Category: UG News

by Mary Rupert
The Unified Government announced a new level of high-tech access to data available to the public.

UG budget information is being place on the www.wycokck.opengov.com website, an open data platform, officials said Monday evening.

Mayor Mark Holland said the UG had the opportunity to join more than 300 other local governments in the Open Government platform.

The new data platform will allow the public and government officials to go to the website, analyze and compare data in a meaningful way, he said.

“It’s a very exciting opportunity for our community to help lead the way in transparency and openness about our finances,” he said.

The new data platform was unveiled on the same day the administrator’s 2016 budget was announced.

UG Administrator Doug Bach said the system is much more customer-friendly. Anyone would be able to find out easily, for example, how much is being spent on overtime through all departments or within a certain department.

“We’re really excited about this system,” he said. “We think it really puts information out there for the public to see and demonstrate to them how all our information is available, and also it’s a great tool for all our employees to use.”

Trying out the new system on a computer that was set up in the lobby of City Hall, Michael Peterson, a UG budget analyst, compared fuel costs among various departments, finding $1.5 million was spent for fuel for the Public Works Department last year and $490,000 for fuel for the Fire Department.

Joe Connor, assistant county administrator, said it’s important that he and other UG employees could find information in about 15 seconds instead of taking a much longer time to look it up in the budget documents or other documents.

The new UG open data platform may be accessed through the website, www.wycokck.opengov.com.

Contact Mary Rupert, editor, at [email protected].

Interrupted by a 35-minute break to take shelter in the basement of City Hall for a tornado warning, the Unified Government Neighborhood and Community Development Standing Committee tonight advanced a new technique to deal with delinquent commercial properties.

The committee approved putting a commercial property at 8833 State Ave. into the Land Bank. It is the first time a commercial property that has been in a tax sale has been placed into the Land Bank, according to officials.

Chris Slaughter, Land Bank manager, said the property was in the recent tax sale but no one bid on it. The property had been delinquent on taxes for nine years, and it was in five tax sales without any buyers, according to Slaughter.

If there had been any bidders, the UG would not have proposed putting the property in the Land Bank, he added.

He said the property was appraised at $112,500, and the minimum bid on the tax sale would have been $115,136. Additionally, upkeep was starting to fail on the property, he said. It has three spaces for businesses and offices, he added.

A tenant had previously inquired about purchasing the property but found the taxes were too high, he said.

The UG was approached by an applicant who was interested in purchasing it and rehabilitating the property, he said. Then they negotiated an option-purchase agreement.

The purchasers will pay $65,000 under the proposed agreement, and will also pay $68,000 in estimated repairs to be done on the property, he said. The buyers will pay both those amounts, Slaughter said.

Slaughter said two Kansas City, Kan., firefighters, Kevin Pahls and Chris Handlin, are the purchasers, who will be doing the rehabilitation work on the property, as private individuals.

Commissioner Brian McKiernan said he is an advocate for finding a way to break the cycle of properties that don’t pay taxes year after year. This method may get a property back to paying taxes, he said, and it would no longer be an eyesore dragging the community down.

The idea was supported by the other commissioners on the committee, who voted to advance it to the full UG Commission meeting for a final vote. Commissioner Ann Murguia noted it was a good idea, although not all development ideas always work out. Commissioner Gayle Townsend said she was for the plan after determining that the total amount to be paid by purchasers in the purchase price plus the repairs would be more than what the UG asked at the tax sale.

If there is one result that might have come out of the Ferguson, Mo., turmoil over the past year, it’s fewer traffic tickets. The number of tickets for the first four months of 2015 has declined in Kansas City, Kan.

Municipal Court Judge Maurice Ryan said the number of tickets was significantly fewer for the first four months of 2015 as compared to the first four months of 2014. He made his remarks in a report of the state of the Municipal Court to the Unified Government Commission, at a recent Standing Committee meeting.

Ryan told the commissioners that he started to see a decrease in the number of tickets issued by the Police Department this year, comparing the first four months of 2014 with the first four months of 2015.

Traffic tickets were down 39 percent, from 17,081 in 2014 to 10,500 in 2015, over a four-month period, he said.

Animal control cases were down 30 percent, from 1,014 cases to 738 cases filed, he said. The number of parking violations cases was down 10 percent, from 4,343 in 2014 to 3,947 in 2015.

Housing code violation cases were up 57 percent, from 306 cases to 532 cases, he said.

Misdemeanor cases were down 20 percent, from 1,958 in 2014 to 1,595 in 2015. Domestic violence cases were down 5 percent, from 314 in 2014 to 299 in 2015, he added.

While revenues are steady now, Ryan said he is expecting revenues to decline in the future, as there is a lag time until the money is collected.

Ryan said the Department of Justice had 13 recommendations for the Ferguson community, including advising that the police focus on community protection, not revenue enhancement. He said that in Kansas City, Kan., there has been more of a focus this year on community protection.

There were also some recommendations for the Ferguson courts in the Department of Justice report. There was discussion about excessive fines in the report.

Ryan said Municipal Court has been evaluating the fines for individuals to make sure they are not excessive. It is when several fines are piled on top of one another that they might become excessive.

Ryan said the Police Department doesn’t always currently collect information about minorities, but that information was recommended so that data could be collected on traffic tickets based on race and ethnicity.

Ryan said he has never felt any pressure from the local government to use Municipal Court to help fund city government. He said Ferguson depended on municipal court fines for 23 percent of its funds. Kansas City, Kan., receives only 3 percent of its total funds from municipal court fines, he said.

Kansas City, Kan., reviewed its fines a few years ago, he said. The amount of the fine is below average for driving under intoxication violations and above average for driving while suspended violations, he said.

“We are recommending an increase in fines for DUI and a decrease in fines for DWS to be more in line with other cities surveyed,” he said.

Most other cities charge $50 to $100 more for DUI, he said. And other cities charge $150 to $200 less for DWS, and do not require jail or house arrest on the first conviction, he added.

While this might result in a slight decrease in income, the Municipal Court is only collecting 35 to 40 percent of the fines anyway, he said.

Ryan requested the addition of two to three employees to scan in old traffic tickets to the system. Currently, the court is understaffed by two positions.

In Kansas City, Kan., the municipal court processed 38,000 tickets last year with two judges, he said. The court sees about 100 to 125 people a week.