City of Wichita & Sedgwick County Recreation and Cultural Arts Shared Services DRAFT

Home , Sedgwick County Zoo, Wichita Art Museum

June 2021

Public Policy & Management Center Wichita State University

Misty Bruckner, Director Lisa Dodson, Research & Program Evaluation Manager LaShonda Garnes, Community Development Manager Abigail Hammack, Program Manager Drake Koops, Graduate Assistant

Contents

Background ...... 3 Disclaimer and Acknowledgements ...... 4 Executive Summary ...... 4 Stakeholder Engagement ...... 5 Best Practices & Additional Research ...... 7 Recommendations ...... 8 Findings & Recommendations ...... 9 Vision and Goals ...... 9 Structural Change ...... 9 Position Updates ...... 14 Finance ...... 15 Stakeholder Engagement ...... 18 Administrative Interview Summary ...... 18 Initial Interview Summary ...... 29 Summary of Affiliated Organizations ...... 37 Best Practices Research ...... 39

City Arts

Exploration Place

Background

In response to the request for services from the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County, the Public Policy and Management Center (PPMC) at Wichita State University was contracted to assist with an assessment on shared services opportunities for recreation and cultural arts services between the two organizations. The assessment, led by a joint project management team, evaluated the opportunities, obstacles and final findings for merged services. The final assessment involves internal evaluation, research from other communities and engagement of external stakeholders. The assessment expands upon the 2019 cultural arts services assessment report completed by the PPMC for the City of Wichita.

The purpose of the assessment is to evaluate the benefits, challenges, effectiveness, efficiencies and recommendations for consolidation and/or shared services of recreation and cultural arts services for the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County. Recreation and cultural arts included the following entities from both organizations: parks, recreation, museums (with city or county staff), cultural arts organizations, such as Botanica, Sedgwick County Zoo, Exploration Place, and others, as identified. Entertainment venues and facility contract opportunities were reviewed.

Disclaimer

This study was conducted by the Public Policy & Management Center (PPMC) at Wichita State University (WSU). The PPMC is an independent research body unaffiliated with the City of Wichita or Sedgwick County. This report was prepared by the research team. It represents the findings, views, opinions, and conclusions of the research team alone. The report does not express the official or unofficial policy of WSU.

Acknowledgements

The Public Policy & Management Center would like to express our appreciation of the numerous stakeholders in recreation, park and cultural arts at Sedgwick County and the City of Wichita that participated and guided this review. Their professional commitment to providing excellence in customer and visitor experiences truly inspired and directed these recommendations. The PPMC would specifically like to thank City of Wichita Assistant City Manager Donte Martin and Deputy County Manager Tim Kaufman for their leadership and work on this project.

Museum of World Treasures; Kansas African American Museum; Wichita Sedgwick County Historical Museum

Naftzger Park

Executive Summary

The PPMC conducted the shared services model study through a series of stakeholder engagement processes, best practices research and other secondary research, while working with the help of the joint City/County project management team to create recommendations on a shared services structure to enhance recreation and cultural arts services for our community.

Stakeholder Engagement

As part of the Recreation and Cultural Arts Shared Services assessment, the PPMC conducted stakeholder engagement, which included:

• Interviews with internal administrative services • Interviews and focus groups with recreation and cultural arts leaders • Interviews with cultural arts programs funded by the City and/or County • External research for best practices, shared services models and lessons learned • Engagement and presentation from industry experts

• Two half-day retreats of leadership in cultural arts and recreation from both organizations to define guiding principles, vision, mission and common goals

The following provides a summary of the feedback from stakeholder engagement:

• One-Stop: Organizations discussed the benefit of having a central location for customers for programming, facility rental, promotion information and community events. • Private Partnerships: Many emphasized the importance of increasing public- private partnerships with a shared services approach. • Collaboration: Cultural arts organizations do not have an existing structure to work together. Organizations are challenged to coordinate, leverage or share resources since there is not a structure to implement or incentivize. Joint programming, promotions and even operation expertise are opportunities to share or leverage resources. Many stakeholders indicated there are opportunities for collaboration that would strengthen and support all organizations. • Marketing: Communication resources and joint marketing opportunities were identified as easy wins to get started. The focus should be on how to leverage and promote to have greater impact. • Elevation of Issues: Some saw an opportunity to amplify the role of arts, culture and recreation through a shared service model. Speaking with a collective voice on quality of life and place can have a greater impact for the community. • Intergovernmental Cooperation: Others identified the City and County partnering more, which leads to better results and culture change for staff and outside organizations to work together. • Entrepreneurial Spirit: Participants indicated organizations that will succeed in the future have an entrepreneurial spirit and freedom to take risk. Organizations must be agile to respond to change in markets and customer expectations. • Bureaucracy: Participants expressed concern that cost-saving expectations and increased efficiencies will not pay out in reality. Structure should not create more layers or central control. • Nonprofit Status: There were concerns that being under a larger public umbrella could create a perception that these organizations are public entities. Nonprofit and independent status is critical for fundraising. • Competition for Resources: All nonprofits are competing for resources and now is especially difficult. A philosophical question remains on how to best leverage and use public resources.

• Autonomy: Organizations feel autonomy is important for success. The structure must create support, but not negatively impact governance, independent operations or leadership autonomy. • Funding: Most organizations feel they are operating lean already. There is a concern that restructuring could hurt funding.

Best Practices & Additional Research

The PPMC reviewed internal and external models of shared services, the process of government decision-making and the success of these efforts. The study examines two models of shared services, including the benefits and challenges of each organization. Benefits range from improved communication and enhanced synergy to long-term cost savings. Where there are benefits, there are also challenges, including increased costs for labor-intensive sectors, employee skepticism and service dissatisfaction. In this section, special focus is given to how quickly a plan, initially supported by the community, can lose favor because of cumbersome bureaucracy and loss of contact between the community and the governmental departments.

Finally, case studies provide examples of lessons learned when implementing a shared services model. Best practices and lessons learned include:

• Administrative consolidation leads to efficiencies of scale. • Public-Private partnerships may be more easily facilitated. • Funding increases can be realized through combined fundraising efforts and tax base expansion. • A focus on communication to the public is essential. • Consolidations and mergers should not come at a cost to the public. • Merging labor-intensive departments (such as public works) will likely lead to inefficiencies and diseconomies of scale. • Merging city and county services can lead to employee dissatisfaction. • Mergers that are overly ambitious, rushed, or not properly prioritized will lead to broken functionalities and poor service levels.

Recommendations

The stakeholder engagement and best practices research portions of the project helped inform the management team and PPMC staff to provide the following recommendations.

Based on this information, the PPMC recommends a structural change for the shared services model including a new shared Department of Cultural Arts and Recreation that reports to both the City and County managers. Four main divisions make up the proposed department: Parks; Recreation; Operations, Administration, and Contract Administration; and Cultural Arts and Attractions.

The PPMC recommends the creation of a Leadership Council to help lead and direct efforts of the department and the consolidation of facility, contract, and public funding processes. Finally, the PPMC recommends the City and County establish shared programming and marketing to enhance the work of all organizations involved.

Botanica

Lake Afton

Findings & Recommendations

Vision and Goals

The following vision statement was created at the retreat with stakeholder leadership:

“To enhance the quality of life for all populations by providing low-barrier access to world-class cultural, recreational, and educational activities that encourage attitudes of collaboration and innovation through efficient service delivery.”

The three top goals areas included marketing; programming; and operational services.

Structural Change

Based on the input from stakeholders, examples from other communities and working with City and County leadership, the following shared services model is proposed:

1. Create a new shared department of Cultural Arts and Recreation with reporting structure to both the city and county manager.

2. Establish four main sections of the department: a. park (including Sedgwick County Park Services); b. recreation; c. administration; and d. cultural arts/attraction (including all museums and attractions that currently have city or county management oversight and/or employees).

Operations, Cultural Arts & Recreation Admininstration, and Parks Division Contract Attractions Division Administration Division Division

3. Create a Leadership Council to develop, amplify and direct efforts in comprehensive community promotion, programming and future developments. 4. Consolidate facility, contract and public funding processes to best leverage resources. 5. Establish shared programming and marketing to enhance and supplement individual organization’s efforts, not to supplant or eliminate individual organization’s work.

Org Chart: Department of Cultural Arts & Recreation

Org Chart: Recreation Division

Future Value Added

In order to overcome the natural resistance to change and to justify the resources and commitments necessary to implement this change, there must be clear advantages to the model. Those benefits and future value added include:

1. Amplify the impact of quality of place investments by merging cultural arts, recreation and attractions under a larger, combined organizational structure.

2. Create opportunity for collaboration and leveraging of resources through merged organizations especially in the areas of programming, event planning, marketing and space utilization.

3. Strengthen leadership and content expertise in quality of place by bringing together recreation, cultural arts and attractions in one structure with dedicated leadership.

4. Reinvest resources in cultural arts and recreation in savings identified through combining resources within the City of Wichita between parks and recreation staff and cultural arts staff, which may include marketing, administrative and programming staff.

5. Create convenient access for the customer through a one-stop location for recreational programming, facility rental, special activities and calendar of events.

6. Collaborate to best leverage public investments in cultural arts through combined planning by the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County allocation process for other cultural arts organizations in the community and expand county-wide. Simplifying the process, identifying strategic investment and incentivizing cooperative partnerships are primary opportunities.

7. Expand impact of programming of City Arts by allowing expertise to guide and amplify programming throughout the community via programming at Recreation Centers. The brand quality of City Arts can permeate throughout the recreation centers.

8. Re-examine funding in cultural arts to best leverage resources for priority investment by criteria that incentivizes entrepreneurial efforts, leveraging partnerships, residents and visitors served and other policy priorities.

9. Develop system coordination for events, programming and fundraising by consistent communication, planning and evaluation for community impact of quality of life activities.

10. Leverage facilities for programming, events and individual usage through coordination in a shared service system. Lake Afton or Sedgwick County Park have had limited external programming and now be amplified through recreation programming support.

Position Updates

The table below shows the following positions that are under consideration for reorganization. Under the new structure, Forestry remains within the Park Division. The secretary position here now duplicates some services. The consideration is to merge this position with the other administrative assistance positions or repurpose the position in some way. The Golf Section Supervisor will also be repurposed for marketing within the recreation department. There are several vacant positions. The first, the Assistant Recreation Supervisor, will stay within the Recreation Department. The vacant Account Clerk I will be in the Operations/Administration/Contract Administration Department under accounting, while the vacant Clerk II position will be in the same department under administration staff. This division also needs a new leader, which creates a new vacant Division Manager position.

The Communications Specialist that currently supports the Art and Cultural Services Division will remain in the City Manager’s Office and report to the City’s Strategic Communications Director. In addition to supporting the Strategic Communications Division, the position will work closely with Department of Cultural Arts and Recreation marketing and communications staff.

Finally, the Sedgwick County Parks Supervisor will move under the Recreation Department with a newly created special title, similar to that of the Watson Park/Aquatics Manager.

Current Division Title Total Comp Consideration City of Wichita Secretary/ Repurposed to a other Forestry $68,104 Admin Aide II position within department Repurposed to marketing for Golf Section Supervisor $69,516 Recreation Dept. Assistant Recreation Recreation $65,956 In Recreation Dept. Supervisor In Operations/Admin/ Park Administration Account Clerk I $51,651 Contract Admin. Dept. In Operations/Admin/ Park Administration Clerk II $48,478 Contract Admin. Dept. See note Cultural Arts & Recreation Arts & Culture Division Manager below** Division Manager Communications Move to City Manager’s Arts & Culture $89,426 Specialist Office Senior Program Continue role and support Arts & Culture $87,002 Specialist Division Manager Senior Program Add to Operations/Admin/ Arts & Culture $95,943 Specialist Contract Admin. Dept. Sedgwick County Sedgwick County All Positions $$ Recreation Division Parks Services

Note: The total compensation for filled positions includes salary and benefits.

Finance

*The Secretary/Admin Aide II in the Forestry Division will be moved to a vacant Admin Aide II position currently budgeted, saving $57,000. **The vacant Division Manager position is budgeted at $70,557. In 2020, it was budgeted at $110,633 based on the predecessor’s salary/benefits. The 2022 budget amount will not be determined until the position is filled.

While financial savings is not the main goal of the shared services initiative between the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County, there are some potential savings or reorganization of funding. The Secretary position in Forestry, if repurposed, would provide a total savings of $57,000 in annual compensation and benefits to reuse throughout the division. However, there is a requirement for a new Cultural 15

Arts/Attractions Division Manager. There are no other savings recommendations that originate from eliminating positions. The purpose of the consolidation remains to better support all the offices involved through shared resources.

Next Steps

The following are recommendations for next steps:

1. Create planning teams for fall 2021 around the following areas:

• Cultural arts • Recreation • Administrative Services • Leadership Council

2. Staffing

A. Develop administrative agreements for staffing that include: • Sedgwick County employees for the Sedgwick County Zoo and Exploration Place will remain County employees. • Sedgwick County employees that are Park Services employees will remain Sedgwick County employees until leaving Sedgwick County through retirement or separation of employment. At that time, that position will be replaced and funded by a City of Wichita position. B. Start the recruitment and selection process immediately for the department director with a joint hiring committee from the City of Wichita, Sedgwick County and community leaders. C. Appoint an interim Cultural Arts and Attractions leader to bring together Botanica, Old Cowtown Museum and the Indian Center and to coordinate internal alignment with public funding process and existing cultural arts staff until the new Department Director is hired and the search is completed for the Cultural Arts/Attractions Division manager.

3. Property and Maintenance

Identify all property maintenance activities for Sedgwick County park property and develop a memorandum of understanding between City and County for ongoing 16

responsibilities for property and facility maintenance, capital expenses and other costs associated with park service property.

Sedgwick County Fair; Kansas Aviation Museum; McAdams Park

Mid-American All Indian Center

Stakeholder Engagement

Administrative Interview Summary October 2020

Background

During the month of September, the Public Policy and Management Center interviewed the internal administrative service operations at the City and County regarding a shared service model for recreation, park and cultural arts. Law, information technology, facilities, human resources and finance department from both organizations were interviewed separately. The following provides a summary of the stakeholder feedback.

1. As you think about a potential shared services model with the city and county, are there benefits for your organization? For the city/county? For the community-at-large?

County • An opportunity to adding efficiency to government operations, process efficiencies, minimize duplication, reduced cost through stronger purchasing contracts with vendors, maintenance expenses, IT software and licensing. • Cost sharing and being able to create opportunities for reduced cost for services. • A unified/integrated approach could reduce expenses. Any opportunity we have that allows us to leverage existing resources, collaborate and find efficiencies is beneficial to the county and community overall. • Greater clarity for the community, reducing the confusion between city/county services especially because the City of Wichita takes up a large geographical footprint in Sedgwick County. This would also create efficiency in requests to use facilities/amenities and services provided by the system. • If Sedgwick County Park and Lake Afton were a part of a larger group, I could see some benefits (i.e. cross training, greater capacity). They do not necessarily fit all that well into the Public Services division. There could possibly be efficiencies gained in the process.

City • Facilities: Assuming we retain asset ownership and maintenance responsibilities we may not be affected. If the county is transferred ownership of the facilities, there could be the reduction in cost for day-to-day maintenance, as well as, long- term maintenance and capital replacement cost. • Fleet: It would not have much of an impact either way. We could have a reduction in vehicles, assuming there are no longer city employees. That could have a long-term impact on reducing costs due to no longer needing to charge an amortized monthly replacement rate. • We are an internal service department, so the benefit would be from any efficiency gains. It could streamline business processes and make things easier for the community. • A unified/integrated approach could reduce expenses.

2. What challenges do you see for your organization? For the city/county? For the community at large?

County • It will be critical to understand who is responsible and accountable for which services and how the work is divided between the city and county. • Understanding of how service levels will be impacted by shared services model.

• Budget implications, addressing what budget will follow services, as well as, what staff. • Cost allocation for Fleet is budgeted for fuel, maintenance, replacement and on a monthly basis and is billed back to the department. Pay as you go system, based on consumption, parts, labor and fuel. • Moving individuals and organizations beyond the feeling of “we have always done it this way.” It will also require us getting past silos and embracing the future. This will require getting all stakeholders on one accord and moving forward with the same common goal. • Infrastructure, understanding its conditions and needs especially when looking at technology. The hard task is anything that is wireless related. For example, the jail is a difficult building to get wireless signals through and/or add additional cabling but as technology needs change, we must adjust, seeking new opportunities. • Review of pricing structures for renting shelters, permits for camping, etc. • Review of county codes to determine how those are applied. • Employee Matters: equalizing pay across positions, job descriptions, will employees move over to the lead organization, retirement, benefits, training differences, managing cultures and perceptions across organizations. • Land acquisition, managing partner, who has what responsibilities? City • It will be important to identify a lead agency early on. That agency should be responsible for taking care of all administrative responsibilities. Having employees on two different personnel systems becomes difficult and creates ineffective processes, creates the opportunity for employees to be treated differently and causes conflict among supervisors and employees. • If the city retains ownership but the maintenance responsibilities goes to another provider (building occupant), we will need to ensure there are agreements in place that hold the occupant accountable for adequate preventative maintenance. • Review of asset conditions would need to be a part of the process. The city would need to determine what condition an asset needs to be in before accepting the transfer of the asset. For instance, a facility may need to have upgrades to meet minimum service standards prior to a transfer of ownership – this could be as simple as a roof replacement/repair to ensure a water-tight building. • Regarding fleet vehicles, the City would likely need to collect up-front amortized replacement costs for any aged assets transferred to City ownership. This

would help the City avoid unforeseen replacement cost spikes that hadn’t been collected through internal service fees. This is important because it could have an impact to increased maintenance cost, in addition to the replacement and renewal cost and schedule. This is true for both fleet and facilities. • The challenge we always face is tax equity. Ensuring that Sedgwick County and/or Wichita constituents don’t pay a larger amount after the merger. • Depending on how a transition goes, the sales tax distribution between the City and County could be altered, which would have an impact on the budget. • The transfer of assets is also something we need to review. Do we sell? Donate? What assets will be transferred, when will it be transferred? The Park land is really complicated because of the ownership by the Park Board. • The City of Wichita gets special alcohol tax dollars, by statute, 1/3 of the funds are required to be spent on recreation programs. We do not want to inhibit our ability to utilize all of these funds. • Evaluate an equitable IT transition - how much is owed for the buyout of any systems, or equipment. • It is important that if this moves forward that a decision be made for all processes, services be housed under one organization. In previous projects, trying to cross city-county terms of being on different networks proved to be difficult. When this was done with MABCD it became unbelievably messy and challenging for the user. One user utilizing two different platforms and two different networks is not ideal.

3. What administrative processes in your organization will be most impacted?

County • Purchasing policies and practices could be impacted. Whose purchasing policies are you following when bidding for services? If a hybrid model, whose governing model takes precedence? Need to determine which governing body’s personnel policies would apply. • Clear direction on how we are to handle certain policies and procedures would be necessary. • Consideration of how organizations facility needs will be met and who they will contact to request services (i.e. museums). The end user (building occupant) cannot be expected to know who to call for a specific repair/service. This would require a secretary or call center to field communication requests and to forward to the appropriate governing body to respond.

City 21

• Through gained efficiencies this could create an opportunity to repurpose the use of administrative staff. Tasks such as accounts payable, credit card management and managing accounting activities could be impacted. • This would impact pension staff the most. They would need to spend time identifying options for employees. Each employee situation would be different. • The process for evaluating and updating legal documents, ordinances, MOUs, administrative regulations will take an extensive amount time from the legal department. Long term impact will be based on who absorbs the administrative responsibility. Other decisions to consider: o Who owns records? o How do we handle KORA requests? o Should there be a transfer of records? o Does each organization keep their own records and respond collectively when requests come in? • It is critical that this process not only looks at the high-level needs, but really investigates and thinks through the details and brings the end users to the table early on in the discussion. This is a critical technology component that must be addressed. • Budget is another area that must be reviewed early on as the city and county utilizes two different approaches. The City does chargebacks and the County budgets for technology. The County is not centralized, and we are centralized. The budget process is greatly different. • This would also be an opportunity to not only look at shared services, but this would also be an ideal time to review processes and determine where efficiencies can be gained through process improvements.

4. Are there key stakeholder relationships (e.g. donors, employees, unions) that should be considered? (positives and negatives)

County • Sheriff, EMS and Public Works • County stakeholders: IT Security, IT Infrastructure, IT Support: Help Desk and Desktop Support, Application Management, IT Development (website, database and software) and Project Management. • Zoological Society Board • SMG – AJ Boleski • Community (those who support the arts)

City • SEIU • Union labor • Producers of the shows at Century II • Art & Culture Boards • Cultural Funding Committee • Design Council • Nonprofits (partnerships) • Long term users of the park (baseball, League 42, etc.) • Park Board • Internal support departments – Property Management, Clerks Office, Licensing Staff in Cultural Arts, WPD – who will enforce issues, may impact staffing • Cox, KDOT, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and IdeaTech. Other key stakeholders may need to be identified when thinking about contracts with software companies.

5. Are there losses that need to be considered?

County • Impact on service levels, due to lack of clarity of who is responsible for what. • Communication • If the same level of ownership is not reciprocal between governing bodies or one-party faces budget restraints, it could influence the relationship between governing bodies and impact the public. • Loss of employees, impact on employee morale due to resistance to change. • Loss of identity and still be able to feel the affiliation to those facilities (i.e. Zoo, Sedgwick County parks) • Pride

City • Fleet: we would lose revenue (maintenance & repair, fuel, and vehicle replacement) Fuel is a pass through. Replacement charges could cease, representing a long-term cost savings to the City. Maintenance & Repair – we may have to reduce the number of mechanics if a high number of vehicles were to be transferred out of the City fleet. However, this would need to be balanced by any new vehicles being maintained by the shop, particularly due to recent additions to the WPD fleet.

• Facilities: no budget impact in terms of revenue, but it could impact the amount of square footage we would have to maintain. Maintenance work groups may be impacted based on the facilities we would serve. In particular, we have a group of maintenance employees co-located at Century II. They are responsible for maintenance at CII, Expo Hall, the old and new downtown libraries, and other arts and cultural facilities. That group in particular could be significantly affected by major changes arising from this effort and the unrelated CII privatization. • We also maintain 25 fuel sites, three are at golf facilities – which might be impacted. There are KDHE requirements to consider. • Loss of employment, pension, salary • Protective of territory – hypersensitive to losing park land • Art Museum may be a little tricky, due to the relationships • Botanica may feel a sense of loss if they were transitioned to the County • Philosophical or policy decisions that make create new expectations for the community which could create loss. • Software contracts would need to be evaluated, they are usually annual renewals • If the decision is that the city will no longer provide these services to Park & Recreation and Cultural Arts, the IT expense to other departments will be impacted as the current budget is based on a chargeback process. 6. Are there tourism and/or economic development benefits for your organization or the community?

• Yes, a shared model could allow us to provide more to attract more.

7. Do you know of any models or communities we should research for this project?

• MABCD (all things should be put in writing, no verbal agreements) • Johnson County • Wyandotte County (consolidated government) • City/County Fire Consolidation (may have some lessons learned) • Champagne, Urbana (intergovernmental agreements) • University of Illinois (intergovernmental agreements) • Joint 911 center

8. Is there anything else we should be aware of in this process?

County • Consistency in the application of the laws that apply in the parks would be important to understand and enforce. • Creating consistent rules across the system for all parks. • Evaluate how cases are prosecuted across the systems to ensure consistency. • ADA compliance is also critical for us to keep in mind as we evaluate the possibilities of shared services. It is must be user friendly.

City • Asset management – We should discuss what conditions we are willing to accept in the transfer of assets. The more deferred maintenance an asset has, the larger impact it could have on the budget, as well as, projections we have made through our decision support tools that help manage our cost and maintenance schedules. If assets or fleet are not at the minimum standard, we must determine if we will accept them and if that acceptance comes with a budget transfer to get the asset to minimum standards. • The purpose is to ensure that we remain on the targets established by the City Council through the use of our Decision Support Tools. We’ve utilized an analytics-based approach to asset management, focused on service levels and total lifecycle costs. Any changes to our asset portfolio should be done in a way that negates any impact to the path we’ve charted through implementing our Decision Support Tools. This is why adequate preventative maintenance, amortized fleet replacement costs, and satisfactory building conditions are important – otherwise, we risk running afoul of the current plans for managing our other assets in these groups. • Ensure that we engage stakeholders early in the discussion. The technical people need to be engaged in the project early. • Ownership of property • Ordinances • State law • Alcohol use and rules • Local regulation • Aha Moment from the MABCD experience, is getting into the details of the work. Think about how people with utilize the systems, integration, platforms. There were no discussions before the decision was made about how they are going to access all other programs. You must look at the customer and the employee

experience. Early stakeholder engagement is critical. You have to look at the full employee experience and what they need to access to effectively complete their work (i.e. payroll, Laserfiche, MS Office, etc.).

9. What systems/programs do you utilize to support Park & Recreation activities?

County • Internal software program – HEAT is utilized for all work orders and it is in the process of being further developed for asset management and expenditure tracking. • Window based desktops/servers, Microsoft SQL databases, vendor created software as well as County created software.

City • NeoGov interfaces with Munis • Munis • Lucity for work order systems. A new system for asset management and fleet. • Park & Recreation and Cultural Arts use the same class management system. Century II uses a different system. • Botanica does its own thing. Sedgwick County Zoo does their own thing. 10. How is the fleet handle for your organization? Are there any outsourced contracts?

County • Contract with a vendor who facilities our parts acquisitions (Factory Motor Parts) – it just renewed 2018 – 2019. One-year contract, with three years to renew. • We also utilize other vendors to help with servicing vehicles, when we do not have the expertise in hours. A lot of contracts that are expired.

City • Fleet maintenance is generally handled internally, there are some activities that are outsourced. The decision to outsource is based on intensity of repair, expertise to handle repair, and/or the amount of time a vehicle will be out of service if done internally. • There are also some external service agreements for maintenance on unique/specialty asset needs. For example, The Ice Center and Kansas Aviation

Museum have service agreements. We also have on-call architects and maintenance providers to assist with needs beyond our span of expertise. • When identifying new assets to bring on to our system, we will need to evaluate the impacts it has on our long-term planning for maintenance on fleet and facilities. We would need to understand how that would extend and/or adjust our plan for the long term. We should be mindful of what we accept and consider how we will maintain the asset, maximize useful life while not losing the momentum on the gains we will have been able to achieve to date.

11. Are there any legal ramifications that we need to be aware of?

County

• Employment aspects will need to be evaluated, will there be a change of employer, layoffs? Evaluation of codes, policies to ensure they are consistent on both the county and city platforms. There are a few statutes that would need to be reviewed. Kansas statutes, Chapter 19, Article 28. How will park violations -be addressed?

County • Who will own the property, Park Board property? • Evaluation of deed restrictions and solutions for how to resolve any issues that would impact this decision. For example, this issue came out with the construction for Linwood Park and Clapp Park. • Review of policies and regulations established by Park & Recreation. • Review of ordinances and administrative regulations. • Evaluation and understanding of funding agreements established with cultural arts organizations. • The Art Museum has its own entity and they have a Board. It is in process of trying to decrease the number of employees that are city employees. This needs to be figured out. • Evaluation of licensing and permit processes. The city issues licenses, noise permits and alcohol permits. • Evaluation of leases, MOUs with nonprofits (i.e. dog park). The city has agreements where they have leased sections of our properties, there are several public-private partnerships.

12. What needs to be considered regarding pension plans?

County • How employee pensions will be handled if the employees move from one organization to the other? Whoever the managing partner is, is where the retirement plans would lie (I believe) so determining how/if they could merge • It is really about how it will impact the employee, and do we care. It is going to affect each employee differently. So, there is no one size fits all solution, so this must be explored early in the process.

13. What needs to be considered regarding payroll and position classifications? Who should we work with to evaluate the differences between city/county positions?

County • HR handles position classifications, we figure in the benefits and cost. HR does compensation classifications.

14. Any other thoughts?

County • Infrastructure would need to be brought to the same standard across all facilities. • There must be equality in the system. The public must have confidence that we are managing the properties effectively. It is about having the right staff dedicated and focused on the end result - enhanced quality of life. We must think outside the box together and protect the crown jewels of our community, our parks. • When the city began discussion a few years ago about budget cuts for golf courses and public spaces, it was a hot budget topic. When these decisions are made the public must be engaged. How do we consider the loss that impacts the community? How do we mitigate the growing lack of trust from the community? How do we reduce the confusion of who is responsible for what in this transition? How do we effectively communicate decisions and process to the community? • We are always concerned with tax equity to citizens. We also are concerned about ancillary financial impacts (impacts to our pension, sales tax revenue, etc.)

Initial Interview Summary October 2020

Background Through the month of September, the Public Policy and Management Center me with recreation and cultural arts organizations with direct reporting connections to the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County to discuss opportunities, challenges and other related ideas regarding a shared service approach to cultural arts, park and recreation. Specifically, the following organizations were interviewed:

City of Wichita • Park and Recreation Department • City Arts • Botanica • Mid-American Indian Center • Old Cowtown Museum

Sedgwick County • Park Services • Sedgwick County Zoo • Exploration Place

The following is a summary of the feedback received from stakeholders.

1. As you think about a potential shared services model with the city and county, are there benefits for your organization? For the city/county? For the community-at-large?

One-Stop: Organizations discussed the benefit of having joint operation support for tickets and community events across multiple units. Currently, promotors have to go to both city and county for approvals. One-stop could streamline access to all community facilities.

A similar opportunity was discussed for reservations. Examples were given especially for rental space availability. While it might not be possible to do all enrichment classes offered, there could be better coordination.

Private Partnerships: Emphasis should be on increasing public-private partnerships with a shared services approach. Wichita has potential to move ahead in many ways, but local government should not be out front. Need public funding support and then empower organizations to be more entrepreneurial.

Coordination: Arts and culture organizations are rarely on the same page. Organizations do little to coordinate, support, leverage or share resources, because it’s not encouraged or incentivized. There is so much potential untapped for joint projects that could strengthen or support all organizations. More cooperative efforts with all organizations and creative ways to support each other would be an advantage. More cooperation with city-county is also important but should note that things have greatly improved in recent years.

Reduce Duplication: There are duplication in services. Arts and recreation organizations could leverage economy of scales in resources, purchasing power, expertise and other areas. However, the question was posed, “Do we have the will to change and shift resources to make it happen?” (Note, this was not an ask for more money, but willing to prioritize, realign and reallocate to have greater impact.)

Marketing: Communication resources and joint marketing opportunities were identified as easy wins to get started. The focus should be on how to leverage to have greater impact.

Elevation of Issues: Some saw an opportunity to amplify the role of arts, culture and recreation through a shared service model. The Sedgwick County Zoo specifically discussed the need to have bigger impact on issues impacting community, such as conservation. Wichita Park and Recreation identified more services to marginalized communities, such as senior, people with disabilities and potential outreach to more of the region. Ensuring opportunities for all was discussed.

Programming: A few discussed the opportunity for more access to space and programming. Sedgwick County Park and Lake Afton were discussed as untapped assets for outdoor recreation programs. Other ideas for themed programming across organizations was discussed. Utilizing resources or visiting exhibits across organizations was identified as a programming benefit.

Intergovernmental Cooperation: City and County are partnering more, which just leads to better results and culture change for staff and outside organizations. This could serve as stronger bridge and partnership to include other areas, such as: aging, 30

development disabilities, health and others. There are also small wins, such as borrowing equipment or facilities planning.

Entrepreneurial Spirit: A few participants indicated that organizations that will succeed in the future have an entrepreneurial spirit and freedom to take risk. Organizations must be agile to respond to change in markets and customer expectations. Some commitment to innovation for survival purposes is important.

2. What challenges do you see for your organization? For the city/county? For the community at large?

Bureaucracy: Participants expressed concern that cost-saving expectations and increase efficiencies will not pay out in reality. Decreased resources, consolidation dynamics could create more bureaucracy that will slow decision making and make it hard for innovations to happen. Others expressed concern that cultural arts organizations reporting through the City now have trouble with delays due to levels of management. There was concern from others that centralized control could decrease nimbleness of organizations. Specifics include: • Communication • Payment • Contracts • Decision authority • Human resources • IT support

Nonprofit Status: There was concern that following under a public umbrella could create a perception that these organizations are a public entity. Several shared existing struggles that people assume local government fully funds and supports operations. Need to retain board and nonprofit for donations. Donors do not want to give funds to city.

Change Adversity: Some did not discuss any benefits and were reluctant to find potential. There was a feeling that this was a threat.

Competition for Resources: All nonprofits are competing for resources and now is especially difficult. A philosophical question is, “should all survive”. Right now, we have cultural arts organizations that are the “the have’s v. the have-nots.” One participant said, “Turf wars exist now? How does sharing services make this better and how will it be addressed.” 31

Autonomy: Organizations feel autonomy is important. Board support, private donor relations, programming direction and other self-directed work is vital. One participant said, “Do not screw up what is going well with governance and independence.”

Funding: Most organizations feel they are operating lean already. There is a concern this could hurt funding.

Cultural Shift: Several participants indicated this will take a cultural shift in organizations, but also with the City and County. Changing culture and building relationships takes time and there is a need to manage expectations, especially in the current environment.

Capital Investments: Clarity on facilities, capital support and other infrastructure and maintenance support needs to be addressed and clear.

Customer Focus: Almost all participants shared the focus needs to be on how customers are actually served better and how does the community benefit.

Innovation: Participants have unique needs and requirements in programing and visitor services. Remaining nimble in rapidly changing markets, when required to go through a more centralized decision-making process, was a concern.

3. What administrative processes in your organization will be most impacted?

Model Centric: Most were not clear what would be impacted until a model is defined. More independent organizations, such as Sedgwick County Zoo, Exploration Place and Botanica appreciate support from the City and County, but also value the independence on administrative support. The advantage for organizations hiring contractor support for these functions is their ability to change providers if services are not the quality they require. When relying on government, they become one more department in a large organization with many seeking services. Others only know the current environment, so did not have a lot to share until a model is defined.

4. Are there key stakeholder relationships (e.g. donors, employees, unions) that should be considered? (positives and negatives)

Autonomy: There is a concern about loss of identity. Need to retain nonprofits status for fundraising and need boards that represent different kinds of stakeholders. Loyalty

is to the individual organization from stakeholders and that should be understood and valued.

Partner Relations: Examples were given of the Arts Council and funding organizations that need to be aware and engaged in this study. The Arts Council would have a larger service area which would allow them to help more small communities in Sedgwick County. Visit Wichita was also mentioned as a key partner to engage. Tenants of Century II will have interest: promoters, concessioners, community event leaders. There are also specific clubs and organizations that use Sedgwick County Park and Lake Afton.

Implementation: Need to be clear on benefits and have a promotion plan for the final decision.

Financial Impact: Stakeholders will want to know the financial impact, “Bottom line is always money.”

5. How could communication and marketing processes be impacted? (internal and external stakeholders)

Quality of Life: Need vision and focus to be on quality of life. We need to come together to promote the value.

Clarity of Role: Some activities could be better centralized or a combined marketing effort. Other activities will be better served continued by each organization. We need to clarify and define where there is benefit and capitalize.

Specialized Markets: While there are general markets for quality of life and activities, individual organizations may have unique target audiences. Losing control to reach specific markets is a concern.

Shared Resources: Opportunities to share promotion activities, market-buys or specific resources (LED screens) could be a benefit.

Bureaucracy: The concern for approval time, responsiveness of organizations and general process that creates more layers was discussed.

Collaboration: Some of the smaller entities felt there could be an advantage for visibility if connected to larger entities. This could create more opportunities for 33

collaboration. An example of large exhibit at Botanica could have a smaller related activity at Great Plains Nature Center. We need a “freedom to try mindset.”

Market Expansion: A joint promotion might help reach outside of our “100-mile bubble” by demonstrating a collectively opportunity. Organizations need more creative thinking to move beyond what we have done.

6. Are there losses that need to be considered?

Identity: Smaller organizations are concerned that their identity will be buried in larger organization structure.

Programming: There is already overlap in some areas, example given of competing classes with City Arts and City of Wichita Park and Recreation. There was concern that organizations would be limited on what each would be allowed to do.

Entrepreneurism: Organizations need to be entrepreneurial so central system may not allow for responding to fast changing circumstances. How will this culture be cultivated and not controlled?

Customer Experience: Participants want to ensure customer service is not loss. The example was given that Century III promotors think the quality of services are amazing. There is a concern that efficiency will mean loss of quality in a shared services model.

Acceptance of Loss: Yes, there will be loss, but that must be acknowledged and accepted. Staffing, familiarity of process, reporting structures and other changes are likely. There needs to be a constant focus on the vision and benefits to overcome loss and resistance. Need be thoughtful of unintended consequences.

7. Are there tourism and/or economic development benefits for your organization or the community?

Recreation Impact: This could bring in more people with expanded recreation opportunities. Parks and trails could be better promoted. Better planning could occur and encourage more people to attend or utilize parks and recreation events. There are many opportunities by coming together in planning, promotion and new events. There could be improved connections with trails and green space.

City Arts: Participants at City Arts did not see an impact. They serve locals that enroll in repeat classes, not tourists.

Model Centric: A few participants indicated the model would dictate. If it led to increase visibility, then it would have a positive impact. If it led to increased bureaucracy, then it would have a negative impact.

8. How can quality of life be amplified by collaborating more?

Influence: Division or entity could be more influential with more players working together. Now they are not at the table in major decisions. With more partners, they could be part of bigger recognition and influence in the community.

Partnership Building: There could be more collaboration with arts entities, supporters and donors with a shared vision; potentially less competition. Collaboration is needed. There is not a central forum for collaboration. Cultural partnerships need to exist to promote collaboration.

Promotion: With greater collaboration, there can be more people telling the same story about Wichita. Greater promotion and understanding of our community can be achieved.

Leverage: One participant said, “Lots of brains working together can make good things happen if they want.” Sedgwick County Park and Lake Afton could have more people utilizing, more opportunities for programming, more joint events and theme activities and more pride and enthusiasm. Simply stated, “There are strengths in numbers.” Building partnerships also sets the foundation among organizations and with private sector to work together.

9. Is there anything else we should be aware of in this process?

Technology: Distance education, programming and international connections could happen with technology. Need tools to deliver programs.

Explore Card: Participants raised the challenges currently of Explore Card. Currently there are 14 attractions that are available with the Explore Card through Visit Wichita. Not consistent participation and promotion now.

Commitment: One participant said, “This is a big lift and will take time. We need commitment from leaders to make this change.” Other related management items, include: • Strategic plan • Leadership with executive skills to make this happen • Resources clearly understood • Need to consider how smaller organizations might feel threatened • Need to consider social equity concerns

Quality: There needs to be a decision on what the community can support. Every place should have a destination element and some organizations have done the same thing for decades. A question was raised on how investments will be made to ensure quality.

Purpose: Messaging from the beginning to the core purpose is important. There is a need to let go of some of the negative history and requirements. Need to think about what we really want from these organizations. One participant said, “We are in the business of smiles,” let’s make this fun.

Summary of Affiliated Organizations December 2020

As part of the stakeholder engagement for the Cultural Arts and Recreation Shared Services project, affiliated organizations were also interviewed. These included the Wichita Art Museum, The Kansas Aviation Museum, The Kansas African American Museum, the Arts Council and the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum. Participants were asked similar questions to the internal stakeholder interviews. Following is a brief synopsis of the feedback:

Opportunities • Respondents noted they were pleased to see the city and county working together to address cultural arts challenges and opportunities. • The organizations interviewed identified efficiencies for a shared services model between the city and county. These included significant savings for services including administration, marketing, information technologies and web management. • Some of these services, for example marketing, could be bundled contracts that might roll back the costs for individual organizations. This would allow organizations to spend saved funds on mission-focused activities including guest services and programming. • In addition, organizations might have shared staff that would reduce costs. • The Arts Council noted that this model would allow them to serve communities across the county, where in the current model, they are limited to the City of Wichita. Smaller organizations noted there would be benefits derived from association with the larger organizations, especially in marketing and ticket sales for multiple venues.

Challenges • There were concerns a shared service model would include additional layers of bureaucracy, which may negate any efficiencies or economies of scale from the consolidation of services. • A successful model would require entities to give up some control and embrace change. This loss of control is threatening and would need to be balanced against benefits of the model. • Success is measured differently in each organization, so work is needed to identify a shared vision and determine what success looks like for the entire model and how each organization fits into this model.

• There is a concern that this model would create a new institution and the focus would move away from caring for the current individual institutions. • Some respondents were concerned about methods for fundraising and how organization’s competition for philanthropic donations would be impacted and managed. • Organizations are less likely to support this model, if cost savings are re-directed to other purposes. • Respondents mentioned the need to be prepared for unintended consequences. Merging bureaucracies and developing leadership and commitment are important hurdles for success of a shared services model.

Customer Focus • Maintaining a top-quality customer experience was important to respondents. • Each organization perceives their audience as unique and they want to maintain the flexibility to respond the changing environment and customer interests. • Some respondents think this model will unite organizations under a Wichita banner, which will be more easily identifiable to the public than the names of individual organizations. • This model is more likely to elevate the quality of the visitor experience and the community quality of life if cost savings are reinvested in the arts.

Old Cow Town Museum

Intrust Bank Arena Sedgwick County Zoo

Best Practices Research October 2020

Executive Summary

Implementing a shared services model, involving consolidation, is an important consideration for governments. Given the mandate to be efficient and effective with taxpayers’ dollars, governments strive to reduce duplication of organizational efforts and lower costs. This study reviews internal and external models of shared services, the process of government decision-making and the success of these efforts.

The study examines two models of shared services, including the benefits and challenges of each organization. Benefits range from improved communication and enhanced synergy to long-term cost savings. Where there are benefits there are also challenges, including increased costs for labor-intensive sectors, employee skepticism and service dissatisfaction. In this section, special focus is given to how quickly a plan, initially supported by the community can lose favor, because of cumbersome bureaucracy and loss of contact between the community and the governmental departments.

Finally, case studies provide examples of lessons learned when implementing a shared services model.

Section I. Introduction

Several external and internal factors contribute to the decision to implement a shared services model or consolidation, perhaps most notably to spur cost savings or improve resource access. The idea of merging to cut costs seems to be a recent hot topic, however major governmental consolidation has not become a strong trend. In the past 50 years, general purpose governments have actually increased by the thousands, mostly in the form of city governments. However, after the first city-county consolidation of New Orleans and New Orleans Parish in 1805, only approximately 40 cities and counties have followed suit with city-county consolidations (Hardy, 2012).

Complete consolidation of cities and counties is rarely successful. In fact, only around 16% have been successful. Between the years 1921-1996 there were 132 attempts but only 22 successes. It is important to note, this is in reference to consolidating entire governments, which can be quite a large transition of services (Hardy, 2012). Often, communities consolidate in order to have the same services, provided to a bigger population base. This effort is to foster economic development, which is often encouraged by “civic elites” such as elected officials or local business leaders. Consolidation to form a larger population base, allowing areas to better compete for federal grant funding or shared state revenue. (Hardy, 2012).

Another major impetus for consolidating agencies, departments, or even entire governments is to reduce the repetition of services and/or jobs. Similarly, it can also be a method to strip away some of the layers of bureaucracy that slow down services or processes (NLC, 2016; Hardy, 2012).

Section II. General Approaches

There are general ideas and approaches to consolidating services, these include: ● Referendum and Passing Charted ● Feasibility Studies and Community Support ● Pure Model Consolidation ● Structural and Functional Consolidation

Referendums and Passing Charters Almost every state has provisions in general law to change local government boundaries through municipal annexation or incorporation, but few states permit city- county consolidation in general law. In most places, a majority of citizens must pass a referendum before it can be approved by the state legislature. Once the issue becomes part of the local public agenda and the petitions and studies have been completed, a commission drafts a new charter. After the referendum, the proposed charter is ratified or rejected (National League of Cities, 2016).

Feasibility Studies and Community Support Efforts for consolidation are often initially supported by the community but lose support as the process continues through the voting process. This effect may signal that community education and involvement around the consolidation are absolutely necessary in order for it to be successful (Hardy, 2012).

Pure Model Consolidation The government charter of a consolidated government defines its structure and is based on the local context. The "pure model" involves the combination of several municipalities and a county government in a metropolitan area into a single government. In this model, two distinct service districts may also be created, with one to provide services for the urban population and another for the rural population. In this case, taxation is linked to the level of services provided. When put into practice though, most consolidation efforts do not result in only one government; often small municipalities, special districts and autonomous authorities and boards (for example, health, hospital, the school board, planning board, the port, the electric authority) continue to operate. It is also possible that certain incorporated jurisdictions within the new boundary lines may opt to be excluded (National League of Cities, 2016).

Structural and Functional Consolidation According to Baker Tilly there are two types of consolidation, structural and functional. Structural consolidation it is the combination of two or more local governments that assume responsibility belonging to the previously existing entities. This type of consolidation is often difficult and time-consuming and usually requires a major referendum (Baker Tilly, 2018).

In functional consolidation, local governments form a shared service agreement to provide a service to the other. They may also do a joint activity agreement which performs joint services across districts. This form usually sees an increase in

expenditures in the short term, but in the long term, the combined services for the area are improved and the cost for both parties is reduced (Baker Tilly, 2018).

In 2017, New York passed a state-wide mandate to create the County-Wide Shared Services Initiative (CWSSI). This mandate called for the county executive to meet with the cities, towns, villages, and school districts in the area, to conduct a panel and lead a discussion for the creation of a county-wide shared services property-tax savings plan. The outcome resulted in an increase in cooperative government structures while allowing local government to maintain their autonomy (Baker Tilly, 2018).

Section III. Benefits of Shared Services

Shared Services have many benefits including but not limited to: ● Long-Term Savings ● Efficiencies Connected with Eliminating Duplicate Services ● Increased Resources and Power ● Better Synergy, Improved Public Service and Relationship with The Public

Long-Term Savings There can be major benefits to a shared services model. The top five stated advantages of collaborative service delivery include economic benefits (84%), better public service (82%), relationship building (72%), “more and better ideas” (64%), and “synergy” (63%) (Walter Kille, 2014). The effect of sharing services between two local government structures encourages efficiencies in all of these areas. These areas consist of: fostering economic growth, serving an increased population base, more efficient public service when there is better funding for those services, and perhaps most importantly, relationships being built between city and county officials allowing for a better flow of ideas and the pooling of resources to do future projects with each other.

While it is likely municipal expenditures increase in the short term, studies have shown there may be financial savings over a longer period of time (NLC, 2016; Baker Tilly International, 2018). According to Forbes, the focus should not necessarily be on the act of consolidation. The most effective form of government is one in which the services are efficient rather than consolidated (Millsap, 2017).

Efficiencies Connected with Eliminating Duplicate Services By consolidating services to a single department or entity, some inefficiencies caused by duplicated services can be eliminated. Duplicated services are removed, planning capacity is increased through removal of fragmentation, and services become more 42

streamlined throughout the organization. This can also improve the resource base of an organization, which can lead to increased powers of law, revenue, or jurisdiction (National League of Cities, 2016; Marlowe, 2013).

Better Synergy, Improved Public Service, And Better Relationships with the Public Shared services can also help remove layers of bureaucracy, which allows for better accountability. With more accountability and fewer layers between citizens and officials who serve them, the ability for officials to set priorities that reflect the community can be enhanced (National League of Cities, 2016; Marlowe, 2013).

Section IV. Shared Services Implementation Challenges

While consolidation may lead to impactful and tangible benefits, it does not come without its challenges. Shared services models can be costly and divisive. It is important that leaders are aware of the front-end heavy lifting and potential outcomes of merging services.

Generally, services should not be consolidated to cut costs. Financial savings are often not the result of consolidation (Cain, 2009). According to Campbell and Selden, there is little data to support either claim that consolidating government services leads to savings or increases government spending, though several findings conclude that spending will increase in the short term due to personnel and transitional costs (Campbell and Selden, 200).

While it is unlikely that there will be cost savings overall, there could be some savings on the departmental level, most likely financial. Most losses and increases in cost occur among labor-intensive departments such as public safety and public works (Hardy, P., 2012). In fact, consolidation has historically often led to higher taxes and government spending (Marlowe, 2013).

Citizen engagement is important in making consolidation decisions. Data from a Nashville-Davidson County, TN study shows that citizens believed their smaller, unconsolidated government services were more responsive than larger, consolidated government services. They also indicated a higher level of satisfaction of public officials that served smaller areas (Hardy, 2012).

Consolidation can also create larger bureaucratic systems, which further removes officials from contact with citizens, therefore decreasing their incentive to cut costs or spending (Hardy, 2012). With no contact between citizens, officials don’t see affected 43

parties and only see things from a high-level perspective. A larger department that is needed to serve a larger jurisdictional area can take on the negative qualities of the bureaucratic system, leading to slower, more impersonal service.

Moving toward consolidation can lead to divisiveness, or one of the organizations can feel like they are subject to a “takeover” rather than a merger or consolidation. Plus, if employees are focused heavily on policies and procedures, it can be difficult for them to adapt to a new model (Hardy, P., 2012; D. Martin, personal communication, June 17, 2020).

Some would say that decentralization keeps services closer to citizens and allows for the opportunity of service personalization. This method can also eliminate unnecessary oversight and delays (Barrett and Green, 2011).

Section V. Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Background research allows for the review of other communities’ experiences to determine best practices and where growth is possible through lessons learned. Researchers reviewed eight communities in order to develop the following list of best practices and lessons learned from previously completed relevant mergers or consolidations. This section services as an amalgamated list of things to note, while Appendix D has more comprehensive information regarding each community. Best practices and lessons learned include:

• Administrative functionality consolidation leads to efficiencies of scale. • Public-Private partnerships may be more easily facilitated. • Funding increases can be realized through combined fundraising efforts and tax base expansion. • A focus on communication to the public is essential. • Consolidations and mergers should not come at a cost to the public. • Merging labor-intensive departments (such as public works) will likely lead to inefficiencies and diseconomies of scale. • Merging city and county services can lead to employee dissatisfaction. • Mergers that are overly ambitious, rushed, or not properly prioritized will lead to broken functionalities and poor service levels.

Administrative functionality consolidation leads to efficiencies of scale.

When Mecklenburg County, NC took on the City of Charlotte’s Park and Recreation Department, nearly tripling the size of its service area, it allowed for projects of a much larger scale, which is illustrated by the creation of a 20-mile greenspace.

The merging of the parks and recreation departments in Minot, ND also led to efficiency that allowed for the creation of a new position and better access to city resources for both departments.

Public-Private partnerships may be more easily facilitated. Mecklenburg County’s move toward shared services opened up opportunities for public- private partnerships that led to the creation of an official Olympic training facility that has an estimated $36 million economic impact annually.

Funding increases can be realized through combined fundraising efforts. Chattanooga, TN accomplished this through consolidating administrative services for three different cultural institutions in the City. This merger saved at least $4 million and generated at least $1 million. A new joint fundraising effort led to the raising of $120 million.

The City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, MN completed a functional consolidation of administrative services for their public library systems. This merger eliminated duplication of services and expanded the tax funding base. Population shifted drastically over the past 100 years, leaving most of the tax revenue to the county and not the city. Combining the two allowed for resources to be shared throughout the entire area, not just the county library system.

The City of Yuma and Yuma County, AZ increased their resources by combining grant funding to make it go further. This allowed the communities to conduct a vigorous promotion and survey campaign for community engagement to gather feedback on housing and community development needs for planning purposes.

A focus on communication to the public is essential. Minot, ND found success when merging their previously separate parks and recreation departments. The city utilized social media, public meetings, and a public hearing to communicate frequently and conducted a citizen satisfaction survey following the completion of the merger. This helped alleviate the worries of citizens in favor of the status quo, while also informing other citizens of the need for change they didn’t even know existed.

Consolidations and mergers should not come at a cost to the public. One of the reasons the merger in Minot was a success was due to the fact that the public saw no increase in taxes. It was strictly a transfer of funding that merged the departments.

Merging labor-intensive departments can be inefficient. Mergers of this type of department (such as public works) will likely lead to inefficiencies and diseconomies of scale. This can be seen from the merger that created Broomfield, CO, which led to an increase in per capita expenditures of 190% in the first year of operation. This was largely due to the increase of public safety and recreation expenditures for the larger jurisdictional area.

Merging city and county services can lead to employee dissatisfaction. This is evidenced by the parks and recreation consolidation for the City of Topeka and Shawnee County. When city employees were transferred to the county, they were forced to take a pay cut. The county’s department was more fiscally sound, and these pay cuts were perhaps warranted, but it did not go over well with employees. This contributed to the distrust and opposition of the merger among staff and citizens. The merger that took place in 2012 is still opposed by some today.

Rushed consolidation causes poor service levels. Texas Health and Human Services has tried to restructure multiple times. Previous attempts have been left incomplete, destroying the system’s credibility with client services. The process, which was originally meant to take 1 year, was far too rushed to consolidate twelve agencies down to five. This led to broken systems and unaccomplished goals. The system had to restructure again in 2017 with a two-year timeline.

Section VI. Conclusion

Research shows that consolidation rarely leads to short-term cost savings and this should not be the impetus for consolidation. Instead, moving toward shared services should be an effort to improve efficiency, connectivity, and better service to the public through an expanded jurisdiction and resource base. Shared service models are most successfully implemented when the goal is to increase efficiency to ultimately better support the organization’s mission. Shared service plans commonly fail because of lack of investment by stakeholders. Fostering the buy-in of all stakeholders involved is key to a successful consolidation effort. Success hinges on that continued enthusiasm of

consolidated services and the efficiencies it brings. Leadership should keep in mind challenges such as upfront costs and logistical difficulties.

Section VII. Appendices

Appendix A. Century II Background Information

The City of Wichita is experiencing a debate and public discussion regarding the future of the Century II performing arts and convention center facilities. This appendix details a timeline with a history and purpose of the building, the current debate and issues, and the work of those who oppose the destruction of the building.

Timeline ● 1911: The Forum is created to be Wichita’s primary auditorium, convention center, performance arena, and exposition hall ● Wichita Eagle claims the Forum is the second only to the New York Hippodrome ● The Forum most famously hosted Elvis Presley, Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, and the Polish pianist and composer Ignacy Paderewski in addition to a wide range of events such as circuses and auto shows ● 1960s: The Forum and 128 “unattractive business and industry structures” were razed to create Century II Convention Center ● The City of Wichita and the Urban Renewal Agency fund the new project ● January 1969: Century II opens with a Concert Hall, Convention Hall, Exhibition Hall and what would later be named the Mary Jane Teall Theater ● 1972: The Wurlitzer Organ, originally made in 1926 for New York’s Paramount Theatre in Times Square, is physically built into Century II ● 1986: Bob Brown Expo Hall is built ● 1997: the Hyatt Regency Wichita is built and attached to the south end of Century II ● Century II sees performances by Frank Sinatra and Johnny Cash and hosts Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump ● Century II becomes home to Music Theatre Wichita, Wichita Grand Opera, Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Wichita Theater Organ, other smaller groups ● 2017: Save Century II is formed to voice opposition of destroying Century II ● May 2019: Organizations are advocating to keep the Wurlitzer Organ in Wichita, limitations on access to the organ and Century II’s “sound bleed” issues have made using it more difficult to use in its current location 47

● July 2019: Riverfront Legacy Master Plan Coalition begins process to create a plan for updating the Arkansas riverfront ● July 2019-March 2020: The Riverfront Legacy Master Plan Coalition conducts at least 57 public meetings during the planning process ● July 2019-December 2019: Riverfront Legacy Master Plan community engagement reaches 14,000 citizens ● January 2020: The Design Team, comprised of Populous, RCLCO and Olin Studio, presented their final recommendations for the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan site at a public open house, which included renderings, funding strategies, and an estimated cost of $1-1.3 billion ● Save Century II is told they needed 12,544 signatures on a petition to get a vote for the demolition ● Save Century II group collects more than 17,000 signatures opposing the demolition of Century II ● The City claims the language in the Save Century II petition renders it invalid ● July 2020: Save Century II and the City of Wichita are engaged in a lawsuit regarding the petition’s validity ● August 20, 2020: Judge Eric Comer issues decision and sides with the City of Wichita and the petition is declared invalid

Appendix B. Public Private Partnerships

Public Private Partnerships are growing in order to make up the deficit of service levels possibly by government entities alone. While there are challenges and growing pains, PPPs can certainly present benefits.

The sheer number of Public Private Partnerships have grown over the years for a variety of reasons. The growth of PPPs can be explained by the following factors: their aid in reducing the reported amount of government debt and the inability for traditional methods of delivering government services (Watson, 2003). Poddar even says that relying solely on government funding is “unfair and unrealistic” for the arts (2013).

Benefits. One benefit of the PPP structure is the transfer and sharing of risk so that the private sector takes on some if not most of the risk (Watson, 2003). PPPs also help reduce capital investment from the public sector, help improve efficiency and services times, and increase cost savings and resource bases (Weyer, 2016).

PPPs can certainly help with funding. Van der Burg and Dolfsma agree insofar as to say that they might be “a more acceptable and elegant way for museums to raise money for their public tasks” (2008). Collaborating with private-sector firms can help secure the funding necessary to allow arts to thrive (Poddar, 2013).

Challenges. Converting to a PPP presents challenges in accountability due to the fact that the non-governmental sector follows a different set of rules. They do not have the same oversight and governance restrictions. The private side of PPPs must also be of the mindset that their work services the public good and it is not just a normal business transaction (Watson, 2003).

PPPs often include many stakeholders and decision-makers. This can slow down the process of getting things down, and thus potentially causing budget issues. This can be mitigated by ensuring open communication among all parties (Thompson, 2006).

Best Practices. A study of a public works PPP in Manhattan Beach concluded that it was most successful when remaining committed to “developing a shared vision, commitment to the vision and its potential for meeting realistic business and public goals, open communication through regular intensive meetings with a mechanism to resolve challenges, and a willingness to collaborate to attain the shared vision” (Choi, S. and Jacobson, C.).

When it comes to the arts, Poddar says the key to creating successful PPPs is direct involvement with artists themselves, if not initiated by them. Grassroots involvement is often much more powerful (2013).

The Carnival Center for the Performing Arts public private partnership program in Miami-Dade County concluded several factors for a successful PPP including commitment from leadership, clear and common goals, and open communication (Thompson, 2006).

Appendix C. Arts & Culture Supplemental Information

1% for the Arts Models A 1% for the arts ordinance is very common among mid-to-large-sized Midwest cities. For example, Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Tulsa have a 1% for the Arts Ordinance wherein one percent of the budgeted construction cost of any new building or public development is required to be allocated for public works of art. There are certain differences among these three programs, but the thought is the same: ensure that public art is regularly funded in line with municipal or municipality-supported development.

The Des Moines Public Arts Program is annually funded with a 1.5% percent ordinance wherein 1.5% of the amount of general obligation funds are appropriated for capital improvements.

Fort Worth has a 2% for the Arts Ordinance wherein 2% of capital improvement project funding is set aside for public art annually. The City of Fort Worth however does not offer art programming like many other similar cities, which might explain the extra allocation to support public art.

Structure All of the cities mentioned above have separate arts and culture divisions or programs that are not combined with parks and/or recreation or county services. These cities were selected in previous research to consider arts programs and the 1% for the arts ordinance. Partial organization charts that address arts and parks programming for the above cities can be found on the next page.

(Public Policy and Management Center, 2019).

Appendix D. Case Studies

Mecklenburg County & City of Charlotte Park and Recreation Department

Though it was a newer department, the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department took over that of the City of Charlotte. This newly created larger resource base led to wins for the community in the form of efficiencies of scale, and improved environment, and more.

Just 18 years after its creation, the Mecklenburg County, NC Park and Recreation Department merged with the City of Charlotte Park and Recreation Department in 1992. The County department now serves the City of Charlotte as well as six towns, which are home to over one million residents.

The County took over Charlotte’s older and larger system to experience significant economies of scale. The department was awarded the NRPA’s Gold Medal for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management for its long-range planning and resource management efforts. The merge allowed for larger scale projects such as the 20-mile Little Sugar Creek Greenway trails and green space. This project also improved the environment by eliminating debris and concrete in the creek and floodplain, improving one of the most polluted creeks in the state.

The expanded capabilities also led to a public-private partnership, which created the U.S. National Whitewater Center, an official Olympic training facility. The site has an estimated $36 million-per-year economic impact (Dinan, 2014).

Chattanooga, TN Museums

The merging of three Tennessee cultural institutions created administrative and functional efficiency leading to major cost savings, as well as increased revenue generation. The entities are now better equipped to focus on the mission and retain employees to ensure more stable, efficient, and effective organizations.

Chattanooga’s Creative Discovery Museum (CDM) and the Hunter Museum of American Art (HMAA) were in need of solving operational issues dealing with cost efficiencies and effectiveness. Both museums merged administrative services with the Tennessee Aquarium in 2001. The merge reduced costs, modernized operations, ensured financial solvency, and created a new revenue generating opportunity. The merge has saved at least $4 million for the museums and generated more than $1 52

million for the aquarium since 2001. A joint fundraising effort also allowed for the institutions to raise $120 million, which they never could have done as completely separate entities.

Before entering into the consolidation process, both the CDM and HMAA evaluated their entire administrative systems, identified their areas of expertise, and recruited adequate staff in order to prepare for the new partnership.

Each institution retained its board, but now shares four directors of HR, Finance, IT & Marketing, and Retail Sales. These directors report to the aquarium’s CEO and the directors of CDM and HMAA. This allowed for combined resources and created a more enriching work environment that was more diverse. The CEO works hard to maintain an incentive program that retains good employees.

The consolidation has strengthened both administrative and program operations. It has also greatly improved financial prospects and allowed for more partnerships and community impact. The institutions now offer better employee benefits and recruitment capacity grew significantly. The consolidated IT services also led to better technical support and internet speed. All of these functional improvements mean that the institutions can focus more on their mission and provide their highest level of service (La Piana, n.d.).

Minot, North Dakota

Minot, North Dakota merged the city’s park and recreation services in 2019, which were previously separate entities. Combining resources created more streamlined services and efficiencies of scale. The city prioritized keeping taxes the same and communicating to employees and the public.

The Minot, ND park district was created in 1911 and the city’s recreation district was created in the 1930s to serve alongside the school district. The two were completely separate entities with different priorities.

Two or three attempts to merge the two departments were unsuccessful due to city council members in favor of the status quo. In June 2018, current Mayor Shaun Sipma was elected. Part of Mayor Sipma’s platform included the merging of the parks and recreation departments, which became one of his first initiatives once in office. The consolidation of the services also had the support of the Parks Director, Park Board, and City Manager. 53

The city then embarked on the process of completing the agreements necessary to merge the two entities. There was no previous mechanism for this type of funding transfer and may not have been done before in the state of North Dakota; the funding mechanism for tax levies needed evaluation. A bill had to be passed to transfer the taxing authority for the recreation department to the park department. Other parts of the agreement such as joint powers and the memorandum of understanding were also drafted.

The city put together leases, as the parks and rec department now leases the office facility from the city. The parks department also currently has to lease the rec facilities for $1 to take ownership of those.

A major priority for all stakeholders involved in the decision was to ensure that citizens saw no difference in taxes. All funding was strictly transferred, not increased. It was very important to decision makers that this was not a fight. While some citizens were in favor of the status quo, many did not even realize the two were separate in the first place. To facilitate public discussion, the city utilized social media, public meetings, and a public hearing during a City Council meeting. Leadership made it a priority to remain unified in communication and worked hard to communicate frequently, especially regarding the fact that taxes would not change.

It was also important to ensure that employees were happy with the situation. Now staffed under the parks department, they were insured that benefits would be identical, as would salaries. The department is continuing to monitor the situation to make sure employees are still satisfied with the transfer. In fact, they were able to implement some new programs that weren’t possible before. They were also more appreciative of having a separately elected Parks Board than expected. The increased access to authority and funding was considered a positive.

After the merge, the city conducted a survey that was completed in January 2020 to make sure citizens were satisfied with the parks and recreation services of the city. The department has prioritized communication and trust. They are committed to doing what they said they would.

Some efficiencies of scale have also included the department’s ability to create a new recreation program position. The recreation department now has better access to maintenance and grounds crews, as well as the City Forrester, who works for parks. The combined department is also able to take a better look at facilities and put more money into them. 54

The parks department, which includes recreation services, has now been operating successfully for about 2 years. The consolidation is considered a success with an overall good outcome that has “raised the bar” (R. Merritt, personal communication, September 2, 2020).

Broomfield, CO

The City Broomfield, CO was created by consolidating multiple jurisdictions into one. This merge, in part, shows an example of diseconomies of scale that happen when merging labor-intensive services like public safety.

The City of Broomfield was created in 2001 when parts of Adams, Boulder, Jefferson, and Weld formed the consolidated city. There was a state vote to approve the consolidation in 1998 and the consolidation process took place over the next 3 years.

In the first year of operation as a consolidated government, per capita expenditures increased from $1,400 to $4,072 per capita. In 2003, costs associated with general government activities started to decrease and were down to $1,608 per capita by 2007. Public Safety costs increased by 94% and Parks and Recreation expenditures increased by 110.8% over a 10-year period starting before the merge in 1997 due to increased staffing and jurisdictional area (Cain, 2009).

City of Topeka & Shawnee County, KS

Shawnee County took over the City of Topeka’s parks and recreation services in 2012. This process was partially due to the city’s desire to no longer have the financial responsibility for said services. The process caused and still is causing some distrust and unhappiness with both City employees and the public.

The City of Topeka, KS and Shawnee County, KS merged their parks and recreation departments with an official start date of January 1, 2012. At the time, the Shawnee County Parks Director remained over the expanded department and the City’s Parks Director and all of the City’s staff now worked under one new department, except for the City’s forestry department.

The two entities executed a written agreement that states the county would be taking over any properties, responsibilities, amenities, parks, community centers, pools, etc. With the agreement, the City was out of the equation. The contract also created an 55

advisory board to which the city council would appoint members. It is not a governing body. The Shawnee County Commission has authority over the parks department, not the Topeka City Council, as the County is responsible for City parks.

At the time of the merge, all City employees were offered positions at the County, but at a pay cut. The City had previously been paying their employees more than the county. The County’s department was considered much leaner and thus part of the reason that ownership of the services went there.

The City’s parks system was much larger, perhaps overgrown, and more poorly managed. A major part of the impetus for merging was that the City needed to remove itself from the financial situation. The County’s more fiscally sound department absorbed the former.

As one can imagine, many of the City parks department employees were unhappy with the situation, and the merge is still something that community members oppose today. This is part of the reason that the parks department focuses on community engagement, trying to go above and beyond. Before implementing new projects, they meet with people in the neighborhood and try to get input and early buy-in. The department’s commitment to community engagement is very much tied to the public distrust created by the merge.

The department director also works to keep a healthy relationship with the City Council and County Commission, as the City Council often gets complaints about parks, yet has no power over them. Over the years there has been ebb and flow with the County Commission’s willingness to work with the City Council. The relationship requires constant maintenance for the merged department (Laurent, T., personal communication, Sept. 4, 2020).

Texas Health & Human Services

The structure of Texas’ Health & Human Services has restructured multiple times over the past several decades, which has been met with hearty criticism and unaccomplished goals. The state just consolidated services again in 2017 to create more streamlined approaches and better services for clients.

In 2003, the State of Texas consolidated 12 health and human services (HHS) agencies down to five. While this new method created a more clear-cut system of agencies, it created other problems and was met with criticism. 56

The impetus for the 2003 consolidation was a budget deficit. The goal was to consolidate all administrative services (of the five agencies) into one entity. This included legal services, information technology, budgeting, etc. This main goal was never fully realized.

A one-year timeline was given for this consolidation, which was much too short. Many of the services the HHS agencies provided to clients were never integrated. The agencies met criticism for reducing services to clients.

Texas agencies have a sunset date of 12 years, on which the agency expires. The latest sunset in 2015, brought about a new change for the Texas HHS agencies. Due to the unclear accountability system, broken functions, lack of focus on clients, and duplicative systems, the state’s five agencies would consolidate again. This second consolidation was met with concern from HHS organizations such as the Center for Public Policy Priorities and Texans Care for Children.

This time, the consolidation took place over a two-year phased approach with a focus on administrative consolidation and a goal to improve client services. The consolidation was overseen by the Transition Legislative Oversight Committee, which was composed of 11 voting members and co-chaired by members of the Senate and House. At the time of the legislation changes, Texas HHS was also under scrutiny for awarding a large contract without a bidding process, which added extra difficulties for the agencies within.

In 2017, Texas Health and Human Services officially has two agencies: the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and the Texas Department of State Health Services. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services became an independent agency.

The state claims this new system helps citizens more easily find services, integrates programs and services together, improves accountability, and has clearer performance metrics (Kirkle, S., 2015; Texas Health and Human Services, n.d.; Walters, E., 2015).

Hennepin County, MN Public Library

The Minneapolis Public Library was suffering from lack of budgetary resources and thus merged with the Hennepin County library system in 2008. The merge focused on the functional consolidation of administrative services like HR and communications with the ultimate goal of fiscal solvency. 57

In 2008, Hennepin County and Minneapolis Public Libraries merged. The process was approved a year previously by both branches’ boards. Pre-merge activities were managed by the library directors and were overseen by the county administrator. Steering committees were also used to ensure adequate stakeholder input was given. Legislation made the change official.

The new merged system contains 41 library branches with over 5 million items. This consolidation is said to be the largest of its kind in North America.

The merge came after budget problems on the side of the Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) system due to funding reductions. About 66% of the area’s residents live outside of the City of Minneapolis proper, meaning their taxes benefit the county, rather than the city. A century ago, 90% of the county residents actually lived in the City of Minneapolis, so the funding base has detrimentally changed.

There was a lot of service duplication among the MPL and the Hennepin County Library (HCL) system, which would also be eliminated by merging. The goal of the consolidation was to minimize impact on services while merging HR, communications, and other services. The fiscal future of the new system was arguably the most important aspect of the merge. Long-term savings were also part of the goal. When creating the new entity, there was also an agreement that no staff would lose their jobs, nor would any library branches close (American Libraries, 2008; Combs, 2007; Hennepin County Library, 2007).

Yuma, Arizona Community Development Block Grant

The City of Yuma and Yuma County in 2016 both had funds towards community development funding. The city received a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and the county of Yuma received HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) funding and so the Yuma County HOME Consolidated Plan was created to allocate the funds. In previous years they had initiated a similar plan. Taking the demographics and data of the area to find high need area they were able to address areas that needed the funding. The goal of the funds and plan was:

To identify a city’s, county’s, or state’s housing and community development needs, priorities, goals, and strategies; and to stipulate how funds will be allocated to housing and community development activities during the five-year planning period.

The group gathered data from over 400 residents and stakeholders through a vigorous promotion and survey campaign and gathered community goals and feedback from these individuals. They also conducted an evaluation of the plan that they have implemented to see and look where the money was spent and what it did, and to determine if new amendments need to be added to clarify spending details. They are also required to each year provide an Annual Action Plan which is posted on the organization’s website, stating that year’s spending details (City of Yuma, 2016; City of Yuma 2020).

Wichita Art Museum