WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)—A Wichita City Council member wants to create a citizen-led advisory group to give Wichitans more input on the budget. This proposal comes after Elon Musk’s push for a Department of Governmental Efficiency on the federal level.
Councilmember Dalton Glasscock’s push to create this group has council members split.
This “advisory group” proposed by Glasscock wouldn’t be like your typical city council advisory board. He would select all the members, and they would not bring suggestions to the entire council but only to Glasscock unless they chose to reach out individually.
“I want feedback from all community, and so for me, I just want to be able to give them budget documents give them our ordinances and regulations,” said Glasscock.
He says 40 people have reached out to him so far to join.
Councilmember J.V. Johnston supports Glasscock’s move and says an advisory board could help as a budget deficit looms.
“I would say it can’t hurt anything as a budget deficit looms in our future,” Johnston said. “We need to look at ways to be more efficient and cut the budget.”
Mayor Lily Wu also referred back to the budget deficit.
“I’m in favor of initiatives that bring transparency and efficiency to local government,” Wu said. “During the 2025 budget process, this City Council directed over $11 million in adjustments, yet the City of Wichita is still facing a $22 million budget deficit.”
Some council members don’t see the group as necessary.
“The City finally hired an internal auditor two years ago who is highly qualified and consistently audits and reviews our departments for efficiencies and to identify necessary improvements,” said Maggie Ballard, District 6 Councilmember. “Instead of starting something new that is untested and seems to be political in nature, I’d prefer to add additional support staff and auditors to our current internal audit department to expand the projects they can take on and to provide us even more information about how to improve our city and the services we provide. It’s important any recommendations come from professionals who understand the complex issues in financing and operating a big city like ours. I’d only support this advisory group if the positions had required qualifications and experience in finance and government, so the recommendations they produce are useful and not just for a political agenda.”
Brandon Johnson says budget documents are public, and constituents have plenty of opportunity to give input.
“Every year when we start talking about the budget, I bring it up. I talk about the budget at every neighborhood meeting,” Johnson said.
He says anyone with questions can always attend a meeting or contact a council member directly with concerns.
“If you’re one of the folks who get the citizen survey that kind of talks about budget and budget priority, fill that out,” said Johnson.
Glasscock says his group will review ordinances, resolutions and the budget line by line to suggest areas for cuts.
This group won’t work like a typical city advisory board, either.
There are quite a few advisory boards listed on the city’s website. City council members say they have anywhere from a handful to nearly two dozen members. There are boards appointed by the city council that have to have specific positions in them.
Glasscock is proposing an advisory group of citizens who, he says, would advise him personally, as opposed to the entire council. He doesn’t have a number for how many people he wants on the board yet, but he says 40 people have already reached out.
“Anybody is welcome,” Glasscock said. “Originally, it was just asking people to help give me advice, and so looking forward to seeing how that develops now that there’s more interest and so it may be adaptive, and we’re trying to see what works best based on the amount of people that have shown interest.”
Glasscock says the board is not limited to people in his district. He doesn’t have an exact timeline for when he wants to set it up but says he wants to wait until after the holidays.