Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Ryan Baty will meet with mayors and representatives of 20 cities in the county to talk about the use of sales tax revenue for property tax relief.
Baty has suggested using some revenue from a sales tax that has been in place since the 1980s to fund cultural arts and recreation programs, so they would no longer be funded by property tax revenues. Half of the sales tax revenues are required to be used for street and infrastructure projects, and the rest is to be used toward property tax relief. Sedgwick County gets $40 million a year from the sales tax.
A meeting is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at 3 in a closed-door setting at the Ruffin Building in downtown Wichita, where the county administrative offices are located. No other commissioners will attend and no binding action will be taken. The meeting is expected to provide direction for future budget discussions.
