answered, and that includes who we share our data with.

And one thing I want to add to that is our traffic enforcement is data-driven as well.

We analyze what are the high accident areas, and then at ComStat, we compare our enforcement against those areas.

So it's it's it wasn't simple to create uh by Captain Stevens, but it's simple to follow.

Red shows the enforcement, uh, red shows the uh the high accident areas, blue shows the enforcement, and the goal is always to make sure that the two are the two um are on top of one another.

These are just an example of some of our dashboards.

Policy and oversight, implementing policies that protect civil rights, and emphasize de-escalation.

I've talked to all of you about our emphasis on de-escalation, um, and we'll talk more about that.

Um we are currently pursuing accreditation, we'll be the largest uh department in the state of Kansas to achieve that, which is obvious since we are the largest department.

Um, and that is a large, large task as being led by Captain Moses, and that is why I came to you and asked you for uh the funding for Lexi Pol.

It literally would be impossible to do without Lexi Paul.

We are in the process of rewriting, reviewing our all of our policies and our procedure manual.

This began in January of 2026, and we believe we will have achieved accreditation by 2027.

This will be will be state accreditation.

Well, when once we have state accreditation, we'll look at national accreditation.

I do have some concerns there.

It's extremely expensive, and I don't know that it would bring me any more than state accreditation does.

So we'll look at that when we get there.

De-escalation and accountability.

We looked at what the police executive research forum was doing, and we became an ICAT department.

Integrated communications and what's the last one?

Tactics.

Tactics, tactics, and active bystandership for law enforcement.

ICAT is a de-escalation principle.

It teaches officers' skills and how to communicate, how to maintain distance, how to utilize time, and how to utilize when necessary, less lethals.

I think we have implemented that extremely successful active bystandership for law enforcement.

One of the things that we we achieved also working with the FOP is now it is in our policy that officers have a duty to report, a duty to intervene, and a duty to report.

Building on ICAT enable, we have done an extensive.

This is Captain Jason Bartell from our professional standards bureau.

He has put together an extensive training curriculum where we took the 15 principles to reduce restraint-related death that were put out by the police executive research for working with County EMS, working with our law department, and working with County 911, we have put together an extensive training curriculum that I think we're about three quarters of the way through right now with our department in how we can best go about reducing uh that risk.

And I've talked to Chuck Wexler, and there literally is no other department in the country right now that is doing what we are doing to implement these principles in each and every member of our department.

Community policing.

I know that's a topic of interest to all of you, as it is with me.

But the one one thing that I will go on to say is that community policing is everyone's responsibility.

We have community policing officers.

They're doing a fantastic job.

We don't have as many as we always had, but they're doing the exact same amount of work, if not more.

To me, that's good management, and that's good use of resources.

But there's always a danger when you create specialized uh titles for police officers.

Because you don't want the rest of the department to think that they don't have community policing responsibilities, and that will continue to be my priority.

Everyone in this department is responsible for community policing.

And that begins with me.

So we've always had community policing officers, but we will never change our philosophy that it is everyone's job to conduct community policing.

It is a department-wide philosophy.

We we recently brought in an expert to do some uh media relations training for our department, and she has worked with some of the biggest chiefs in the in the country, and that is one of the things that she also said in her training that is critically important.

That every officer knows that community policing is their responsibility.

Risk train modeling falls in perfectly with community policing because it gives our officers an opportunity to go out of service for even a small period of time for community interaction where they're able to do some proactive work, we're able to get out of their car, just talk to business owners, walk around the community.

Recently we had one of our crime analysts doing a right along with an officer, and that was what she brought back to us that she was really impressed to see that RTM was creating those opportunities for officers, and we're going to continue to increase that.

Now, for it to be completely successful, it requires requires a whole of government approach.

So we have our monthly Cal meetings with all the other city city departments, and our city manager attended the last meeting, and which was really appreciated, and it's an opportunity for us to problem solve with all of our partner agencies, including MABCD, to see what we can do based upon the philosophy of restrained modeling to address the environmental conditions that are contributing to crime.

And right now we're seeing very early, very positive results with this.

Enhanced social media content.

Well, I think all of you know our social media is pretty pretty much on the cutting edge right now, and we're going to continue with that.

We need a lot of new feedback from our good feedback from our new hires about our how our social media influenced their decision to join our department because it highlights the philosophy of the department and our use of technology.

And of course, we continue with our community meetings as we always will.

Training has been a huge part of my focus here, and we have accomplished so much in terms of training.

We talked about ICAT AML, what we're doing with to prevent restraint-related deaths, uh, and executive development training.

We've been invited by KHP to participate in their West Point Leadership Program, where we did a six-month internship with the FBI.

That was Captain Levin's.

We have the first law enforcement officer in the state of Kansas.

Um we are big proponents of the DC Metro Police Leadership Institute, as well as continuing north with Northwestern and FBI lead it.

But we've we've exceeded our expectations for our senior staff.

Now we're going to focus on sergeants and lieutenants, frontline supervisors, and we are in we are right now.

But we hope to take it a step further based on how much we are impressed with the DC Metro program, where our officers get to sit with uh their peers from around the country and international peers and be lectured by not just law enforcement but a wide array of persons involved in leadership for the military, private industry.

Um it just exposes our our commanders to things that they haven't been exposed to before, and we want to replicate that here.

We want to work with our partners in Tulta Tulsa, Oklahoma City, KC Moe to create the Great Plains Leadership, Police Leadership Academy, and that's something that is currently in development, and again, that's being led by Captain Moses, and we're we're very much excited by that.

Officer wellness.

So when I took over, there's a lot of things to do, and this is one of the things that we really need to catch up with, and and we are getting there this year uh with our wellness program.

We we just began a shield um uh uh newsletter for our employees.

We are going to be involved in in a in the a peer wellness program called Power in Peers.

We are at people in training to do that.

Uh the Deputy East is working with Ascension, ascension with help from Council Won't Tuttle so that we can set up early screening for cardiac and cancer concerns.

Uh, but the big project that is being spearheaded with by the Wichetro Metro Crime Commission is the Pinnacle Wellness Facility that we'll be discussing in detail at Unbank.

And this will be a joint venture for all employees of first responder agencies, city and county, um, not just commission, professional staff as well.

You know, we can't can't forget the that 911 dispatchers go through very similar stress that police officers do, uh, and so we want to make sure that it's for all of our employees.

All right, technology.

And I've come to all of you and I've come to the council before for money for technology, and I think that everyone would have to agree.

We spend it extremely well.

The taser 10 has been a complete game changer in terms of de-escalation.

Um we used it twice yesterday.

Uh, it prevents us from causing serious injury when we're in a situation where we're meeting active resistance.

Um, but in order to keep up our skills, we're we bought the virtual reality training kits, which are very cost effective and allow us to do regular training without having to take an officer out of service for their entire tour of duty.

We have the best body warm cameras uh that are currently available, and that's a transparency issue.

So we're getting we're getting the best possible picture, the widest possible lens, but we're we're continuing to look for even better products, and we look we look we're hoping in the future they'd be testing a 360 shoulder mount body worn camera mount that I think will be an improvement.

Drones, I can't say enough about what the how drones have changed everything.

When I came here, we all know I was upset to find out we didn't have a helicopter, but I was even more upset to find out we didn't even have drones.

Um we created a drone program, and now other cities around the country are looking to us to see what we are doing.

We have our tactical drones.

When I say that, they're the drones that are in our cars, and officers pull out and can launch within a minute or less, and then our DFR drones.

The first the first hive was put on uh the fire station on South Broadway, and the second drone which should go operational.

April.

Fingers crossed cross from the quick trip at Pent East Douglas.

That was that that's a donation from Quick Trip.

And Deputy Duff has uh has submitted the paperwork for hopefully for an appropriate federal appropriation for additional hives throughout the city.

Um mayor, we know what your vision is for this, and that's why those additional drones are important, so this will not just be a police tool, this will be a whole government city tool for all of our departments, and they'll be able to request work orders through Captain Hutchins up at the real-time information center.

Talked about risky terrain modeling and the top involved model, and of course, Spot, who we'll get to, and the real-time information center, which I'll give you more details on that.

Um my budget request.

We tested the translation uh on our body worn cameras, and to say that was success would be uh an understatement.

It was an incredible tool in a tactical tool, a community engagement tool.

It just represented the department so well.

It's it's something that I want to purchase that as a permanent option for all of our body worn cameras.

I saw the look on the manager's face when I told him we didn't have that now.

Um we tested that and we know it works.

It works in concert with our body warm cameras, it works in concert with the real-time information centers.

I saw an article uh recently about the number of times that officers' body warn cameras are knocked off during a struggle.

It's a real problem.

Um, so having them in the cars gives an additional level of protection for the community as well, well as our officers.

And in the test, we had an we had incidents where persons were doing things in the car in one instant.

Gentleman was banging his head against the cage so that he could make a claim that he was breeding was assaulted by police until he saw until he was shown the video.

Um so it offers an officers' liability protection.

It's something that we we desperately need for our market patrol fleet, um, and additional body warm cameras.

We want to get body warm cameras for um all of our uniform personnel, including our animal control officers, because they find themselves in uh not surprisingly, they find themselves in conflict often.

Um of course, staff, and we'll talk about staff concerns later.

Just to give you an idea, one hive 308 calls, September to December, on scene first, 208 of those times.

50 of those calls we were able to clear without a physical officer response, and that is the goal.

And other cities are having incredible success.

Josh recently went out to Las Vegas, they are the leader of the PAC in this technology.

Um their investment in it is absolutely incredible.

Um they have serious protocols about how they don't need the the where they'll deploy a drone before they even even deploy police officers.

Right now we have 43 trained pilots, and we are we are increasing that number, and we're increasing that number from our professional staff as well.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Chief.

I'm just curious.

The 50 calls cleared without a response.

What kind of calls would those be?

Just flights on the highway.

Um low priority, lower priority.

Okay, not emergency.

I mean, obviously, or or in some of those situations, it it well could have been a higher priority call, and there was nobody to send.

So it's at least a drone went, so we start getting some information and then found out there was nothing happening.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate it.

What started out as a burglar investigation quickly turned into something more.

Officers were already on scene investigating reported burglary when dispatch broadcasted another call.

Someone spotted a suspicious person moving through the nearby neighborhood, checking doors and slipping into backyards.

The description of the suspect sounded familiar.

Within moments, one officer spotted the suspect, but the suspect had other plans.

With a sudden burst, it took off from disappearing into the darkness of the night.

That's when technology joined the hunt.

Anybody else that way?

Within minutes, the drone was airborne, giving officers a bird's eye view of the area.

You remember from me.

And then movement.

The drone located the suspect, tracking his handry move as officers on the ground closed in.

Jumped into a backyard.

Now backyard at the front of the house has three drivers, three vehicles in the driveway trying to get the back door.

We just slept on someone.

He just opened up something.

He just opened right there.

Guided by real-time period support, officers moved in and took the suspect in custody.

Get on the ground now.

We have light information we get to take.

And this is not a station.

Another example of Tecnology.

An officer's case government.

Well, the officers involved in the history of the United States just yesterday for this drone.

So this could potentially become a problem for us because we have additional drones in the pipeline.

So I'm very concerned how events overseas could affect the availability of technology being purchased by domestic law enforcement.

But I can't say enough about these drones that we are getting interior drones for SWAT that are coming in the summer.

These drones are not good indoors.

If we can get eyes on you, we don't need to go in.

We don't need to go in.

That means we're safer and the bad guys safer.

Or a person in a mental health crisis that we're trying not to make the situation worse by our presence, but we need to get eyes on the person.

So uh and and those drones will work in coordination with spot.

Gunshot detection.

We were live in 2025, four square miles.

Um so as of March 18, 300 verified verified alerts, uh, where we found 54 shooting victims.

Led or assisted in 14 arrests and led to the recovery of 1,313 cartridge casings, which then go into our Nyivan system so that we can uh achieve correlations and connect one incident to another and give which gives us investigative leads and recover 28 firearms.

Again, gunshot detection is on our transparency dashboard.

Hands up!

Hands up!

Everybody hands up!

So mean your head!

On the ground.

Officers were dispatched after a gunshot detection through report of a drive-by shooting.

Lost X two responding units to drive by call.

Looks like we have a couple objects standing outside of 914 North Minnesota.

They're next to a vehicle.

It appears that they have a shotgun or a long gun.

Well, officers were still in the case.

Kansas Highway Patrol Air Support was already overhead, scanning the area from above from the air.

KHP was able to track the suspects and watch their movies in real time.

Yeah, responding units.

We just had one individual fire a display multiple times.

As officers closed in.

KHP there witnessed the suspects actively firing weapons.

Yeah, they're gonna be about five houses in order to you guys.

They immediately relay crucial updates, locations, direction of travel, and what officers were walking.

Yeah, they're about two houses down from you guys now.

This video shows how all this technology works together with responding officers like quickly.

This was a high risk situation with weapons involved and no group for the walking.

This now we're responding.

We're knocking on the doors and people are really appreciating that off of that.

One handgun in their neighborhood is case officers face in real time under unpredictable conditions.

And it shows the impact of strong coordination between agencies working together to protect the community.

To all the officers involved, well done.

Officers were standing in the parking lot and patrolled east one night and gunshots, and all they knew is that it came from the south.

And then they immediately got the gunshot detection alarm, which gave them the exact coordinates, and they arrived there and found the shooting victim.

Our first homicide of the year, the victim laid out in buried in the snow for the entire night.

If we had had gunshot detection, we would have been out there.

Um a question about that.

Um I I know when we were looking at the the Raven gunshot detection at the beginning, it was something incredibly high like 80 80% of gunshots were not reported.

Something crazy high like that.

Has that number um changed at all over the last couple of months?

Response times are going down as well as that number as well.

You I don't have those exact figures, but we get them for you.

Okay, yeah, I was just curious how budget is encouraging people to start to reach back out and and report those.

I know I hear them.

We are weekly, we track uh the percentage of verified alerts, so alerts that correspond to not alone calls.

So we do track that.

It's it hovers right around 43%.

Okay.

All this technology is discussed every week at Comstat.

Our analysts bring those figures to see whether or not you know the money we're spending is bringing us the return that we hope for.

So we can get you any of those figures.

Okay, I appreciate that.

And one more quick question about the drones.

Have to your knowledge have we used those in any fire responses yet?

Not yet, but that's where we're hoping to go.

That's what we want to build that network.

Okay.

And do we have uh like a standard operating procedure with fire if they want to request uh the drones?

How does that work?

Do we have that figured out?

They would they they would just make the request through 911, same way they do if they need us for traffic or crowd control, they could just request a drone through us and and we would respond immediately.

Okay, and and if you know if there was a DF, the DFR drones could even be launched from the street.

So if it was in that it was in the coverage area of the DFR drone, a pilot on the street could launch it even if they weren't in the real-time information center.

Um and now we were preparing for Riverfest, where you know the real-time information center will be occup will be occupied and operating and working together with radio one and Josh can give you more of the timeline on that, but eventually, you know, we've talked to O'Lora and we when once we're at the point where we're fully operational, we'll have a dispatcher in embedded with us in the real-time information centers.

But right now we're doing that, we're doing the heavy lifting with we're connecting everything.

FUCSIS is our operating system.

Thank you.

Can I add something quickly?

Um Chief Sullivan has been a good partner.

Um you all came back from NLC, and I want to say thank you to Vice Mayor Glasscock, who represented me on the aviation task force.

And so uh NLC is always thinking forefront regarding technology and aviation being the air capital of the world.

Uh, we need to continue, not just traditional aviation, but uh new technology like drones.

And so Chief Sullivan and I have sat on multiple panels regarding our drone integration into um public safety, and one of the things that uh we learned from other communities that have utilized drones as first responders is what uh chief was alluding to the vision really is so that other departments within the city of Wichita can utilize the drones.

One of those examples is the fire department.

If a drone gets sent out in the middle of the night, they know where the hot spot is.

So because of the technology in that drone, you can immediately focus your energy on the actual location.

The other uh opportunity with departments is public works.

Uh they can survey uh uh bridges, and we have many bridges around even the city of Wichita, and they can do surveying.

Um, so other departments can utilize these drones eventually, but again, the drones as first responders model just came online uh the second half of last year, so it's still in its pilot uh phase, and it has proven to have good results, but the idea and the goal is to really utilize it citywide, and that's within those other departments that could utilize it, like fire and public works.

So, as you all know, we have our daily morning citywide coordination call, and that is supplemented by our weekly fake call, our firearms investigation group that we work with ATF.

Uh we have we have our also have our Wednesday shoot review and our Thursday weekly compt.

So it sounds like duplication, but it's relentless pursuit of the people that are firing guns in the city of Wichita.

And I'm and I'm proud to say we're seeing very good, very good, very hopeful results this year.

Um we don't celebrate success, we acknowledge it, and then we move on.

Um, and that is in addition to our monthly now uh citywide meeting, which again is when we come together as a city and we bring our problems to the table, and other departments can do the same, and we try to work cooperatively to see how problem hotels, the fire department was extremely helpful at the last meeting.

They offered us some partnerships on how we can address some of the problem hotels on Kellogg East West, Broadway North, South, MABCD.

If we work as a team, we can be much more effective.

Sometimes it's not criminal, we don't have a criminal solution to the problem, but there's an administrative solution to the problem, and that's why it's very important that we work together.

Um but our goal with restraint model is precision policing.

And that means we're looking, we want to make sure we're at the right place at the right time, dealing with the right people, addressing the problem behaviors as opposed to taking a wide berth.

That's what disenfranchises communities and makes them feel over policed.

We're using data, we're using mathematical algorithms that I don't even begin to understand.

That's why I'm glad I have my animals, uh, but they work so that we focus on the people, the very small amount of people that are responsible for a large amount of crime in our community.

Our repeat offenders, those people that are willing to pick up a firearm, and that's what risk terrain model modeling helps us do.

It's it's geographic based.

Um, but when we combine that with our top offender model, it allows us to deal with problem people, problem places, problem behaviors.

I learned by speaking with community members, members of the department, and reading the Genshi.

One thing that was common.

This department did not have a single unified crime strategy, and I realized that it was my job to do just that.

I wanted a strategy that was that was proactive and involved the community.

Most importantly it was data driven and research validated.

So I test my analytical team to determine what would be the best strategy for our department.

This was a strategy that was kind of positionally defensible.

Firearms meeting strategy.

Without LAD community with response modeling.

They felt that it met all the parameters that I was looking for.

And they're researched in that something that would be primarily the community.

So risk remodeling was developed by Mark University and process there by the path.

What it is at its very core is a diagnostic tool and analytical technique that allows us to see what types of location to correlate with crime.

One of the big advantages to risk training modeling is that it utilizes objective data and it cuts out biases that people might have in the subjectivity of opinions on certain places.

The models that we're running right now are for each individual bureau.

Because we recognize that different types of locations are different in different parts of the city, they operate differently.

And so we want to make sure that we customize these models as well as possible.

So that's why we're building out individual first-trained models for each bureau of the city, so there's more of them.

And then from there, each bureau will have their own risk factors and the whole set of violent crime data that we all can be taking tough of it.

And plus it just focuses on places and it doesn't focus on people.

So a good example of this would be that hotels or hotels which show up as a high risk factor in the model.

And maybe the model shows that a crime is nine times more likely to occur within 300 feet of a hotel than anywhere else within the bureau or the city.

So at that point, that would give us a good indication that it's a very high risk factor for a crime to occur there, and then we also design a strategy to help mitigate against the crimes happening there in the future.

Another way that we did it is to say we have motels in a certain spot, but then we also have convenience stores that are right next to it.

And say a convenience store is two times more likely to have a crack happen within 300 feet of it than anywhere else in the city.

At that point, if we have the motel in the community store right next to each other, then the chances of a gun crime happening with those two locations overlapping with each other will be 11 times more likely than anywhere else in the city.

And so when we have more risk factors or more high-risk location types overlapping with each other, that increases the amount of risk that a crime will happen in that area based off of the model.

And then from there we can funnel resources to that area to help make sure that the environment is not right for a crime to be occurring there.

And so when it comes to building buy-in for officers or other departments that are helping us in the prime convention in these areas, the data goes a long way in building up trust and building up confidence that when someone allocates resources to this area, they're actually going to be making a difference.

So we have implemented kind of like an automated dispatch where officers at a specific time will go to a specific location with an RTM and they will stay in that location for a set period of time.

They will do proactive policing, they can get out of citizens, and just be a presence in that area to kind of help the crime that's going on in that area.

Our things walk around, make sure everything's good, man.

So no problems today.

I used to be a primary meet officer in that area, so I'm very familiar with uh the R team location.

Uh it was an area that I controlled for many, many years.

Anytime we can have a reduction in crime in an area, it just helps the community, it helps people feel safe.

Um they see our presence out there making a difference.

I mean the overall reduction in crime is probably the number one reason.

Hi.

I'll just think I noticed you sleep, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay.

Okay.

I just gave the way you all the time, and I wouldn't make sure there wasn't anything wrong.

Before we we we started uh controlling the artin area, we went out and we contacted businesses, um, disseminated flyers, uh, let them know kind of what we're going to be doing.

I mean, it was received very well.

Um they welcomed uh our presence and and so further on um we we attended our district advisory board meetings um and disseminated that to our our community leaders uh over the district project board, and it was received very, very well.

So I think part of being a police officer is wanting to make the community safer.

And having that dispatch call to that specific location.

It sends them to the area where we know crime is occurring.

And being a presence, contacting citizens, and being a contributor of crime reduction, I think makes us feel better.

When you think about success in the community, what is that for you?

It's two things.

Obviously, I won't be able to demonstrate that we have driven crime down.

That the statistics bear that out.

So right now we're evaluating our early results of the first 120 days.

We're very encouraged by what we see, especially in the East Patrol Bureau, but also in the other areas.

But of course, we're looking at the data and we're making adjustments in the areas that we are covering and when we're there and how long we're there, what we're doing while we're there.

But my ultimate goal is to take this department strategy and make it a citywide strategy to use a whole government approach.

One of the ways we would do that, in addition to our internal weekly CompSTAP meeting, my goal is to have a bi-weekly or monthly city stat meeting.

And that is where in a similar format we meet with the heads of all the different city departments that have a role in making restraint modeling work, but equally important representatives of the communities where we are utilizing this strategy.

So we can get their evaluation, their input, their suggestions, their ideas.

Together we can identify what those drivers of crime are and what is the best way to go about addressing that.

So we do it in a way that impacts the community and positive matter and it doesn't drive the community away.

That's very important in everything work on a new crime strategy.

2025 was 30%.

This year we've got 18%.

I'm sorry, 8%.

So they mostly serve 40% increasing shooting victims year to date for 2026, and that is my top priority.

And this is the top involved model, and I want to keep moving, but again, no, no, back up, I'm sorry.

But I just want to say that the most important thing here is that personal characteristics are not used in this analysis.

These are behaviors, and this is done through that three-part algorithm that is done by our analytical team.

So we can identify the people that are most likely to pick up a gun, and the people that are most likely to be the victim of somebody taking up a gun and try to intervene before that happens.

Alright.

Spot 21st century policing requires 21st century technology.

You have had robotics in the city of Worcester since at least the 1990s.

And you have increasingly you have you have purchased increasingly more sophisticated robotics since that time.

Now we have an opportunity to improve upon what we have.

We would not be selling the existing robots.

If you do this kind of work, you know that you need a variety of your toolbox.

Different situations require uh different capabilities.

Um this gives us a whole new level of capability, level of a maneuverability.

And again, there are two reasons we would use these particular robots.

One is the de-escalate situations.

It'll be a hostage situation, it could be a barricaded felon, or it could be a person in crisis.

It could be a veteran having a crisis, and we need to be able to talk to them and negotiate with them.

Just as it just as you saw in one of our videos, we negotiated with person in crisis on the roof of a building because without the drone, we would have had no way to speak to him other than to allow him, and that's the worst way to negotiate with someone in crisis.

The best way is to do it privately and quietly, and this gives us the ability to reach that person.

To navigate stairs, we wouldn't be able to navigate with our present robots, to open doors, which are our current robots, do not have that capability.

And it gives us the ability to have eyes on the situation and don't go in.

There's somebody in there and they're armed.

Don't go in, don't go in because we have somebody in present our entry.

Might cause them to do something to harm themselves or drive them into potential police suicide situation.

So that is the other reasons we are so passionate about investing in this technology.

I just can't say it enough.

It follows the ICAT philosophy, the guardian mindset.

This is about procedural justice, meaning we want to we want to resolve things without utilizing force so that they can be we can so that ultimately we will address the problem through prosecution or through treatment, or might be neither.

But ICAT has a saying that in policing, we used to say we go home.

Now in ICAT, we say we all go home.

The purpose of SPA is exactly that, so that we all go home.

That is the New York City Police Department who currently uses SPO along with 70 other police departments across the country.

They did a test of spot right after the George Floyd incident, and they they suspended the test.

Uh but and they made but they purchased spot in 2023, and they use it for the same exact very successfully.

The same exact things uh for the same exact purposes that we want to use it.

I just spoke to a member of our bomb squad uh on uh at the St.

Patty's Day Festival in AFCR, and he was telling me he's talked to bomb techs from New York, and uh they absolutely love the unit.

Uh Deputy Tuff did a great job.

Uh, and thank you, Senator Moran.

Um that all costs for we're grant funded, and we decided to locate it here at Sea Hall, so we'd be convenient for all of you as well as all of you in the event that we have a large incident or that you want to something done be out of there.

First phase of construction was completed in September of 25.

We're going to begin a second phase of construction in summer of 2026.

We will be requesting full-time employees, and they will be not, they will be four professional staff and one commission supervisor.

The real-time information center will not impact street staffing.

It has never impacted street staffing, and it never will as long as I'm the chief.

Um, we are as I said, we're completing the operation system implementation of Fucius.

That is no small task.

Um, and yes, SPOT can easily be accessed from the Arctic.

We'd be able to hear hear the audio, watch the video, as well as all the other technology that I talked about.

And it's going to be a great way for us to connect with the community as well when it's not being when it's not on a tactical assignment.

Okay, Chief.

Yep.

Um, currently, what does the staffing look like at the real-time information?

So uh explain.

Yeah, so right now we have um the chief has has allowed his admin aide, Zach Kester, to be part of the staffing.

He's given up that position for that, and then um to get you on the record.

My point, Captain Josh Hutchins.

Uh like I was saying, Chief Sullivan.

Uh, when he assigned me there, he told me he was giving me his admin um assistant Zach.

So Zach works with me consistently while still helping out the chief um on projects that he has.

We're also using officers that are uh online duty status that have been injured.

We need a place for them to assist, so we give them the opportunity to come up to the real-time information center to assist.

Um, if we have a major event that we need to monitor, um we look at using potential overtime positions, uh, professional staff to do some of those same thing.

So that's that's currently what the staffing is looking like.

As we continue to build this out, we'll continue to do that.

We'll start adding in additional support like interns from Richel State to support the staff that we're using there, continue to implement our professional staff to expand our capabilities.

Thank you, Captain.

Just have a quick question on that.

So sorry.

So right now, currently we don't have like assigned staff, it's just um borrowing.

Like there's not there's not four people there 24-7 now.

Yeah, so I'm sorry, go ahead.

Kirk, right now it's myself, and then uh there is one officer up there who was on light duty.

We've extended him beyond that as a temporary thing because he's really big on getting fusis going.

Um, but he will be returning to the street shortly.

So right now, yeah, that we don't have 24-7 staff.

And director made it has given us uh someone to help us with the technology background that we need to complete that connection.

So now we staff it as as needed.

Like we'll usually staff it on Friday or Saturday night to monitor old town.

Um, or if we're running an initiative with another agency, we'll we'll put people up there.

But the core positions are so that we can at least be about 12 to 16 hours.

Okay, that was gonna be one of my questions if it would be around the.

That's the other reason.

Uh I'm sorry, councilman.

I didn't mean to reason that we're gonna train more professional staff uh to be drone pilots, including DFR, so that we'll be able to utilize that easy on overtime.

Um again, like we can we'll be able to certain days we'll work.

We'll have that flexibility within the department about by you making that professional staff more economical, but it gives them professional growth opportunities, and it just allows us to kind of expand and contract as needed.

Awesome, thank you.

And of course, we'll we're gonna have a dispatch help eventually from 911, and that will be you.

Because I would assume that I mean it would be great to have somebody there all the time, but I would assume evenings or weekends is not the likely time that anybody loves to work, but probably the most important times for somebody to be watching.

When it's over time, they're they're very equal to work.

And again, you know, that rate is is pretty economical to consider the important job that you're doing up there.

Of course, thank you so much.

Chief, um, there's a request that you all speak directly into the mic, I guess some folks who are trying to follow virtually or having a hard time hearing.

So thank you.

Okay.

The OTA is a state-of-the-art multi-source information center that integrates all of our technology into one location, and it puts us sitting on our pod at the very forefront of policing.

The number one goal in launching a center such as the auto is to respond accordingly and leverage technology to improve public safety and the safety of our officers.

We can see the entire picture of almost any scenario with more options to support our offices and personnel who are responding to the emergencies than to serve the public.

Monthly policing is multi-faceted and utilizes numerous technologies with independent platforms.

The real-time information center will streamline information sources to one central location.

We're unifying every day best and databases and technological resources into one central hub.

So we can push information to our officers and emergency personnel as they respond to crimes in progress or calls of service throughout the city of World Shall.

By leveraging our technology, we can relay vital information before officers arrive at an active crime scene, allowing our officers to respond more efficiently and potentially clear calls and redirect officers to other priority calls.

Inside the Arctic, we utilize several technology to help our response and improve public and officer safety.

Our license plate reader system captures vehicle license plates as they pass through cameras throughout the city.

Our officers' body one camera systems show us what is happening in real time.

Our video camera network includes public cameras owned by government partners as well as third-party video integration program that allows us to connect to live video streams and private businesses that choose to participate.

We can only access those cameras that private business owners install a device that grants us permission to their cameras.

Our drone platform includes drones as first responders, which streams live video to the RK.

These information streams give us a comprehensive overview of any critical situation which saves time.

It allows our officers to make better decisions and improves the safety of our officers and the public.

Real time information center was designed with this in mind.

Every single step policy, development procedures, or implementing new technology to be thoughtfully planned out with the community and puts very focused, including design and development of public facing dashboards.

I'll go listen to keeping it.

We're still safe while ensuring residents remain involved every step of the way.

So that we really need to talk about, and this is why technology is so important.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

This is populated the population that we've tracked since 2017.

You can see the steady upward increase in population.

Unfortunately, authorized staffing has not kept pace with that.

Currently authorized for 700 commissioned officers, and we do have four of the officers that are grant funded through the ICT mental health grant and 209 professional staff.

The other thing important to note is uh last year we responded to 235,724 radio calls.

The year before, it was 219,289 radio calls.

At the beginning of March of this year, we were 4,000 radio calls ahead of this time last year.

So this is something else that I just need you to keep in mind because you know you get the complaints about response times, I get the complaints about response times, especially to those lower level calls.

We're doing good with emergency calls, but we still struggle during peak hours with the lower level crime, uh lower level incidents like minor accidents and things like that.

And that's why we will also be requesting funding for online reporting in in the next budget.

That is something I've been hoping for for quite some time.

So that would give citizens the opportunity to file these reports online when what they really want is a case number.

Yes, sir.

Chief, I have a few questions.

I've written with South Patrol, North Patrol Hot, specifically with North Patrol last time I was there.

We are back to back calls.

There's no break.

There is a line of calls that we're not able to take, some of which that I would consider a priority if I were called in, and obviously the people that called them in would consider them a priority as well.

When is the last few maybe follow-up questions to that?

When is the last time that we had an independent staffing study?

Is it a recommendation to have one?

What would the cost be to be able to have one?

I know you and I have also talked about the possibility of a fifth bureau in downtown that would help alleviate, especially the growing bureaus on the side.

Can you talk more about that entire vision?

When's the last time we had staffing?

How much?

Green line.

I just looked up.

So there was a staffing study done in 2017.

Obviously, I was still in Philly route for the Eagles.

That it was never implemented.

Uh I haven't seen it.

Um you haven't not seen the staffing study from 2017.

No, I've not.

Um so that is why's and here's why I am a proponent for a staffing study.

If we would if we would utilize the recommended uh FBI ratio of three officers per thousand residents, theoretically, we should have 1,200 officers.

If we looked at our pure cities, which we did, and where they are closer to two officers per 1,000, um, that would say that we need a hundred more officers.

And a lot of that has to do with what expectations are.

Our detectives work steady day work, all of them.

So is there an expectation to have detectives work 16 hours a day?

Um seven days a week.

Like there's a lot of questions that have to be answered by all of you, by the community as to what what our expectations, what do we consider except acceptable response time to different levels of calls?

Um, and that's how I would just like to have an out independent, objective outside person, make that determination so that the public could feel more confident in the recommendation is one that you know what what was done fairly and objectively.

Well, I know later in today's conversation we're talking about the 2027 budget allocations.

I'd be very interested about staffing studies for all the public safety.

This is something I've heard from officers, so we heard from the public when we talk about uh response times, and I think there's probably a fear that a staffing study is going to come back and say that we need more officers than we have, which obviously is an added cost to it, but I think we need to be able to see where we're at in the future and how do we move toward that direction because we're not gonna be able to get there overnight, but we're not gonna be able to get there at all unless we know at least what direction we're headed.

So I'd be very interested with that being some budget recommendation.

I really appreciate you bringing that up.

So, yes.

Um, we do have some limitations with the police academy, which we share with WSU and the Sheriff's Department.

We we can work around that, but it also requires staff to put on police staff to put on additional classes when we're all very short, and that will require me to take more officers off the street, which I can't do for the reasons that you so eloquently explained.

Um Aaron can explain a little, he does a little bit more knowledge, obviously, than I do, and that the reportions that were implementing.

Mayor and counsel, Captain Aaron Moses from the police department.

You'll see on the graph there there's a bump between 2019 and 2021.

Uh they did implement implement phase one of the three-phase staffing study from 2017 and portions of phase two, but phase three was never never discussed or implemented.

So I just wanted to clarify that for the record that portions of that previous staffing study were implemented, and that's the bump you see there on the graph in the blue from 2019 to 2021.

What's phase three until uh I'd have to go back and and read through it again.

Uh, but it focused on additional supervisors to uh consolidate specific special specialty teams, uh, like our central bureau currently houses our traffic unit that was a part of that staffing study to centralize those units and add additional supervisors.

Uh there were also recommendations, recommendations to add supervisors to investigations uh and to add detectives as well.

So that was some of what was recommended.

I have to look specifically at the report to see what was in phase three, but again, that was from 2017.

Okay, um, does do staff and studies also include suggestions such as um reporting encampments or um some of these other things that we're asking Peter to do ICT two through five going out on mental health calls like that.

Do they give suggestions for those circumstances as well?

Uh they they could, um, but that's more of like a strategic planning type of conversation where we would talk about what is the vision from the community for the police department, what is the vision of the city council for the police department and the issues that everybody believes the police department should be handling, and then you roll that into a staffing study and you determine these are the goals we want to meet, and this is what we need to get there, if that makes sense.

So there's sort of two things in tandem, I would say.

No, I can appreciate that.

Um, and one other thing, just kind of in the area of um staffing here.

Axios has um a program that helps uh officers file reports, um, so it takes away some of the um the stuff that they don't necessarily enjoy, but that can be time consuming as well.

Have we looked into uh using any of these programs?

I think you mean axon.

Uh it's an artificial intelligence plat uh product called draft one.

At this point, it's not something we're looking at.

Uh that's through conversations with the district attorney's office, the city prosecutors.

There are concerns about the use of artificial intelligence to draft police reports.

I don't think that's something that I'll let the chief speak for himself, but what I've heard is I don't think that's something that we want to be on the front line of.

We'd like to see some more case law from across the country from other agencies that are using it.

Uh we have looked at it, we've seen how it works, but at this point it's not something we're comfortable uh bringing online.

Okay, I could appreciate that.

I think so.

An addendum to that.

I'm oh, I'm sorry, man.

There was just an article in the PERF clips this morning where San Diego is no longer utilizing AI, and I don't know which program it was, but because of a flaws that were discovered.

So I don't believe the technology is there.

But what I can tell you is converting from niche to XNRMS, I am very confident because of the way that we're doing it, the thoughtful way we're that we're doing it, and that's why it's taking so long, but it's taking that long for a reason because we're doing the data conversion right, we're testing it right, uh, we're making sure all the proper validations will will be in place.

And and the captain is overseeing that project as well with with one of our crime analysts.

Um that will be huge in terms of what you're talking about.

It will take officers a lot less time to do barbing, you know, simple or even complex reports.

But right now they both take an incredible amount of time.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

I I just wanted to say you and I have talked about this every time we have our meetings that I I'm supportive of a staff and staffing study if it's done with a strategic plan at the same time.

I mean, I think they have to go hand in hand, like you said, I like the word tandem.

So thank you for saying that.

And one of the things that I think, too, that maybe should be emphasized that you mentioned early on is we are doing a great job using technology.

This was so helpful today.

Thank you.

I really appreciate the extra time that you and your team put into providing us with this information and the community being able to see why this specific request a couple weeks ago was made and how it's going to augment and enhance what we're already doing.

But I think the other part that as I mentioned, you said early on is all of this technology is fantastic, but it doesn't mean we need less police officers.

Absolutely not.

We need different types of positions to be able to implement and utilize the technology most efficiently.

So again, thank you for this fantastic presentation.

I learned a great deal.

I'm sure my colleagues and the community members who are watching did as well.

So thank you for all you do.

Thank you.

And Councilman Glascock, you know, you brought up um Center City.

You know, we have a lot of construction going on.

We have the medical college coming in with at least 6,000 students.

And I do think that some consideration should be given to at least in some part, um, you know, having Central Bureau and have a patrol aspect to it, so that we have that presence, whether it be bike officers, which would be my preference, um, so we have that visibility in in center city, and there's a cost, you know, there's a trade-off for everything.

You know, the old town detail costs a lot of money that we run every Friday and Saturday night, but if we had a permanent staffing, we we wouldn't be able to eliminate it, but we'd be able to reduce it.

There'll be cost savings there.

Um and again, ma'am, is you as you said, uh it's not a replacement, even though it costs money to hire more police officers, we'd also be saving on overtime.

We are very dependent on overtime right now.

Well, I think of South Patrol being pulled to Old Town on the weekend.

100%, and then they save space exactly.

And then we outside of which it's well, what we do now is yeah, yes, South bears the brunt of it, but under the new new deployment plan that they've developed for me, we we we try to pull from throughout the city.

But again, what happened what may happen is that one but one patrol bureau may already be at zero.

So now somebody else has to pick up the slack for that because we don't have designated manpower, and they're supplemented by the by the mounting unit, which does an incredible job there assisting, but it's there's always a give and take, and right now it's expensive.

All our detectives work, day work, they have weekends off.

So when we have a major incident at night on the weekends, it's a major, we have to call in our detectives, sometimes crime scene unit folks, our our community relations off off uh our CRT teams, um, so that we and that's why we have the clearance rate that we have.

We have 100% clearance rate so far this year for homicide.

We had 95% last year.

I mean, that's among the top in the country.

So uh it's what we have to do to to maintain that.

It's not cheap, especially when we're so short of manpower.

Well, this ties into kind of all your presentation.

Uh we talked about you do well done Wednesday, talked about the city doing Wichita wins and figure out positive things that are happening.

Can you talk about how this all holistically affected St.

Paddy's Day and maybe the success of St.

Paddy's Day from Delano to Old Town to NASCAR and all the activity where you have more than 40,000 people on the downtown core?

Can you talk about that?

And virtually no problems.

Um I give I give the credit to the 40,000 people to that, first of all.

Um, you know, it's amazing that we can have celebrations like multiple celebrations of that size in the city and not have any problems.

Um, but it but this type of technology is crucial.

We'll have a large march on Saturday, uh, and it'll be a peaceful march, it'll be a permitted march, we'll have a uh a much larger demonstration that we do every Saturday, which we have with no problems with great communication uh between demonstrators and the police.

Um but technology is a large part of that because we are in a time of an elevated threat level due to what's occurring overseas.

So we have to be very concerned anytime we have a large gathering.

We have to make sure that we keep demonstrators safe.

Um because any time we have a large gathering, it's a potential target.

I mean, you know, I have just like in the last meeting I have.

I mean, these are these are all new, and we're getting them for the federal government every single day, telling us to be extremely vigilant every anytime you have a large gathering.

Um, and this technology enables us to do that.

Um so, yes, the technology is crucial.

Uh, if we're going to be a 21st century police department, we have to have 21st century technology, but in no way does it replace manpower because it takes manpower to operate it.

Chief, um, I wanted to know which cities did you compare when it came to peer cities?

Um, Arlington, Texas, Des Moines, Des Moines in Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Nebraska, it's also Oklahoma.

I can't read that one.

Thank you for that.

Um, I had the opportunity through Bloomberg Harvard um to work with the mayor, former mayor in Tulsa, and he reminded me that every city um has a different uh structure when it comes to how staffing is paid or how capital investments are paid as well.

And I believe in Tulsa, I think their sales tax pays for staffing.

Um I was curious because we get compared a lot to Tulsa.

Uh, what have you seen when it comes to technology and staffing uh with their departments?

Because we go to Greenwood uh rising uh with the recruits.

Well, I mean, we saw their real-time information center, which uh uh the chief is a partner of mine at Major Cities at Dennis has been a great partner to us, um, sharing everything.

I mean, he talked about, I believe they had just purchased a new helicopter and a new facility, new training facilities.

You know, one of the things that we didn't talk about in this presentation, what we've talked about personally, and I've talked to other other members of council about it is the training we're doing.

You know, we have a beautiful police academy, but there's no room to do reality-based training, which is extremely important for 21st century policing.

When you know, you can take the ICAT class, you can do the online training for the 15 principals, but it's very important that that be followed up with reality-based training, with scenario-based training where we put you under pressure and we force you to make decisions, and then we're able to give you a healthy critique and recommendations how you can do better.

So that's just something that you know I would love to see, and other partner agencies that you know that I meet with at Major City Chiefs, have those.

Many of them get a great deal of support from their police foundation.

Um, but I just think it's it's something that should be in the back of our mind.

We talked about PE.

Um, I don't want to get out ahead of myself, but it's just something to think about.

Chief, I just want to say thank you for bringing the element that I think has been missing from this conversation, uh, which is the people.

And I think oftentimes we forget that you know, police are one faction of the solution.

But I believe, or at least I adopt the philosophy that we make we make our community safer and we take the strain off of police officers when we uh uh get proximate to the people and help them understand that they are a part of the solution as well.

Know that you've made comments that this is a community issue, and I agree with you.

Um, and so to me, the answer is not always more police.

Uh sometimes it's how do we make sure that we're building trust with community alongside the police?

And so um that's a philosophy that I think Greenwood has adopted, especially when you look at the historical context of Greenwood.

Let's not forget that it's a black community that faced a lot of economic despair and a lot of safety issues, but uh looking to them as the model, they build relationships with that community, their elected leaders, police, etc.

Um, I'm curious uh as it relates to the technology.

Do we do vendor background checks?

Yes.

Captain Moses, can you share kind of what that process entails, please?

Mayor and council Captain Aaron Moses again.

I want to make sure I understand exactly what you're asking.

So, what is vendor background check mean to you?

So it means the vendors that we utilize to purchase our drones.

Have we done any background checks to ensure that there have not been any issues with other cities?

So the chief mentioned San Diego.

I know that while we were at the National League of Cities, myself, Councilmember Hoheisel, and Councilmember Ballard had an opportunity to hear um about how this technology is being utilized in general from other government agencies.

Um I'm curious if we have encountered any background checks that other cities have learned lessons from.

Yeah, so certainly through our city purchasing process, anytime we go out for RFP, that includes uh soliciting feedback from people who are current customers.

Additionally, we are part of the major cities major cities chief association, uh, which is uh a group of the largest police departments across the country.

I routinely send out requests for information to major cities chiefs associations on behalf of the chief, uh, and they all reply with feedback on vendors, feedback on processes, policies, so on and so forth.

Uh, we also just uh through our case use and use of uh federal information and law enforcement information, that also requires additional what you would maybe think of traditional background checks to make sure that people can have access to our information.

So there's multiple layers of background checks for vendors that we go through.

Thank you, Captain.

Uh, just want to reiterate that again.

We have the opportunity to attend the National League of Cities.

I attended a session particularly on technology and how it's being integrated within public safety agencies and government.

Um I would also say that Wichita Police Department is far ahead of the game as it relates to where we are, and I think that that is something that we should celebrate.

You are to be applauded.

But with that being said, there is risk, and so I'm curious what is the cybersecurity response plan as it relates to the technology that we're utilizing, um, and does it align with the vendors that we are utilizing for the drones and other technology that we use for the 21st century technology?

Well, the reality is that we know we're using the best technology out there with the best possible protections.

Nothing's 100% in today's world.

I can't tell you that something's not going to get hacked.

911 centers have been hacked across the country.

Um what I know is that we have the technical support that we need, and one of the things we look at is the responsiveness of those companies.

We had a problem with Taser 10 when it first came, and the president of the company, because of major city chiefs, was on the phone with us, the president the next day, and told we told him what we wanted done, and he directed his people to do it, and it was fixed immediately.

So we look at companies that are responsive to us.

Um we were we were doing an officer-involved shooting investigation for the county, and our drone was attacked by a uh falcon.

One of our like literally was attacked by a falcon and destroyed the drone.

That draw that drone was replaced in 48 hours.

So we look for companies that we can depend upon.

That is why we are a big Axon customer, uh, because they are at the forefront of technology and and addressing the concerns.

Axios is a vendor of theirs.

So we know that even though these things are expensive, we know that they work.

We know that we can depend upon the company if there's a problem.

And the same thing goes with SPOT.

I mean, we have done extensive investigation.

I'm a major member of major city chiefs, I don't buy anything.

The reason I go to those conferences whenever I can is because I rarely do travel for that because I just kind of I'm kind of uh paranoid when I'm out of town.

Uh but those are the most value the most valuable use of my time because I get to meet with my fellow chiefs from the largest police departments in America who are utilizing that techno technology, and we talk to them before we move forward, and that's why we did that with our Arctic technology, uh, our body worn camera technology, everything that's in our axon.

And uh, oh Paul, do you want to jump in here?

Yeah, I guess, but yeah.

I was just gonna add from an IT perspective, obviously, we work very closely with Director Meta and his team on anything that touches the city network.

And on spot specifically, I know there are qu there were questions about encryption.

Uh, there is multiple layer encryption uh included with with SPOT to keep from any sort of interference.

Thank you.

Just one more comment, and I have several more, but I'll give my colleagues an opportunity to engage.

I I would just like to see um a clear outline of as we look at investing in this technology, who owns the risk, what is the risk, and who owns that risk.

Um, and I that's not just for Wichita Police Department.

I think that should be for the entire city of Wichita, uh, because as we invest in the technology, as you mentioned, there's never a hundred percent guarantee, and we have to be honest with about that.

But again, who owns the risk, what is the risk, and who is the point of contact and or the standard operating procedure in the case that that risk is reached.

So I can talk a little bit about the drones and Sky Deal specifically.

Uh the chief mentioned earlier, sorry, polled off deputy chief, uh was part of the process and making sure that we chose the American drones over the Chinese DJI drones specifically.

Uh the chief is 100% right, SkyDo, the best drones in the world right now, and the reason that the US military chose them was because of the cybersecurity capabilities and their ability not to get hacked by foreign advisors.

So where we are with SkyDio, they are literally the best in the world right now, what they do.

So in terms of who owns the risk specifically, we talk cyber security side, or are we talking like on the cybersecurity side?

Well, I think everything is cloud-based.

Uh there's nothing server-based, so everything like I said, in terms of Scadio and Axon, they are the top of the game across the world, period, when it comes to policing when it comes to cybersecurity.

Uh and we are uh very much an axon police department and a Sky police department as well.

So I don't know if that helps you with a certain easy risk, but we're we're at the top of the game now.

Thank you.

The other thing I like to say that we're just not about technology.

There's a lot of cities that their met their combined mental health programs are going away where ours is growing.

Um we we run those team drag it.

Our officers love them.

Um they asked us to utilize the grant to hire police officers because they felt better with a police officer with them, but we let them take the lead, uh, and we're just there.

So we and we feel very strongly about that.

That's why we went to the uh Wichog Police and Fire Foundation and got them to provide ballistic protection uh for our mental health professionals.

Also, really happy to say that uh hot is out right now working with uh outreach workers from housing, new outreach workers, um, and also people from ComCare addressing that email that I sent you manager.

So um we are big proponents of combined teams to do a variety of things, including mental health and homelessness.

I've said that from the beginning.

I do not hot is not the answer to homelessness, but we play a very important role in it, and we have great officers that are very empathetic towards that community of building a great deal of trust.

But but we we we we need that uh support from uh people with that specialization.

Yes, sir.

Go ahead, Maggie.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Chief uh Councilmember Hoheisel and Shepherd and I uh had the pleasure of meeting the police chief from Minneapolis, and he's a big fan of yours.

Uh and he shared many of many of the same things that you tell us um about you know the community and and modernized policing, especially about immigration stuff.

Um I know I am supportive of a staff study.

Um I think it's important, but we also need to know that we need to act on whatever it potentially says.

So I think Minneapolis is fairly similar in size to Wichita, and they have hundreds more officers, and they're even down from what the police chief was saying.

So definitely something that we need to be prepared for, uh whatever it says.

So I I also think maybe a public safety study, and that has been commented overall.

Um I certainly hope it wouldn't take years um to to do this study and then have to figure out you know how to how to make it work.

But um, so hopefully we can we can continue that conversation.

But when you're talking about workforce and technology, and I just want to make sure that this is simplified to where everybody understands.

So the technology is not replacing officers.

Absolutely not.

It's just an additional tool in the toolbox.

So you're still gonna send the same amount of officers to a homicide or something like that.

This is just an additional tool.

It's not am I.

Even if I send a dog in, I still have to have the same team ready to go in case that dog, in case Spot sees someone in imminent danger.

So it doesn't, it it just saves me from sending them in first.

I just want to make sure that people, the community understands that you're not replacing officers with SPOC.

I was told first, I was told my job was to come here and get us to our authorized strength.

And we have 39 in the academy now, and we hope to put 40 in in July, and that will almost have us there.

But I can tell you, after spending three years here, and they will tell you.

I listen to the radio a lot and ride around a lot, that that number is not gonna solve the problem.

When I get you there, it's not gonna solve the problem because you have to remember four bureaus, four tours of duty when you start spreading people out.

And we still, although we've driven attrition down to very low levels that we're we're very proud of.

Officers still need to retire, and they still want to go on to second careers, and sometimes I have to take action.

Uh so you know, the tritian is always going to be there.

Um it's it's at a very good level.

Um, but we currently have uh 31 open police officer positions, and I will fill them with the next class.

Um and that number is 48 at all ranks.

That's a far cry from where we were when I arrived.

Um, but again, I don't want there to be an expectation that when we're at that authorized strength that everything's going to be fine because it won't.

I mean, we'll can they're out there doing an incredible job with less than they need.

But the concern I have is that's not a sustainable strategy.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

All right, yeah, back to me.

I'm sorry, Chief.

Um, just a couple of questions.

Um, one of the things I'm hearing from the public a lot is is the concerns over privacy, um, reporting the portals.

So I have just a few questions along those um flock contracts.

That's another one that I hear quite a bit.

I've talked to Duff quite a bit about that, specifically around working with government, um federal government organizations, um, the security concerns that council member Shepard brought up.

Um, what is our portal show?

Is it active now?

The flock it's active.

You can see every everyone that we share data with, and it is no one in the federal government.

Okay, yeah, and all data is destroyed 30 days, not 31, 30 days.

We can no longer access it.

We have strict controls in place that you have to have a criminal investigation and a case number in order to access access the portal, and we do regular audits to determine whether anyone has improperly access the portal.

We may find some minor transgressions, but nothing major.

Our people know how important this is to us.

We do not have 100% clearance rate for homicide, and we're somewhere around 70% for non-fatal this year.

We do not have that without Flock.

The first homicide of the year, we were able to trace, we had nothing, and we were able to trace the shooter back to his home out of state.

Um, it's an incredible tool.

We know how credible it is and how important it is to uh to our investigations, and we protect it, and uh anyone violates any terms of the agreement, they're they're immediately removed from the system.

Uh, and those people that we have removed have not been given access back, and never will want, Chief.

Well, I appreciate that.

I think our internal policies are good and solid.

That's something else again.

We do through major city chiefs when we put together our drone policy.

You know, we uh we looked at uh a California department was among the best, you know.

There their policy had been drafted and approved by the ACLU, and we we model our policy after that, and it brought up important things like we cannot use the drones for immigration, we don't do immigration investigations.

First of all, we can't use the drone that we did, we don't use it to monitor abortion clinics.

As far as demonstrations go, you know, we have a great relationship with the community here, and they asked for protection.

So if we utilize technology at a demonstration, we communicate that beforehand.

There are no surprises, and if there's any objections, then we have that discussion.

But all we have ever gotten is thank you.

I think again, uh, our internal policies are solid, and I appreciate you bringing up that we based it on a lot of discussions with the ACOE, especially around the drones.

Um again, the one thing I do here is just ensuring that our information is secure within us.

Um, there's been concerns about some of the vendors.

Um I just want to do that.

Which one far secure information block specifically?

Well, that's if we that depends on who we grant it to.

So we have heard the community loudly, and that dictates our decision, and that is why we did not share that information with the federal government.

Okay, and that and there are guarantees within our contract with block that they cannot share.

I think that's kind of where I'm trying to circle back to is more the concern with the the company, the vendor, as opposed to us.

Captain Aaron Moses again, yes, the Flock agreement very clearly states the license plate data, the the photos that are taken, belong to the Wichita Police Department, not Flock.

And we actually went in and strengthened that language about a year and a half ago to make it very clear that Flock cannot sell that data, cannot share that data with anybody.

That's our decision to make, not theirs.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Me again.

Uh just again want to say thank you because uh just demonstrates how we are going the extra step.

There were plenty of cities at the National League of Cities who unfortunately did not do that vetting.

Um and so I appreciate hearing that we are and I hope that we maintain that we would not give that data to anyone else outside of our police department.

Well the listening sessions that we we've done in all of your districts was so that Colonel Duff could hear that as well as Aaron and Josh, and then we incorporated that in the drafting of our policies and then placed our policies open to the public so there could be further comment.

As Aaron said, we look at other cities that have successful policies through our major city chief network, um, so that once we post it, it represents best practices within policing.

Um, and then other cities are looking at our policy and copying our policy to be honest with you.

Thank you.

Two quick things.

Um, I know that today we've talked about a staffing study, and I think that there's a way one, I think we need to be clear about our definition of what public safety is because public safety, though police and fire play a major role in that.

That is that is not the only definition of public safety.

Um, I think we need to look at public safety holistically, and I think if we're talking about prevention, right?

How do we make life um easier for our police officers and get to the root of the challenges prior to it becoming a violent situation or criminal situation?

That means that we also have to invest in those other things that serve as preventative um causes for people.

The second thing is um also on the conversations about a substation in center city, um, the district that I represent, the district that I live in downtown Wichita, council member ballot as well.

I would love to be looped in in any of those conversations, be very transparent that um as it stands right now, um, preserve the right to be wrong.

I don't have an interest of seeing a substation in in the urban core or in the center of of the city of Wichita.

Uh, but again, I could be wrong, and perhaps data will showcase that there is a need for that.

Um, again, I would like to see instead data that supports a need for that.

I would love to be looped in that conversation as a resident of downtown Wichita and someone who represents that area, as well as looking at um what other alternatives to invest in in regards to public safety outside of just police.

Sure.

And when when we say that it's an there is an existing Central Bureau station, just a couple blocks from here, where our traffic up our traffic unit operates out of our hot team operates out of our combined mental health teams operate.

So it would just be an addendum to that.

We already own the building.

I think that um, you know, I understand your concern.

Well, because I would not support doing it if it took resources from any other area.

I could not support it.

Because I don't, as I've said, I don't not happy with the staffing of those areas now.

But the polco surveys that were done, just as one example, there is a perception of center city as being unsafe that's not indicated by the crime.

Um, I pulled the the old time crime statistics, and of course I forgot to mention them, but you know, crime is significantly down in Old Town.

Um it was last year and it is this year.

Um, but the perception's not there, and perception is reality because if people don't feel safe, they're not coming to center city.

And uh crime was down, uh, total apartment crime was down 16% last year in Old Town.

But Polco surveys would make you think otherwise.

And I have to address perception uh as well as reality because we do want to see you know, the center city of any city is the heart of the city.

And we have to make sure the heart is healthy because that brings in that generates funds that then benefit all the city.

Um and as far as uh this the study being public safety, I couldn't agree with you more because it might show where increased civilianization can free up more police officers.

We have community service officers out there, and I'd love to have 25 or more of them tomorrow because the amount of time they free up for my police officers is staggering.

Uh, I want more mental health teams.

I want more homeless outreach workers.

So we're in a we're in total agreement there that there are there are you know, public safety center city could be a special services district where we have they call them ambassadors in other cities where they're uniformed persons walking the street, but they just give a sense of order.

Part of that study should be increased better lighting, graffiti removal.

All of that should be part of it because all of that is fighting crime.

Absolutely.

And that's what RTM is all about.

And I encourage all of you, it's okay, to feel free to always come to these count meetings and listen and to see how they're developing, and we're beginning to work together to address those issues.

Thank you, Chief.

And I think that it's our responsibility to help with that perception as well.

Perception is reality.

What we say and what we do and the policies that we enact also contribute to that.

As a former student at Wichita State, there were lots of comments of don't go into Fairmount, don't walk home at night.

And the data did not support that that neighborhood was not safe.

And so when we talk about downtown as if our unhoused neighbors are causing violent crimes to other people, or when we talk about downtown in a way where we need more traditional policing, it does create a perception that is not accurate.

And again, as a resident of downtown who lives and sees it every single day.

Thank you.

A lot of our technology and a lot of our 21st century is grant funded.

Yes, sir.

The entire real-time information center.

And then we are using technology that is having the impact on our clearance rates.

So if you do the crime in Wichita, you'll do the time.

Thank you, manager.

Next mayor, if you're good to move on to the next topic that we have for you today is talking about speaking of downtown, talking about parking.

And so we'll ask Troy to come forward as assistant city manager to give an overview of where we are with our downtown parking and city hall parking implementation for paid parking.

Honorable Mayor, members of council.

So want to give a little bit of an overview.

So prior to this, it was adoption of that 20 times 2019 multimodal plan.

Following the conversations about things like removing old town temporarily and removing Delano, we had to come back and amend the operation and management agreement with Car Park.

So May 2025, we have sort of the latest and greatest amended and restated operations and management agreement with Car Park.

So following that May action item on June 23, 2025, we started implementing sort of the physical environment in which we would be able to manage parking.

So as you can see on the screen here in front of you, this was phase one.

On August 4th, 2025, we began implementing phase two.

September, phase three, November, phase four, and we can go back and look at any one of these if you want more information.

But okay, so as part of this, we're gonna continue to just kind of set the stage, right?

That part of the implementation as directed by the governing body was um have all of the same equipment, right?

And that's for the purpose of improving the user experience, right?

We want to make sure that as users of the system are using the system, that they're not having to go to one place and experience a completely different set of kind of rules, hours, equipment, etc.

So one of the things we wanted to do was to introduce all the same equipment across the system, have all the same signage, have all the same enforcement hours again Monday through Thursday, 8 to 6, Friday and Saturday from 8 to 9, and Sunday, there are no enforcement hours.

Event hours do somewhat trump those base hours.

There may be hours outside of those where as you may recall that within two to three blocks of event centers, event hours may apply.

Again, all the same parking rates across the system.

Currently, that's set to a dollar an hour, except that event rates may apply even in outside of uh that dollar per hour.

Eventually, the goal in the recommendation is over the course of the next year to collect data based on all of this equipment, knowing and understanding who is using parking, when, where, and how, and then ultimately coming back with recommendations on how to make adjustments to the system in order to achieve the desired occupancy and utilization as set forth in that plan.

So, right now for 2026, the plan is to just collect data over the next year and then probably come back to you about this time next year with some recommendations on how to make adjustments to the system.

Can I ask another question quickly?

Um the expense, which is equipment and manpower.

Yep, I've got some slides on that.

Yep.

Okay, so one of the things I want to be able to differentiate here is when we implemented the 2019 parking and multimodal plan sort of recommendations, right?

It's just a segment, it's just a part of the city's overall parking fund, right?

So we have to be able to talk about when people are asking how is parking performing.

Are you talking about the parking fund?

Or are you talking about the implementation strategies that we introduced last year?

Specifically, we really kind of looked at it from sort of the Q3, Q4, July of last year, a lot of the on-street meters, a lot of the surface log meters.

But we already had parking management in, for example, City Hall, we'll talk about that here in a little bit.

But we also had parking garages, right?

So these are not the same conversations.

I'm gonna try to differentiate between the two, right?

But just when we're talking about the parking fund that the implementation strategies that we uh began implementing last year, it's just a part of the system.

So it's been a little bit difficult, and we appreciate the patience with us, right, to sort of extract out so that when the general public wants to know hey, how is the parking implementation going from last year?

We can extract that out of the parking fund and be able to better report on that.

So I'm gonna kind of go up a level, right?

And I'm gonna start out with the parking fund.

Okay, so you probably are familiar with this table.

This was the table that we showed back in 2024 when we first uh had the uh amended and rest uh stated agreement with car park.

It did not show the 24 numbers.

Uh the last numbers we showed you back in 2024 were the 2023 year-end numbers that showed down there at the bottom after revenues and expenses in 2023.

There was a surplus of about 53,000.

By year end 2024, we had a negative 232,000 to the parking fund.

We continue to show this in the context of as you can see, this is not a sustainable parking fund.

This is not a sustainable business model, which was one of the biggest reasons why we introduced parking management strategies that we did.

Yes.

Can you please explain some of the expenditures that have been ongoing for the parking fund and what types of revenues for the parking fund even before this downtown parking implemented in 2025?

Can you talk about revenues and expenses?

Yeah, so on the revenue side, prior to implementation of the 2019 plan, we had we we have surface lots and we have garages that we had staffing that was responsible for ongoing sort of operations and maintenance.

We have utility billing, we had, in fact, honestly, I I keep looking out in the audience here.

I got to tip my cap to Stephanie Canable, who is the city's parking manager, and who did an amazing job.

I'm actually going to kind of highlight it later on in the presentation.

We think we maybe found $400,000 that of expenses that were probably not best associated with the parking fund.

There were maintenance obligations, again, utility billing, ongoing costs that for all intents and purposes probably should have been assigned to different expense accounts throughout the city.

But we found some about $400,000 savings in expenses.

Again, cleanliness, maintenance, operational costs, etc.

On the revenue side, we had parking contracts that we had employers who were paying for employees to park within our parking garages.

We had we had event revenue that we were collecting for events in lots and garages.

So again, comprehensive, that was the parking fund before we started implementing the 2019 plan.

And all of that's available a little bit.

This is a consolidated version.

If you look at the previous budgets for the parking fund, you can begin to see a little bit more detailed layer in some of those revenues and expenses.

This is just the consolidated version for overall revenues and expenditures for the parking fund.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the car park agreement.

There's been some questions about what kind of service are we getting for our contract, right?

So car park is essentially acts as the full service operator of the Wichita's parking system.

They are responsible for staffing, for daily management, collecting and reporting, issuing tickets and compliance, maintaining things like meters, technology, IT infrastructure, cleanliness and maintenance of facilities.

And I'm gonna put an asterisk on that, non-capital, right?

So just general day-to-day routine cleanliness and maintenance, capital improvements are a different conversation, but this is just general cleanliness maintenance, and then customer experience.

You'll notice that throughout all of that, regardless of whether we had hired the car park or had done this internally, these are all costs that we would have had to have absorbed as a city in managing a system.

So we were uh visiting with some folks just even earlier today, right?

That regardless of whether the city is taking on these expenses or whether we're outsourcing those, right?

These are all costs that are associated with managing a system like this.

City retains all ownership, policy control, and major capital responsibilities.

Okay, so some of the expenses.

This is uh something that you're uh somewhat familiar with.

This was part of the uh green sheet, the agenda report from back when we approved the amended and restated agreement with the car park.

You can see there on the left-hand side of the first column, those are that's the management fee.

That's the cost in which we are expending to have all of those staffing operations, maintenance, so on and so forth.

Again, whether or not we're outsourcing that or managing that in-house, that same management fee is going to exist.

Amortized cost, that's the equipment.

You'll notice that out in sort of 2025, by the end of 2025, all of the equipment that we have installed over the last six months will be paid off, and that way that's how you uh no longer see the amortized cost on the equipment, and then obviously the total.

Okay, so this slide I wanted to kind of highlight something because the next slide that I show you is a little misrepresentative of what we anticipate the system looking like in the future, and that's because this year we had one-time expenses.

We had almost $540,000.

Well, we had $540,000 in one-time expenses to stand up the system that we're not going to see in future years, right?

We had to remove old meters, we had to pour new concrete, we had to run some electrical, we had to put some cameras in some of the garage entry.

That's separate and distinct from an RFP for security cameras that is going to be coming to you here in the next couple of months.

But we had about $540,000 in one-time fees last year.

So one of the things that we started trying to do is sort of starting to extract what did this look like last year for just the implementation plan, right?

So this is just for the implementation plan.

Q3 and Q4, because again, we didn't have anything in Q1 or Q2 last year.

You'll notice we between revenues and expenses, we had a net loss of about $410,000.

But again, keep in mind you had $540,000 in one-time expenses.

So what does that look like for the entire parking fund?

This is unaudited, so take this with a grain of salt, right?

But we have a pretty good idea of what 2025 looked like last year, and overall the entire parking fund.

Last year, we only had a net loss of about $3,800.

Remember, keeping in mind that had we not had that $540,000 in one-time expenses, we probably would have had about a $500,000 sort of net positive showing in our parking fund.

That kind of shows that.

So we're going to continue to monitor over the next year again.

We'll continue to report.

So that on the parkwichetaw.com website, you're seeing sort of a segment of the overall parking fund that's directly related to those implementation strategies.

But all of that information should be available on the Parkwitch.com.

Okay, so where are we at today?

So right now we are actually in the process of making some changes here at City Hall.

Just trying to continue to set the stage that this is all the same equipment as downtown.

This is all the same signage as downtown.

It's all the same enforcement hours as downtown, all the same parking rates.

This is nothing new, right?

In the context that paid parking existed at City Hall prior to a couple of months ago when we started removing some of the old equipment.

We wanted to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, and the equipment that the city just purchased a couple years ago, some of the control arms that were out in the parking lot, we have relocated those to the parking garages downtown.

The parking, the PARCS parks equipment in the parking garages downtown, we're getting outdated.

We had a mix of equipment, and so we took all of that same equipment that was here at City Hall and we put it in the parking garages.

Again, trying to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.

We've also added some roll-up doors to increase uh security in those parking garages and control access.

And so we're trying to continue to demonstrate not only to the governing body but the community that we are starting to see a return on this investment, and we're starting to see investment back into these assets to create a clean and safe environment downtown.

And same goes with City Hall.

Additionally, in downtown, um we are updating information on the pay stations to include some QR codes for Google Pay.

Um the Apple Pay option is a little more difficult.

We're continuing to work with our vendors to try to figure out how to get Apple Pay incorporated into the system as well for those that want to use Apple Pay.

Google Pay, we did have a solution.

So as you're if you wanted to use Google Pay and you wanted to walk up to a kiosk, there's a QR code that you could scan and use Google Pay to pay at the kiosks.

We're continuing to work with other vendors, like I said, to try to get Apple Pay incorporated.

It's been a little more difficult.

But those are the kind of things we're continually trying to improve the user experience.

Talked a little bit about the new equipment at the three downtown garages as well as the new roll of doors.

So want to touch briefly a little bit on enforcement.

So there's been some questions on enforcement, and so I just wanted to kind of take just a moment.

Yes, once issued parking tickets are then managed by municipal court.

Payments can be made by mail phone in person and online.

Extensions may be requested.

Issues and complaints should be reported to the car park.

And then this was the parking fine schedule that was approved by city council several years ago.

I have a question regarding that.

Yeah, there's been an ordinance on the books for 20 plus years now.

It's been an ordinance that's been on the books for years.

I can tell you, I don't know exactly the history on the ordinance, but I can tell you just generally speaking, probably one of the reasons why is because in Kansas you're only required to have one plate on the back of the vehicle, right?

In other states where you're required to have a license plate on both the front and the back of the vehicle, it may not necessarily be as an issue, but particularly because in Kansas you're only required to have a plate on the back as enforcement and otherwise driving down the road, they can see the plate on the vehicle.

If you're backed into a space, it's it's unsure whether or not that vehicle is licensed and registered.

Number one, number two, uh, especially with angled parking, um, backing into a space can uh impede traffic and can be difficult uh depending on whether it's an angled what space or not.

If it's parallel, it's not generally as much of a deal.

Uh but I know that in other communities they've had issues with vehicles.

Um there's been a uh trend throughout the years of actually flipping that angled parking so that as you're driving down the lane of traffic as you stop and you back into an angled parking.

Um it's also a safety measure for doors and kids that open up, they exit towards the sidewalk and now don't not out onto the street.

So there's been some strategies throughout the years of folks trying to respond differently to how vehicles park, but I know there's just been a number of factors that continue to lead into why backing into spaces is generally not suggested.

I I would like to piggyback on that one a little bit.

I've had a couple of residents uh reach out with those complaints as well.

Um is there any way?

And I've talked to Gary about this, I think, where public works anyways about putting up some signage relaying this information.

They they were ticketed in Century 2 parking lot.

So I I mean I wouldn't expect angled parking or side street parking or anything for there to necessarily be anything for that, but more um maybe in our lots and parking garages, just making sure that there's some sort of signage just to give them some more because I was unaware of that as well, and um so it was kind of a surprise to me to find out that it's been um against our ordinances.

We're 20 some odd years here, so um, just a thought, making sure that we relay that to the public a little bit.

We'll continue to work on messaging and we'll examine uh some opportunities to better sign.

Do you mean you're just signage saying you can't back in?

Yeah, okay, because I think it was driven by police.

I mean, I obviously wasn't here, but because you couldn't see their license plate numbers, right?

Right, right.

Yeah, we just haven't been enforcing it for 20 some odd years.

So now that it is um being enforced again, my car parked more than anybody else's scenes.

Um it'd be good to just uh to relay that info to everybody.

Maybe law knows which ordinance that is, um, but according to the parking fine, which would that be the violation, and then what's the ordinance?

I don't have the exact subsubsection, and the fine it believes 50 dollars.

Jennifer, did you just have that off the top of your head?

No.

Okay.

You good?

Okay.

Okay, so now kind of future, what are some of those things that we can anticipate over the uh next several months?

Uh, one of the things that we're gonna do is begin to activate event rates.

This was something we started talking about as part of the implementation.

Last year, we did not activate the new event rates.

Um, but this year we will start activating the new event rates.

So this just gives you kind of a snapshot of what we are anticipating.

The reason behind this, right, is because these are market rents, right?

Um if you get online today and you wanna go reserve a parking space in a private parking lot associated with say a small, medium, or large scale event, these are the rent.

In fact, you're probably gonna be paying north of these numbers to attend an event at either intrus bank arena or C2 or the convention center, and so you can begin to kind of see how these are gonna be the new event race that we're gonna start rolling out later this year.

Okay.

Additionally, we're gonna probably come back in the next couple of uh weeks.

We just had some last conversations with law uh coming back with updating some of the municipal codes around hooding fees.

Um it's a little bit of a nuance.

We we refer to it as hooding fees because literally you used to go out and hood, put a hood over a meter, and that's uh that's how the term hooding uh came into existence.

Uh, with the new technology, we don't have a whole lot of sort of individual meter heads.

We do have a few out there, but we don't have actual hoods that go over meters anymore.

In essence, what's that that's referring to is if you're blocking off a space, whether that be for uh a building permit, whether that be for a whole host of reasons, special events, right?

You're closing down a street, that is parking and subsequently sort of revenue for the city that the city is foregoing, and so communities charge those business owners who are petitioning for a building permit to close off a handful of parking spaces because they're having a construction uh project going on.

Maybe they need to block off a couple of spaces.

We charge hooding fees, we charge fees associated with blocking off those spaces.

So we've got an ordinance coming back to city council in the next couple weeks around kind of hooding and hooding fees, additionally towing.

Um we've been working on this one for really about a year.

Um we know you just heard from police, right?

Police is strained on resources, so rather than police being uh involved and responsible for towing vehicles.

This allows our operator after a certain set of uh protocols, right?

Which also involves engaging police uh to obtain that authority and authorization of the tow, that then our operator can tow vehicles, particularly for um emergency situations, or really it's sort of that's three-strike rule, so to speak, right?

Uh, what we're setting up is if you've got a ticket several hours later, you still haven't moved.

You got a second ticket, sort of several hours later, you still haven't moved sort of third ticket several hours later, you still haven't moved, right?

At some point in time, we we need to start the process of towing that vehicle.

So uh we're we're working through the policies and procedures on that, but this ordinance would allow our operator to uh commence the tolling process rather than having to burden and rely on the police department.

We're also going to uh start implementing some of the capital improvement projects.

We told you several years ago, a couple years ago, not several couple years ago.

Uh, we were gonna start looking at some of our deferred maintenance in our parking garages.

Um, and so this year we're going to really start implementing some of those capital improvement projects that have been identified as a result of our analysis on some of the deferred maintenance and some of our parking assets.

So we'll start implementing some of those capital improvement projects this year.

You'll also see probably in the next several weeks an RFP go out for security cameras in all of our garages.

Again, our goal all along has been to take the proceeds from implementation and invest back into the system, right?

And so I think you're already starting to see some of that.

But we want to continue to showcase and show the community that we're reinvesting back into a clean and safe environment downtown, particularly in our parking assets.

So we're going to take care of our parking assets so that they can be enjoyed by everybody.

And then we're creating that clean, safe environment.

So you'll see an RFP probably hit the street in the next several weeks on security cameras going in to all of the garages.

And then also in conjunction with the group that we hired to come in and help us sort of survey our assets and determine what some of the deferred maintenance was on that.

Also putting together that annual maintenance plan.

And so we'll be able to showcase that to you all, share that with you all here in the next several weeks and months on what an annual maintenance plan for these parking garages look like, particularly after we make these capital investments to bring these parking garages back up to par.

What is it going to cost us and what's that schedule look like for ongoing annual maintenance?

So with that said, that's the conclusion of my report.

I'd be more than happy to answer any questions.

Troy, um I'm curious if maybe you can get some historical context behind like this idea of like when something new is coming into the city, like parking, that has not been a part of the cultural norm.

Uh, it makes people a little nervous.

I I liken it to like folks been like the parking police is like Dracula popping up at night and ticketing folks, and and it can be very scary.

I was getting coffee today, actually, and someone saw the the parking folks riding around in a parking lot that's actually not owned by the city, and so they got very nervous about whether or not we were going to be installing parking there or kiosk.

Can maybe you speak to what we have done to uh make sure that we are being educational about why we are doing this and the opportunity to give grace as people are learning to adapt to this new culture and not be like Dracula.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.

Um that's been uh that's probably been a four-year long from the first day I got here, right?

That's been a four-year long process, especially for me, right?

Um, but I can tell you, even before I got here, we go back to we call it the 2019 parking and multimodal plan because we've been talking about this implementation strategy since 2019.

Um, even before that, we talked amongst council and publicly, right?

That I mean, we've had parking plans from 2009, we've had parking plans from 2000, right?

We've been talking about parking in this community for 20 plus years.

It's really only been within the last three to four years that we've really started talking about what is an implementation strategy look like.

And so we've taken that 2019 plan, which there was robust community engagement.

We've we can go back to kind of some of the slide decks and some of the conversations we've had over the last couple of years, some of the most robust community engagement when it came to kind of developing that plan.

Uh 2020 COVID had the hiatus, right?

They they were uh at that point in time, uh, the group, the steering committee that was pushing that 2019 plan uh leading up into 2020 and COVID was on the verge of a final draft and taking it to the district advisory boards and the planning commission and city council, but again, COVID kind of uh sidelined that effort.

So then you fast forward to kind of 21 late 21 city council wants to reconstitute that steering committee, they do.

Um they go back out, they engage more kind of community, they finalize that 2019 plan, goes through all the district advisory boards, goes through the planning commission, ultimately comes to city council, gets approved by city council.

Um we hire an operator, we begin to start implementing, and then we even took another timeout, right?

We stood in front of city council year and a half.

And we took a pause, right?

I remember me personally, I went back out to 14 different new community meetings, right?

And we we walked through the entire history and the entire plan all over again.

In fact, we've gone back, and I can't even tell you how many different iterations of uh of a rate structure and hours of operation, and how are we going to normalize this?

We had probably 12 different iterations.

I think we ended up, uh I think it was option 1A was the option that ultimately city council agreed to sort of implement, and that's what we did.

We went to work and we implemented it.

But to your point, we need to continue to educate the community.

And that's why I don't mind standing up here and having the conversation about parking.

Um, I know it's a little bit of a source spot, probably in the community, right, to talk about it, but I don't mind talking about the history and kind of how we've arrived where we are today.

This isn't about just the city trying to make a buck, right?

There's a whole strategy behind this, and I encourage anybody that's interested.

It's really dry reading, and most people don't enjoy it.

But go check out that 2019 parking and multimodal plan.

Even if you just thumb through the first chapter, right?

It gives you this really great context around why we're doing what we're doing.

Um, I think back to some of the illustrations that we had during some of those early meetings, right?

And you look at just a uh there's there's a map that uh I I think about and it shows that 60 percent, I don't remember the exact number, but it's a large number.

60 percent of our downtown is surface parking lots, right?

Now we don't control most of those.

The city only actually owns, operates, and controls only a handful of those parking lots, but that's not a sustainable business model for a dense urban, active, vibrant downtown, right?

And so, what are the things that we're doing in order to uh kind of unlock the development potential, unlock that dense urban downtown, vibrant community that we all know that Wichita has deep down, and it all is gonna come back and boil down to parking management.

So thank you, Troy, for that.

I really appreciate it.

Um, also just want to commend you all on speaking about the hooding fees.

I'm really looking forward to that.

I know you and I had a conversation about that.

It's it's definitely something that I believe impacts small business owners in downtown, especially as they're looking at activating downtown, doing events.

I was kind of shocked to see that we charge them for how many parking spaces they're taking up when they are in a CID.

Uh, in addition to that, they're they're doing something that I think enhances the quality of life, which is activating our downtown.

So anytime we can again remove barriers and make life a little easier for the folks that we are partnering with to do good things in our city, I think we should.

Uh, the the third thing that I would hope that uh we might consider it's something that uh we did when we were when I was at Wichita State.

Is there an opportunity, right?

Because we look at we're not trying to make a buck off of this.

Is there a way if someone gets their first parking fine that instead of paying to the city of Wichita municipal court, we identify three amazing entities in the city of Wichita that they can donate to, maybe donating X amount to the food bank and or doing something that will also meet our mission and helping serve neighbors so that way again from a communication standpoint, they realize we want to be educational, we don't want to be punitive, and we're not trying to make a buck off of you.

Uh but we also have other needs in our city too that if we can utilize this opportunity to help fill some of those critical gaps.

I think it's a win-win situation.

Not looking for an answer right now.

I just wonder if there's an opportunity to look at being innovative in that way.

Yeah, so um, I appreciate the outside of the box, and I would love to continue to have a conversation about what the anticipation and the expectation is of the governing body as it relates to the parking fund.

With that being said, we anticipate that that citation revenue goes back to the parking fund.

That's the way we've set it up, right?

That that this is a user-based system, right?

The people who are using it are paying into it, the people are using it to be benefiting from it, right?

And so we're we're trying to to the greatest extent possible, use the parking fund as a special revenue fund or um an enterprise fund where all of the revenues that are coming in are only being used back to support the system.

That's how we keep rates low, right?

So if now all of a sudden we're taking some of that citation revenue and we're putting it to something else, great, that's fine.

That's a decision, that's a policy decision of the governing body.

If now all of a sudden the parking fund isn't sustainable because of that, right?

Then we just kind of have to have that conversation of does that mean that we have to increase the rate structure in order to offset that.

We're certainly open to having that conversation.

In fact, I would love to have that conversation again next year after we collect data and we have a better idea of who's using the system when where and how we'll have really good data around citations and citation revenue and all those kind of things.

I'd love to have that conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I guess I I wouldn't want to um do that in lieu of revenue because I understand that it it pays to maintain the infrastructure that it takes to operate this.

Um I think traditionally parking services and I understand like give out warnings and or there are people who maybe uh not familiar of how this works.

There are folks who I've engaged with who uh they don't feel comfortable utilizing their phone, our elders and our seniors have not you know been comfortable with utilizing technology in that regard, so they'll take the ticket the one time, and so maybe instead of a warning, we say, you know, this is your warning, but instead of it being verbal, we ask that you make a donation to X.

Uh I don't I think we can do both.

I'm not sure that someone doing something one time should result in them paying in cash.

I think perhaps it's more so just educational and can benefit the city in other ways too.

Love to have the conversation for sure.

All righty, I got a few as well.

Any other council members?

Yeah, I think I'll probably okay.

Well, anytime you do that, you get mad because I ask your question.

So go ahead.

Um, first I just want to say I think $35 event fees, that's um pretty expensive.

Now, this is coming from somebody who parks across the highway and walks to the Chiefs games, so I don't have to pay those parking fees.

Um, so I just want to be on record as saying that that's kind of steep by my eyes, anyways.

Um, just a couple of questions, other than that.

Um I was at a senior um fireside chat yesterday, and they had brought up parking, and one of the questions they asked, and one of the things I had brought up during the process was um cash payment options, and that's something one lady there said I don't have a credit card.

Um, she has a flip phone.

Um how am I supposed to pay for parking?

So I'm I'm um I guess my question in this area is what are we doing as far as to address that?

I know we had other machines that would be coming in for certain areas.

Um do we just get an update on where we are with that process?

Yeah, so uh we do have at the kiosks, right?

The kiosks and even some of the individual meter heads, the individual meter will accept coins, right?

Uh some of the kiosks, particularly around some of the higher profile areas also have a bill pay if you want to use bills.

So we have tried to introduce the coin and bill pay infrastructure, admittedly, is really expensive.

Um, in fact, oddly enough, as we start just getting gathering the data from what and how people are using the system today.

I mean, it's an astronomical number.

30, 93, something like that, 93% of all users of the system use a mobile app, right?

And so now you kind of try to offset that with we want to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, right?

And we want to make and have options available to the end users so that if they do want to use cash.

So what we've tried to be is really strategic in again those kind of those high profile areas, century two and convention center.

I know the kiasa, they have a bill pay, they have coin acceptance.

I don't have the ability to put it everywhere, right?

It just becomes really really expensive, and then the return on the investment begins to kind of question why are we spending three thousand dollars on something that only seven percent of the population is using, so to speak, right?

But in the higher profile, higher profile areas, yes, we have included bill pay and coin uh acceptance.

Okay, I'm in that seven percent too.

Um so we we do have options at century two and interest bank area specifically.

Okay, um, the other two, one of the other two, um, there are some large events that come and they do take up parking spaces.

Um, for example, Riverfest, they'll have the food court and the parking lot, um, automobile just coming up as well.

What's the process if there are events like that that will be taking up paid parking?

Is there a fee that they have to pay?

Is there additional paperwork?

Do we have a process maybe to forgive it for larger events?

So yes, yes, and yes, right.

Yes, the idea is that events such as that, such as those who take up large areas of right-of-way and subsequently on street parking, right?

Are there alternative locations?

We went through a conversation with a group who historically had been uh utilizing an area down by water walk, right?

And they're thinking about what the next season of their event is, and through really good conversation, right?

They found an alternative location, they're gonna uh go locate at the ice rink uh on the other side of the river, which currently doesn't have paid parking for their morning event that is going to occupy kind of a parking lot for a couple of hours, right?

So we'll look for alternatives to help folks navigate some of that stuff.

We're also having conversations.

Yes, how do we address the river cleaning the river fest event, automobilia?

How do we know that this year there probably isn't going to be fees assessed with uh those events, but in out years, yes, we need to start thinking about the fact that is that event is that location the most appropriate sort of location?

Do you really need to block off sort of that much?

Are there alternatives?

We want to keep you downtown, right?

For all of those reasons.

How do we how do we adjust that rate schedule in such a way that it complements everybody involved?

We've had some conversations around if it's an event that generates sales and sales tax, right?

How can that sales tax come back to the parking fund to help offset that?

We're just trying to keep that parking fund as whole as possible, knowing and understanding that your desire as a governing body is that that be self-sustaining.

We're trying to do everything we can to keep rates low and still maintain that that fund in a long-term sustainable way.

We're open to ideas and suggestions.

Okay, I appreciate that.

And that also includes like river cleanup or some of these volunteers.

Uh last question.

Um I'm a believer that nobody should have to pay for parking to competition the people in the people's building.

Um, but I do see that we are going with uh City Hall paid parking.

That makes sense after hours, that makes sense during the weekends.

Um, I think in some click select cases, that makes sense, and others I have um some real angst about.

So I was just curious if you could walk us through that process.

What does it look like?

I know we have to kind of work within the confines of car park and what technologies they have available to us.

Um, also other options.

I mean, I do the arm was good when we had it here, so I'm just curious if you could walk us through that process and any potential avenues to improve that, I guess.

Yeah, so I'll kind of come back to this slide here, and um my comment earlier about paid parking at City Hall is nothing new.

In fact, the rate structure at City Hall before the last couple of months when we started trying to move towards this, it was actually more expensive to park at City Hall than this rate.

I think it was 75 cents for every 30 minutes or something like that, right?

It was actually technically more expensive to park here than it would be anywhere else within the system, right?

So, one of the things we've been trying to do is just make sure that from an end-user experience, the technology, the hours, the rates are the same.

Okay, with that being said, historically, one of the biggest challenges we've had though is that city's been able to validate, right?

So departments have been able to validate for parking.

So that if a patron or a citizen comes to City Hall and they visit you in the council manager's office, the council manager's office could validate that parking session, and that citizen would not have to pay for that parking session.

That technology still exists even under this system, right?

We're working with each of the departments so that they know and understand that if they truly want to validate somebody's parking session, that they have that ability.

Um, but if you're gonna go and use a kiosk, you're gonna need a validation code before you walk up to the kiosk, right?

So that's a little bit of a nuance, although again, knowing that 93% of users are probably using a mobile app.

There's also a uh validation code that it can be used on a mobile app to validate that parking session, right?

So, for example, uh if somebody's coming up and meeting with offices of agriculture development or the city manager's office, they've got an active parking session on a park mobile or pay by phone, we can validate that session as they're coming up.

So we can the problem has been that historically when departments were validating, in essence they were just waiving the fees, right?

There were no funds that were actually being transferred from those departments to the parking fund.

We ran some numbers uh a couple weeks ago last year.

We waived in essence, probably 200,000 worth of fees just for here at City Hall.

So there's 200,000 that now the parking fund is not receiving.

So one of the things that we're gonna do is ultimately now at that point in time.

If a department validates, that's great.

We want those departments to have that flexibility to validate those sessions, but at the end of the day, then there's going to be an internal transfer from that department to the parking fund to offset for that validation.

Also, another concern I've heard from people is that when you do the validation that there's already the set time limit.

So if it's like two hours for a meeting, what if the meeting goes longer by half an hour?

Then you know, you have to run out and uh hit the kiosk real quick or go ahead and risk getting the ticket or whatnot.

So that's another concern I've heard.

So we can set those validation codes for whatever you want, right?

Max daily is uh five dollars, right?

So if you set that, if we just want to set that max validation to five dollars, if somebody uses that code and walks up to the kiosk, we can validate their entire parking session for the day, right?

Same with using the app, we can validate the entire session.

If you only want to validate an hour or two hours, we can use we can create codes that only validate for an hour or only validate for two hours.

The flexibility is up to each of those departments to go how long you want to do you want to validate for that entire session, or do you want to just validate for an hour or two?

And we're leaving that up to the discretion of the departments to advise us on how much they want to validate for, and then we can create codes that are appropriately for them.

Follow-up question that is probably in line with Councilman O'Haisel regarding that.

There's going to be staff time associated with validation codes, figuring out validation codes, how long, whether it's an hour or two.

I'm thinking of if somebody visits city hall or visits council offices, and Brandy talks to them.

She's probably sending the validation code prior, or she's probably gonna have to answer questions we're doing about validation, it's probably gonna go back and forth.

There's some analysis of how much time we're gonna spend in that validation process.

So, yes, the council office to be charged five dollars for let's say two hour and two hour and one or two-hour one minute meeting could be charged five dollars, but then on top of that, the cost and the email time that Brandy spends to be able to coordinate with that individual as well.

There would be an added cost where historically they could just stick a give them a sticker, good to go.

So sometimes flexibility can create time challenges, right?

Uh, all of the time is gonna be front loaded on the front end, right?

Again, Stephanie's already working with all the departments.

It's not a code every time you have a session.

You could if you really wanted to, but our recommendation with the departments is we're gonna give you a code, right?

And you use that code to validate that session.

That code might be good for an entire year, right?

Um, and so we're trying to cut down on the staff time.

I think on the front end, as folks understand how to validate sessions.

Um we can certainly look into the time that departments are spending on this kind of thing.

Um, obviously, there's gonna be more to more departments that are gonna want to validate than others.

We've I don't want to call any department out specifically, but there have been departments who have said we're not gonna validate, right?

That um the folks who are coming to frequent us in our department, um we don't necessarily have cause or reason to validate for those sessions, that's just conducting business, and so we're trying to leave that up to each of the departments.

But um, hopefully on the front end, it's all and to answer your question about the five dollar payment for a two-dollar, you're only gonna validate for the session, right?

So if they're only here for two hours, you're only gonna validate for two dollars.

Even if you could validate for all five hours, you're only validating the session.

You're not getting penalized for providing that same code.

Uh that helped answer.

Troy, just curious.

Oftentimes when we're making decisions for something new or if we're trying to update something, we look to our peer cities.

And so I know you came from Omaha.

I know you you know communicate with other city management leaders across, I'm sure our peer cities, but across the nation.

Can you give us we're making it really complex, and sometimes that even makes it harder for people and makes them more angry because then they have an expectation they think it's going to be A, and we say no, it's B.

What do other cities do?

And especially if you have any context for our peer cities, do they what do they do with their city hall parking?

Thank you.

Yeah, so um I can tell you if anybody's frequented a city hall across the nation.

Um this happens at every city hall, not every city hall.

This happens at most city halls across the nation where a city hall is located within a paid parking district, right?

That if you're going to conduct business at City Hall, you're generally going to be paying to park, and then hopefully that city has an opportunity to validate for your parking session because they do want you to come and do business at City Hall, right?

We want to make it easy and we want to make it friendly and we want to make it inviting, right?

We don't want to penalize you for wanting to come to City Hall.

Um, and so cities, I can tell you specifically in uh my time with the mayor's office up in Omaha, right?

We would validate for people that came up to the the mayor's office.

I remember specifically we would ask for their parking ticket card if they parked in a garage.

We said, Okay, great.

Here's the here's your validation card, and when they go to leave, they put the validation card in, the control arm goes up, and they they have no idea, but the mayor, even the mayor got a bill from the parking department every month for all of the validations that that that office got, and it was an internal transfer, and it and it just worked, right?

So this is not uncommon.

This is pretty standard practice across the nation, particularly larger cities of our size and demographics who have a city hall within a paid parking district.

I think I'll have a follow-up question to what uh council member Tuttle just mentioned because of what you just said.

That's in a garage, and very similar to our previous system.

Uh, people got a ticket, they came inside to council offices, and inside council offices, there would be a sticker that then they would be able to validate as they walk or left uh the parking lot.

So is that best practices usually then?

Because this is different.

This is an actual kiosk or a cell phone type of uh system.

Um so I guess what is truly best practice because if best practice is garages where you get a validation sticker, that's what we were doing previously.

So this is the technology the cities are moving to, right?

Um parks equipment has a tendency to break down, has a tendency to need to be repaired, right?

And so the less sort of mechanical system, the sort of the virtual technology is where a lot of cities are moving now.

Sometimes it's just not possible, right?

Sometimes you have old equipment and old garages, and and you're just dealing with what you're dealing with, right?

But there's even some new technology out there where they don't even have mobile apps, they don't even have they have license plate scanners, and we don't have this in Kansas, right?

But the city is tied to the state licensing department, right?

And so you pull into a garage, it scans your plate, it captures your plate information, it knows when you come in and when you leave, and after you leave, and you get a bail in the mail, right?

And if you don't pay your bill in the mail, then all of a sudden now it's tied to your driver's license and your ability to renew again.

We don't have that here in Kansas, that's not what we're implementing here in Kansas, but that's just an idea of kind of the transactional technology that exists throughout the country right now that a lot of cities are starting to employ.

Okay, my turn.

Uh just a few questions.

Um I don't love the idea of the hood fees.

I don't want to create more barriers, and um while I understand it, I I don't want to discourage people from doing events downtown.

I just for what that's worth, I don't know.

I just don't feel better saying it out loud.

Um, have we um have we fixed the app to where it talks or do we have any signage downtown um about the hours?

I know that was some feedback that we received that people some people didn't know, and there wasn't any signage about when parking is free, you know, and so on.

So we continue to work through that with our vendors.

Um up until a couple of weeks ago, we were being led to believe that because of our rate structure, right?

Where you might have a rent event rates that might be applicable versus the dollar an hour.

We were going down the path of somewhat of a disclaimer that you recognize that before you pay that you acknowledge that you know and understand the hours of operation, and if you proceed and you're outside the hours of operation, you're kind of proceeding at your own risk.

There was no way to prevent somebody from paying given our circumstances here with a couple weeks ago and 10 days ago.

We maybe have led, we may have been led to believe that there might be a solution that would now at that point in time outside of the hours of operation prevent you from being able to pay.

We're exploring that we're having that conversation with some of the vendors.

Um but until then, our plan is sort of implement this with some of the next updates of a disclaimer that basically you acknowledge that hey, here's the hours of operation.

If you're trying to pay outside the hours of operation, that um you're kind of proceeding at your own risk.

Yeah, I I can appreciate that.

I think we need to do something like that.

Um then I don't know if you answered my question.

Is there signage anywhere in the paid parking areas that just talk about the hours of the signage on the parking lots?

The garages, I think.

And the garages have out of the way.

So yeah, I kind of share some of my sentiments about I don't ever want to discourage anybody from uh participating in our very minimal um crowd um for our council meetings, but um I also think you know we need to charge when we when we are able and you know, if people park in our parking lots during the hours that it's free, I mean that's great, but I don't want to create more barriers, but I also realize that's how we got into this um situation is by not charging across the board.

Thank you.

It's about balance, we're trying to find that balance, right?

So yeah, I just wanted to thank you, Troy.

Um, this morning I had a call with a resident who um had some questions and just following up, and you happen to be at the right place at the right time, and I was able to um have you come in and enjoy the conversation.

But one of the things that you said with the resident that again I think just needs to be reinforced is this is a user fee, right?

And the user fee then pays for the maintenance, the security, the upgrades that people want.

And I think we're I I love that you said we're trying to find the balance, right?

We don't want to charge too much, um, but we can't charge too little, or we're not gonna give people what they want.

Um, and so I I really applaud you for all your work on this.

I know this has been a huge labor of love getting us to this point.

And I said from the very beginning, way back in 2019, this is new and it's different, but just like everything else, our city adjusts, and you know, communities across the nation have done this, so we certainly can do this as well.

But I will continue to follow your lead and remind people that this is a user fee.

So thank you for all you've done.

Thank you so much.

Mayor, I don't know if you want to uh go back to the executive session and have a working lunch in the conference room before we do the final two topics, if that is agreeable to you and council.

Uh city manager, that is agreeable.

Uh but before we uh head into executive session, um there was a change into uh a council member appointment.

So by so I want to reopen a point.

For our survey.

We just couldn't get the the calendars to mesh.

So instead of uh here we'll record it of a quick synopsis of what our survey is.

So I'll I'll let that run.

And by the way, I'm starting a couple minutes in the first part of this video is on methodology and other stuff that you can read or report.

There is a ton of information in your reports, including cross-tabulations by geography and demographics.

And we can't cover it all here, but I'm going to point out some main theme and invite you to dig deeper into the report.

First, we'll look at those high-level results.

In the survey, we have two questions that ask directly about the flashbacks of community livability.

The first asks residents to rate the quality of each quality of questions were asked on a four-point scale where the respondent could choose excellent good, fair or poor.

We consider excellent and good to be positive ratings and for ease of presentation and comparison.

Here we see that ratings for education, arts and culture, as well as community line for similar to the national network and others are lower.

Of the 100 survey items for which residents provided evaluative ratings, one receives ratings higher than the national benchmark, 43 receives similar ratings, and 50 received lower ratings.

Ratings are considered similar if they are within 10 points of national average, and higher or lower if they differ by more than 10 points.

Cost of living was the rating that was above the national benchmark.

Wichita also elected to compare their results to a captain set of communities, which aligned with Wichita's characteristics.

Of the 100 survey items for which residents provided evaluative ratings, two received higher ratings, 68 received similar ratings, and 30 received lower ratings.

Better than the benchmark was cost of living and traffic flow on major streets.

When compared to your 2024 survey, in 2025, six received ratings that were higher than the previous survey duration, 69 received similar ratings, and 25 received lower ratings.

Higher in 2025 were safety from property crime and violent crime, police services and crime prevention, the overall quality of businesses and services establishments, and the overall quality of new development in Wichita.

Moving on now to highlight some of our findings, we'll dig a little deeper on a few items that stood out to us.

But again, note there's a lot of additional data in the full report, which I know staff are digging into.

Overall residents value living in Wichita.

About seven in ten residents gave excellent or good ratings to Wichita as a place to live, and also would recommend living in Wichita to someone who asked.

About eight and ten residents plan to remain in Wichita for the next five years, and these ratings were consistent with the 2024 results.

Governance ratings saw some declines.

This slide highlights residents' ratings of Wichita government performance across several key measures.

Percentages reflect the share of residents rating each as excellent or good.

The highest rating among these items was for Wichita government treating residents with respect at 42%.

About one-third of residents positively rated Wichita's local government were treating all residents fairly, generally acting in the best interest of the community, informing residents about issues facing the community.

Around three of 10 gave excellent or good marks for the overall confidence in Wichita government, a local government being lost.

Fewer than three in 10 positively rated being open and transparent to the public, the value of services for taxes paid, the job Wichita does, welcoming resident input.

Ratings for informing residents being honest, transparency, welcoming input, and the value for taxes all declined compared to 2024.

All of these items scored below the national benchmark, but only two were lower than the benchmark for similar cities.

More than eight in 10 residents felt safe in their neighborhood during the day, while closer to 810 felt safe from fire, flood, and natural disaster.

About two-thirds of residents felt safe from violent crime and property crime, both of which improved from 2024 to 2025.

Safety from violent crime scored below the national benchmark, but was similar to that custom benchmark.

Regarding safety services, more than eight in 10 residents gave good marks to fire services in Wichita.

About six in 10 residents have positive ratings for police services, with less than half of residents having satisfaction with animal control.

Police services, animal control, and crime prevention were lower than the national and custom benchmarks.

However, the rating for crime prevention did show an improvement compared to 2024.

The economy is facing challenges for many communities, including Wichita.

About two-thirds of residents have good ratings for the overall quality and variety of businesses and services establishment in Wichita, the city is a place to work, and shopping opportunities in Wichita.

Like other communities, about half of residents had good ratings for employment opportunities.

The vibrancy of downtown and commercial areas and Wichita's place as a place to visit had good ratings from about four in 10 and were lower than the custom benchmarks.

However, more than half of residents were satisfied with cost of living, and this was above both national and custom benchmarks.

While about two thirds of residents said their neighborhood was excellent or a good place to live, ratings for other aspects of community design varied.

Ratings for the overall sign and layouts of residential and commercial areas, and land use, planning and zoning were similar to custom and national benchmarks, but saw a decrease from 2024 results.

Items that were below the benchmark were the overall appearance of Wichita, public places where people want to spend time, and code enforcement.

Residents think it's easier to get around Wichita by car.

Three quarters of residents gave excellent broken marks to ease of travel by car in Wichita, and more than half were satisfied with traffic flow on major streets, which was higher than the benchmark, the custom benchmark.

About one third of residents were satisfied with ease of public parking, the ease of walking, and the ease of travel by bicycle.

All three of these ratings were lower than the national benchmarks, and ratings for public parking and ease of walking decreased from 2024.

About two in 10 residents rated ease of travel by public transportation as excellent or good, lower than the national benchmark and decreasing from 2024.

Only the rating for ease of public parking was lower than the benchmark for similar communities.

When asked about mobility services, about half of residents had positive ratings for snow removal, a decline from 2024.

About four in 10 residents approved of traffic enforcement, which was similar to both national and custom benchmarks and consistent with 2024 results.

Roughly one third of residents rated street cleaning and sidewalk maintenance favorably, and one quarter of residents were satisfied with street repair.

The last three ratings were lower than the national and custom benchmarks and also decreased from 2024.

Wichita asked several questions to explore downtown safety.

Those who did not feel it was safe were asked to describe why in their own words.

These responses were categorized by our research team.

The top concern that emerged was the presence of unhoused individuals, with 33% saying something related to this theme.

Concerns related to violent crime and specific aspects about personal safety were second most common.

A smaller but notable share cited general criminal activities such as gang violence, drugs, or loitering.

Parking and lighting or traffic pedestrian safety were also key environmental concerns for about 8%.

Only 4% specifically brought up lack of police presence.

Just under 8 and 10 residents would visit downtown more often with more police and security, while a similar share cited better lighting in streets and parking lots as the potential motivator to visit more.

About seven in 10 residents would like to see fewer vacant buildings and cleaner streets, although the intensity of the impact leads more to somewhat likely than very likely as a motivator to visit.

If you wish to dig deeper to find out more about the opinions of residents in Wichita, Wichita has currently over about 2700 residents who've subscribed to your POCO profile.

They've signed up to stay connected and provide input.

Your local subscription includes several resident feedback tools, including a large library of customizable tools and surveys, as well as a prioritization simulation.

These tools can include maps, images, videos, or links to better informed residents.

These were all developed by survey scientists with local government needs in mind.

Well, these can be used for DIY.

You can also have access to a dedicated polo staff for your training and assistance.

I hope this overview was welcome.

I appreciate you giving me this time.

Okay, that was the video, and I've spoken with uh Sonia, and we're going to find a couple of times to make her available for you all to speak individually or small groups to uh quiz her on anything you have in depth on the survey.

Uh I did want to mention that uh for anyone who's interested, uh Wichita.gov slash survey, you'll find the video, you'll find the QI uh quality importance matrix, uh the interactive tableau uh link so you can do cross tabs if you're interested, and uh um I can uh walk you through how to uh use those uh whenever you want.

So uh that's the uh the quick version.

Do folks have any questions before we set up meetings with Sonny?

Jim, I'm just when we meet with Sonya, I'd be curious if there's a way to uh synthesize some of these points down to some of the additional details as it relates to uh the trust piece.

I mean, that could mean we're doing a better job informing the public and because they know more, maybe maybe that impacts trust.

Absolutely, and what you and I should meet uh one on one, I can walk you through, we can do some uh uh try to see crop by cross tabs.

We have people on staff who can help with correlation work that we could try to figure out by uh by age, by income, by uh you gender, you name it.

We could come up with a lot of different ways of cracking this uh uh the numbers.

Okay, thanks, y'all.

You waited all day for that.

Oh, we've been uh rolling it out little by little so you can get a whole bunch of it.

We're helping at least some singing, Jimmy.

How do I cue my slides, Janet?

You might do it from Elizabeth here as we talk about uh budget and do some singing and dancing if you want.

So Elizabeth will walk us through some of the information you got at retreat, um, but some of our overview for the budget process and key budget information.

Elizabeth, take it away.

All right.

Well, thank you for that introduction.

Um today, this workshop presentation is really just a follow-up to a lot of information that Mark Manning provided to you a couple weeks ago at the retreat.

Um, I'm going to be providing you initial forecast today for the general fund, both for revenue and expenditures, a resign of revised outlook for the general fund, and then also calendar.

So just as Mark mentioned at the restreat, at the retreat, the City of Wichita General Fund balance and the stabilization reserve are both in good positions as at the end of last year.

And additionally, as a reminder, um, the city of Wichita has had a stable and low mill levy rate relative to its peers.

So some future challenges that we consider when we're developing the budget each year.

Um, those include balancing wage and benefit growth with revenue growth, um, as well as incorporating expected declines in interest earnings, as well as policy changes and economic conditions into the base budget.

So, our starting point for updating for providing you this preliminary forecast was the budget that was adopted last year in August.

Um, that budget included a longer term financial plan through 2029.

Um, and that projection, the budget was balanced through 2027, but it was not balanced in 2028 and 2029.

Um, in 2020, as a reminder, in the first three years of this projection, a transfer from the stabilization reserve of three million each year was included in the financial plan.

So I today I'm going to be providing a brief overview of changes to the forecast for three types of revenue.

We have many kinds of revenue, but today I'll be focusing on the just those three.

The first is sales tax revenue.

In 2025, as a reminder from the Q4 2025 financial report, performance was strong.

So that being the case, we're using the same revenue growth assumption that we've used in the past, which is three to 3.2%.

But because the base is larger than it had been to start with, we're expecting some growth in revenue from sales tax starting in 2026.

And then the next revenue I'll touch on quickly is interest earnings.

So during the planning period, the range for annual revenue for interest earnings will be probably 22 million to 32 million, but it's really a matter of timing.

So in this projection in 2026, there's 31 million budgeted, and then it declines to 22 million in 2028.

So that's a $9 million decrease over that three year period that is something that needs to be accommodated in this budget.

And of course, we'll be updating all these projections as we move through the budget process.

So the previous guidance on this one in the 2026 budget is we were expecting moderate growth in assessed valuation.

Based on the presentation that was made to the county commission.

But commercial valuation is expected to be flat based on what was communicated to the county commission.

So here are two tables.

One is a table from the adopted budget, and one is the updated projection.

Again, just like all these other revenue sources, we'll continue to update this.

And as a reminder, so many reminders, um, June 15th is when we'll get that notice from the county.

So we won't get that for yes, about two and a half months.

But preliminarily, we're expecting growth of 7.1%.

So that includes new construction and reappraisal.

And previously we had forecasted 5.6%.

So of course that could change.

And last year we presented the fine that valuation information to you at a workshop in late June, and we plan on doing that again this year.

So here is the updated revenue projection.

So with all those changes, we expect revenue to be about $4 million higher this year, five and a half million dollars higher next year, and then $5.2 million higher in 2028.

So these are comparisons to what was in that earlier slip up slide with the original financial plan and the adopted budget.

So one thing, just as a reminder, the other line, there is a whole lot of different revenues in the other line.

But one of the strategies in the strategic plan is to review charges for services and improve cost recovery.

So a policy related to cost recovery is probably something that'll be presented to you soon.

Everything yeah, I'm I'm just looking at it.

Um what our updated projections are for um revenue in 27 exactly matches what we have down here for preliminary forecast for expenditure.

So it's like we landed directly on 27.

So that's I was just making a note.

Okay, you should skip tohead.

Skipped ahead to expend.

Well, now I guess it's time to move on to expenditures with that, right?

All right, so expenditures.

So as you remember from pride charts about the general fund, salaries and benefits are 75% of general fund expenditure costs, and most of those are in public safety, are police and fire.

So our first step every year when we update the budget is to recalculate wages and benefits for for all of our positions based on current employee demographics.

That would be their steps, the health insurance plan they picked, etc.

We incorporate wage agreements, changes in benefit enrollment, and assumptions about vacant positions.

And then the last step is to incorporate to update shrinkage estimate estimates based on current vacancies and typical turnover rates.

So let's see.

So we we go through and we look for all the vacant positions.

So this is our expenditure forecast here.

So what we've done here is we've shown you the fire department budget itemized simply because this is the first budget update following the adopt following the approval of that contract last December.

So what happens when a contract is approved before the contract is approved, the budget is in non-departmental as employee compensation.

And so this represents two, there's two things here.

One is part of the increase is that movement out of the wage pool, and then there's also an addition on top of that.

Um, like the revenue budget, the expenditure budget will continue to be updated.

For example, we monitor jail fees every month.

We and we will look at vacant positions during the process to make updates to those too.

So here's an updated forecast for the general fund.

So at this point, just as a reminder, the asterisk are that there's a three million dollar transfer in budgeted each year.

Um, so mostly due to interest earnings in 2026, we're expecting and um sales tax growth.

Expecting a slight surplus this year, a balanced budget at this point in 2027, and then a deficit in 2028.

Um, as a reminder, this is a base budget, so this is based on current staffing levels and current staffing, this is current service levels.

So there are no changes in staffing or service levels modeled into this forecast.

So if words suit you better than numbers, in summary, um this forecast, um, the things that really have changed in it are the sales tax base, the assumption about AV growth for 27 and interest earnings that decline happening slower over a greater period of time.

Those all are favorable on the revenue side.

Um, the wage base has been updated, and future wage growth will materially impact the budget.

So it just is a reminder if there's an increase to the base wages, those that compounds through the entire projection, and then employee turnover really is something that I think I've mentioned this is my third time, but it is a key assumption when we develop the projection.

So other factors.

We have a some may feel that I'm moving quickly, but we have a lot more workshops in the future with you.

We have one in April, May, and June.

So we'll have plenty of time to talk during those workshops as well.

Some other factors that were more will start folding into our projection.

For example, um, the financial services centralization is underway.

There are already costs modeled into the budget for that initiative, but there could be more savings available.

Um, and then the operating cost for CIP projects is something that would impact the budget going the other direction.

Um, just as a general rule of thumb, the operating cost for a new or additional fire station is about $200 a year.

And then later this spring, you will receive an update from Mark on pension rates.

Um, so that's in so the things are just continually we're just making continual updates and changes, and we think preliminary at this point, based on investment earnings last year, there's a possibility for a favorable change to rates in 2027.

So on next steps is we're starting to plan on resident engagement for this budget process.

Um we are already scheduled to attend all the district advisory boards in May.

Um I've been in discussion with the comm team about online resident engagement and what that may look like this year.

We've modified that program each year, and then we also receive invitations from other boards and commissions like the library board and the park board throughout the year.

So as a reminder, we'll be back in a month to talk to you to visit with you about the CIP.

And then the May workshop is generally geared more toward the operating budget and ideas that departments have presented presented to staff our request budget requests during the budget process.

Then we'll receive that baby notice in mid-June, and we'll come back to you in late June with a final projection for 2027.

And then July and August are obviously very busy.

Um the budget will be presented in mid-July with adoption on August 25th.

So that's what I have for you today.

So if you have any questions, I am happy to answer, but you've had long days.

So yes.

Two questions if we could go back to slide 92.

92.

If they match up anyways, 95.

Property tax protection.

So property tax projection.

Okay.

You guys.

This one?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, I noticed in 28, uh, the valuation growth is 4.2%, whereas our previous um estimates were 3.9%.

Um you have any insight on that?

Yeah, it's timing with the expiration of abatements, and I think the main thing in the model for this one may be the East Bank TIFF in date.

Okay.

That's a pretty significant tip.

Yeah, I appreciate that, and then also updated expenditure forecasts.

Um, right there.

Yeah, the shrinkage in 28 is 3.7.

Um, just a little background about how we arrived at that proof.

No, we did I we modified that down a little.

I did a little bit in the near term, just because I'm not we you know, during this time when we've had a lot of vacancies.

First of all, we base when I say we do a vacancy analysis, it's only for non-commission positions.

So that does include some positions in the police department because there are non-commission, but it's just generally non-commissioned positions.

Um I didn't make big changes to the assumption in 26 and 27 simply because the direction at this point is for departments to fill as many positions as they can, um, and also too that provides flexibility to them to consider other service delivery models.

So instead of hiring staff to perform work with contractors, which is happening in the park department, but then when I looked at 2028, um, based on a 10-year look back on shrinkage, this is probably close to the right shrinkage amount for 2028.

So that's that's the real scoop.

Okay, well I appreciate it.

There's a lot of I mean, there's just a lot of discretion, and I think once you move into a shrinkage amount of that much shrinkage, you are starting to kind of encourage people to consider hiring more strategically.

Um over the last few years that shrinkage is happened organically, so it doesn't feel like a reach.

Um we can just we can consider other options if that makes you more comfortable.

No, I I no, I appreciate that.

I was just making sure I had the background on that, and then um, I keep telling people in my district it's like shooting ski, it's a move and target how we do our budget, so um, I do appreciate it.

And seeing these projections kind of gives us a clearer picture of how we need uh um configure our budget in the next couple of months.

Also, I was wondering maybe if we could get a slideshow.

I do have a breakfast uh second Saturday of April, and I'd love to talk budget with the people there.

Um follow out from the sales tax and whatnot, kind of where we are and where we're going moving forward.

So yeah, sure.

We we go, I think we've been to breakfasts in the past, so we'd be happy.

We'll we'll figure out whose schedule it fits into.

Just send us an update.

Hey, I can I can do it myself as well.

So it's that also starts to happen near the end of the budget process, so it's always fun on those main dab meetings when there's three in a row when I walk in, and the presentation's already been complete.

So all right, thank you.

Yes, the next slide.

The next I just want to point out one yes.

Okay, so I just want to point out one more time that starting this year, there's gonna be a transfer of three million dollars because our revenues actually were not meeting the expenditure amount, so we have to put money in here, even though that there's gonna be a surplus.

I wanted to make sure because I know during the sales tax conversation, um, the reserve was talked about, and the accurate amount is at 86.9 million dollars in total for reserves, general fund reserve and stabilization reserve.

The total is 86.9.

So it would be 51.4 plus 44.5.

Uh oh.

On the this slide.

So it's 90.

Because you remember we made there was just a transfer in quarter four 2025 of 6.8 million.

What's the total again for total reserves?

Well, of all the for the general fund reserves, it would be the 51.4 plus the 41.

Whoops.

It's in the neighborhood of about 96 million dollars correctly.

Yeah.

And so this is already planned that we're transferring three million each year starting this year.

Yes, ma'am.

That is correct.

That will not affect the credit rating.

Is that accurate?

Well, it's never a good thing to diminish your reserves, but if you do it in a planned systematic way, uh, and if it's consistent with your policy, it's generally more acceptable.

Yeah, and we've disclosed it to them, and it's available in our budget.

So is the plan currently if we dig over to a million dollars in this year's budget to transfer that back to the uh stabilization fund.

It in 2026, yeah.

So in 2026, if we had an ending balance that were was greater than 15% of next year's budget, we would transfer to the stabilization reserve, and that's what we did last year.

So 6.8 million so if it's just a two million, well, will that roll over to next year's budget or it would go if it were less than the fifth, if it were not enough to transfer, it would just go into the general fund balance.

And part of the trick too is that the general fund is growing each year, so on a nominal basis.

If you look here on the left side, you do have to increase your reserve a little bit each year to stay within the 15%.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions?

If not, we'll see you any roll.

Okay, I'll have my and I'll say mayor as we wind up and council members.

The um planned expenditures and the stabilization fund is consistent with how other local governments, city or county, do that.

But I think to the uh finance director's point about planned is important.

Um, so as we talk about some also more than the one-time expenses is how you look to use those funds.

So, as we think about some other needs or whatever from some of our recent executive session conversations, there could be some use of funds from the stabilization fund as well if you're looking for some sources of funding that would be I think within the parameters still that wouldn't jeopardize our uh triple A rating.

But I'll also give the um staff credit here as you think about that shrinkage number with um a lot of um jurisdictions just factor every position funded fully every year without taking into account some of the vacancies.

So I appreciate the fact that they do up a update uh shrinkage um to consider that.

So I think uh we're in good company as you saw our message leaving today.

We started out in a strong financial position, as we've said before from some of our conversations were not broke, and two.

Yes, our future revenues um do highlight that there is revenue um and expenditures diverge.

Um, we will always address that, and you will always be presented with a balanced budget.

So any questions otherwise we can adjourn when you're ready.

Thank you very much.

We need a motion to adjourn.

Sorry, motion to adjourn this meeting.

Second.

Motion second, all those in favor say aye.

Aye, uh it's six zero without Zaggy.