Wichita at a Crossroads: The Search for a New City Manager and the Future of Kansas’s Largest City

A New Era of Leadership: Transition in the Air Capital

Wichita stands at a generational inflection point. The announced retirement of City Manager Robert Layton, effective December 31, 2025, marks the end of a 16-year tenure characterized by remarkable administrative stability and a profound physical transformation of the city’s landscape. This transition is far more than a simple personnel change; it is a pivotal moment that prompts a fundamental re-evaluation of the city’s priorities, its governance, and its trajectory for the coming decade. The search for Layton’s successor is not merely about filling an office on the 13th floor of City Hall; it is about defining the future of Kansas’s largest city.

To fully grasp the significance of this moment, one must understand the immense authority vested in the City Manager’s office. Since 1917, Wichita has operated under a council-manager form of government, a system it helped pioneer in the United States. Under this structure, the seven-member City Council, including the at-large elected Mayor, sets the legislative agenda and establishes city policy. The City Manager, an appointed professional administrator, serves as the chief executive officer, tasked with executing those policies, preparing the annual budget, and overseeing the day-to-day operations of a municipal government that employs over 3,000 people and manages an annual budget exceeding $573 million. This model is designed to separate the political and policy-making functions of the council from the professional, non-partisan administration of city services.

Adding a layer of profound weight to the current search is a parallel public discussion about the very structure of this government. Mayor Lily Wu has indicated a desire for community input not only on the next city manager but also on the form of government the city should have moving forward, raising the possibility of a future shift toward a “strong mayor” system. This introduces an existential question into the recruitment process. The next City Manager is being hired to lead a system whose fundamental structure is simultaneously under public review. The departure of a long-serving, stabilizing figure like Layton, who worked under four different mayors and 21 council members, has created a natural opportunity for this systemic re-evaluation. The confluence of these events is not coincidental; a leadership transition of this magnitude invariably invites a broader conversation about governance itself. The new City Manager will not only have to manage the city but may also need to implicitly justify the very existence and effectiveness of their role in its current form, making this a uniquely challenging and consequential appointment.

The Public’s Mandate: Designing the Search for Wichita’s Next Leader

In response to the gravity of the transition, the City of Wichita has embarked on a deliberate and highly structured national search for its next chief administrator. The process is designed to be methodical, transparent, and, most critically, infused with public input from its inception. The timeline demonstrates a commitment to a professional recruitment effort, beginning with the launch of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for search firms on April 22, 2025, which garnered 20 responses, and culminating in the selection of a recommended firm on July 21, 2025.

Two key entities are steering this process: a professional consulting firm and a resident-led advisory committee.

The Professional Architects of the Search

The Wichita City Council approved a contract with CPS HR Consulting, a national firm, to lead the search and recruitment efforts. The firm’s engagement ensures that the search will cast a wide net, leveraging professional networks to attract a diverse and highly qualified pool of candidates from across the country. The city’s commitment to competing for top-tier talent is underscored by the advertised annual salary range for the position, set between $250,000 and $325,000.

The Community’s Voice

To ensure the search is grounded in local priorities, the Mayor and City Council appointed a City Manager Selection Advisory Committee (SAC), a body of prominent Wichita residents finalized on June 3, 2025. The composition of this committee is telling. It is chaired by Jennifer McDonald, a senior leader in human resources and founder of local businesses, and vice-chaired by Dan C. Peare, a legal expert in trusts and estates. The committee also includes influential figures from the city’s banking and business communities, such as Aaron Bastian, CEO of Fidelity Bank, and Brad Elliott, founder and CEO of Equity Bank. The collective expertise of this group—spanning human resources, law, finance, economic development, and community engagement—signals a clear desire for a candidate with robust business acumen, strong financial management skills, and a demonstrated commitment to community partnership.

An Unprecedented Call for Public Input

The centerpiece of the search process is a direct and comprehensive appeal for public participation. The city has launched a resident survey designed to gather community priorities and the desired qualifications for the next City Manager. This survey, drafted by the resident-led SAC in collaboration with CPS HR Consulting, is more than a formality; it is positioned as a tool to generate a “qualitative snapshot into what residents’ priorities are”.

The city is actively encouraging all residents to make their voices heard. The survey is available in multiple languages and will remain open until October 8, 2025.

English Survey:(https://www.wichita.gov/1780/City-Manager-Search)
Spanish Survey:(https://www.wichita.gov/1780/City-Manager-Search) (Link provided on the main search page)
Vietnamese Survey:(https://www.wichita.gov/1780/City-Manager-Search) (Link provided on the main search page)

This robust public engagement strategy is not happening in a vacuum. It can be seen as a direct and strategic response to a documented decline in public trust. The 2023 Wichita Resident Survey revealed that “Overall confidence in Wichita government” was a mere 31%, while “Connection and engagement with the community” had experienced a statistically significant drop from the previous year. The city administration is undoubtedly aware of these metrics. Therefore, this highly visible, transparent, and participatory search process serves a crucial dual purpose. First, it is a genuine effort to gather input to find a manager whose priorities align with those of the community. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the process itself is an act of civic repair. By positioning a resident-led committee as co-creators of the selection criteria and by actively soliciting feedback in multiple languages, the city is working to rebuild trust and demonstrate a commitment to responsive governance. The ultimate success of the new City Manager will depend not only on their professional skills but also on the perceived legitimacy of the process that selected them.

According to the city’s official recruitment materials, the ideal candidate is described as a “visionary leader” who “embodies integrity, trust, and transparency.” The profile calls for an individual with “unwavering credibility,” the ability to provide “steady leadership in complex situations,” and the capacity for “bold, creative decision-making under pressure”. The next manager is expected to unite diverse perspectives with a collaborative style and bring forward-thinking strategies to guide Wichita’s long-term future.

A Century of Civic Stewardship: The History of Wichita’s City Managers

Wichita’s commitment to the council-manager system is one of the longest-standing in the nation. By adopting this form of government in 1917, the city positioned itself at the vanguard of the Progressive Era movement toward professional, non-partisan municipal administration. The history of the men and women who have held the City Manager position is, in many ways, the history of Wichita’s evolution from a burgeoning prairie town to a major American city. This history reveals a clear pattern: periods of transformative growth and ambitious civic projects have consistently coincided with long, stable tenures in the City Manager’s office.

The Early Years and the Establishment of the Role (1917-1941)

The role began with a brief, two-month term for Edmondson Taylor Battin in 1917, followed by a series of managers with relatively short tenures. This early period was one of definition, as the city and its leaders established the boundaries and expectations of the new position. The era found stability under Bert C. Wells, who served for nearly 12 years from 1927 to 1939, demonstrating for the first time the value of administrative continuity.

The McClure Era: Building a Modern City (1941-1968)

The figure of Russell E. McClure looms large over mid-20th century Wichita. In a career path that highlights the professional, mobile nature of the city management field, McClure served two separate, non-consecutive terms as City Manager, from 1941 to 1948 and again from 1962 to 1968. His time away from Wichita included managing the cities of Dayton, Ohio, and Corpus Christi, Texas, and even a stint as general manager for a development service in Iran. McClure’s legacy is etched in brick and mortar and in policy. He was instrumental in establishing a personnel merit system, a retirement program, and grievance procedures for city employees. Critically, his second term saw the completion of some of Wichita’s most iconic civic landmarks, including the Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center and the new Wichita Public Library, projects that defined the city’s skyline and cultural life for generations.

Decades of Development: The Cherches Revitalization (1970s-2000s)

Following McClure, managers like Ralph Wulz and Eugene Denton continued to guide the city’s growth. However, the next truly transformative era began with the hiring of Chris Cherches in October 1985. His nearly 18-year tenure was the longest in the city’s history and is synonymous with the revitalization of downtown Wichita. Under his leadership, the historic but neglected warehouse district was transformed into the vibrant Old Town entertainment district. His administration also oversaw the development of the Hyatt Regency Wichita, Exploration Place, and CityArts, along with extensive remodeling of the Wichita Art Museum and Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. The Cherches era serves as a powerful case study in how a long-serving, visionary manager can marshal public and private resources to fundamentally reshape the urban core.

The Interregnum and the Search for Stability (2003-2009)

The period between the retirement of Chris Cherches and the hiring of Robert Layton was marked by administrative turnover. In just over five years, the city saw four different individuals lead the manager’s office: interim manager Cathy Holdeman, the permanent appointment George Kolb, and then two more interim managers, Dr. H. Ed Flentje and L. Scott Moore. This period of rapid leadership change was not associated with the launch of any similarly transformative, long-term projects, reinforcing the historical pattern. Executing city-defining capital projects requires a long-term vision, consistent oversight, and the political capital to endure multiple budget cycles and changing councils—assets that are difficult to accumulate with frequent turnover at the top. The historical record strongly suggests that the City Council’s ability to select and retain a City Manager for an extended period is a direct prerequisite for Wichita’s most ambitious phases of growth.

The following table provides a comprehensive, chronological record of leadership in the Wichita City Manager’s Office since its inception.

Manager Name	Start Date	End Date	Notes
Edmondson Taylor Battin	April 12, 1917	June 19, 1917	First City Manager; served two months
Louis Russell Ash	June 19, 1917	October 3, 1919	Resigned
Lewis William Clapp	October 3, 1919	June 1, 1921	Served two years
Earl Conarroe Elliott	June 1, 1921	August 1, 1927
Bert C. Wells	August 1, 1927	April 10, 1939	Retired
David Alfred MacDonald	April 10, 1939	May 14, 1941
Donald Gordon	May 14, 1941	July 28, 1941	Resigned after two months due to controversy
Russell E. McClure	July 28, 1941	March 1, 1948	First Term
Monty P. Jones	March 1, 1948	November 13, 1952	Fired by City Commission
Eugene N. Smith	November 13, 1952	November 15, 1955	Fired
Emory Lee Cox	November 15, 1955	November 22, 1955	Interim; served one week
Eugene N. Smith	November 22, 1955	March 12, 1956	Reappointed, served until replacement hired
Frank Harold Backstrom	March 12, 1956	March 27, 1962	Resigned
Russell E. McClure	May 1, 1962	September 1, 1968	Second Term; retired
Ralph Wulz	September 1, 1968	April 30, 1976	Retired
Robert G. Finch	April 27, 1976	July 7, 1976	Interim
Eugene H. Denton	July 7, 1976	April 16, 1985	Resigned
Robert G. Finch	April 16, 1985	October 7, 1985	Interim (Second Time)
Chris Cherches	October 7, 1985	December 31, 2003	Resigned
Cathy Holdeman	2004	2004	Interim
George Kolb	May 2004	January 2, 2008	Resigned
Dr. H. Ed Flentje	January 2, 2008	July 11, 2008	Interim
L. Scott Moore	July 14, 2008	February 2, 2009	Interim
Robert Layton	February 2, 2009	December 31, 2025	Retiring

Export to Sheets

Source: City of Wichita Archives

The Layton Legacy: Sixteen Years of Transformation and Trial (2009-2025)

When Robert Layton took office on February 2, 2009, he inherited the leadership of a city seeking stability after a period of administrative turnover. Over the subsequent 16 years, he provided that stability, overseeing a period of significant capital investment that has reshaped Wichita’s public infrastructure. His tenure represents the successful execution of a traditional model of civic progress, focused on large-scale, tangible projects, yet his final years also signaled a shift in community expectations toward more nuanced, neighborhood-level challenges.

An Era of Major Builds

Layton’s legacy is most visibly defined by the monumental infrastructure projects completed under his management. In his retirement announcement, he highlighted a list of accomplishments that have become integral parts of the city’s fabric :

Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport: A modern gateway to the city and region.
The Advanced Learning Library: A state-of-the-art downtown library that replaced an aging facility.
The Multi-Agency Center (MAC): A comprehensive campus initiated to provide shelter and services for the city’s unhoused population.
New Water and Sewage Treatment Plants: Generational investments in the city’s most critical utility infrastructure.
Equity Bank Park: A new baseball stadium and mixed-use development.
Community Amenities: Numerous splash pads, pools, and a new eastside Police substation.

Beyond these landmark projects, Layton emphasized that “good government is about far more than infrastructure and development”. He consistently credited city staff for their dedication to improving quality of life through public safety, housing for the disadvantaged, enhanced literacy, and economic diversification. His stated focus for his final months in office—tackling complex issues like property maintenance and blight by advocating for the adoption of the International Property Maintenance Code—demonstrates a deep concern for the granular, quality-of-life issues that affect residents daily.

Navigating a Shifting Political Landscape

Layton’s longevity is a testament to his political acumen and adaptability. Serving effectively under four different mayors and 21 distinct City Council members over 16 years required a keen ability to navigate shifting political priorities and build consensus across different ideologies.

However, his tenure was not without its challenges. The later years saw growing criticism, culminating in the 2021 City Council elections where several candidates, including current council members Maggie Ballard and Mike Hoheisel, went on record in favor of replacing him. This indicates that while his leadership brought stability and tangible progress, his administrative style or policy direction did not have universal support. The criticisms were not typically about a failure to build large projects, but rather were part of a political shift toward a greater focus on neighborhood-level concerns and social equity.

This dynamic illustrates a broader evolution in civic expectations. The community survey data reflects this change; while infrastructure is important, resident satisfaction with the “Overall feeling of safety” (37%), “Connection and engagement with the community” (31%), and the local transportation system is low. The next City Manager inherits the legacy of Layton’s successful large-scale projects but will be judged by a different, more localized and socially-focused set of metrics. The challenge is no longer just “Can you build a new airport?” but “Can you fix the blight on my street, improve bus service, and make me feel safer in my own neighborhood?” The new leader must be a micro-level problem-solver as much as a macro-level builder.

The Crucible of Governance: Key Challenges for the Next City Manager

The next City Manager of Wichita will step into one of the most demanding public service roles in Kansas, facing a convergence of fiscal pressures, public safety demands, and immense opportunities for growth and revitalization. The challenges are not independent; they are locked in a zero-sum competition for limited resources. The new leader’s most critical skill will not be technical expertise in any single area, but the political and administrative ability to forge and articulate a coherent strategy of prioritization that can earn the support of both the City Council and the public.

Navigating the Fiscal Cliff: The 2026-2027 Budget Shortfall

The most immediate and formidable challenge is a looming structural budget deficit. After several years of surpluses fueled by high interest earnings, the City of Wichita’s General Fund is projected to face a shortfall of $2.0 to $3.0 million in 2026, a gap expected to widen to between $5.5 and $9.0 million in 2027. The primary drivers are slowing revenue growth as interest rates fall, coupled with rising expenditures, particularly for employee wages and benefits needed to attract and retain a quality workforce.

To address this, city staff have presented the City Council with a detailed and difficult menu of potential solutions, moving the conversation from abstract cuts to concrete policy choices with tangible impacts. These options are tiered, reflecting their severity and impact on public services:

Modified Assumptions: These include technical adjustments like lowering the budgeted rate of increase for health insurance premiums, which could save over $1.6 million by 2027, and trimming budgets for postage and uniforms.
Strategic Budget Adjustments: These concepts would modify services in areas rated as having lower importance in community surveys. They include reducing the library’s budget for physical media in favor of digital collections, increasing fees for planning applications, and partnering with the Wichita Genealogical Society to reduce library staffing in the local history section. A more significant proposal involves ceasing the mowing of rights-of-way adjacent to private property, shifting that responsibility to homeowners.
Service Reductions: This tier contains the most painful choices. Proposals include capping the growth of funding for cultural institutions and, most controversially, discontinuing all Animal Control field operations. Under this scenario, the city would no longer respond to neighborhood complaints, animal bites, or cruelty investigations, and the Animal Shelter would become a drop-off location only, a move projected to save over $1.2 million in 2027.

This fiscal reality creates a direct conflict with resident priorities. The same community surveys that might be used to justify cuts to libraries or arts funding also show that residents overwhelmingly prioritize crime prevention, fire services, and street repair—all expensive, personnel-heavy departments whose budgets are largely protected or growing. The new manager must navigate this treacherous landscape, balancing the books while delivering the core services citizens demand.

Ensuring Public Safety and Community Trust

Public safety is the undisputed top priority for Wichita residents and their elected officials. This priority is clearly reflected in the city’s budget. The Wichita Police Department’s (WPD) proposed budget for 2025 is $132 million, a 40% increase since 2020. The Fire Department’s budget has grown by nearly 50% in the same period, to $76 million. These departments are consuming an ever-larger share of the General Fund, intensifying the pressure on other city services.

The new City Manager will be responsible for ensuring this massive public investment yields measurable results. While national data suggests many categories of crime are decreasing post-pandemic, local data presents a complex picture. The WPD’s own key outcome measure for UCR Part I Crimes is targeted at 60.66 per 1,000 residents for 2025, a rate significantly higher than the 2021 benchmark of 32.67. Other reports consistently rank Wichita as having a violent crime rate well above the state average.

The WPD is not standing still. The department is implementing numerous strategic initiatives aimed at improving effectiveness and building community trust. These include renewing its contract for body-worn cameras, upgrading technology for evidence storage and virtual reality training, and providing officers with advanced de-escalation and anti-bias training. Community engagement efforts, like the Hispanic Youth Citizen’s Police Academy and an Autism Outreach Program, are also key priorities. The new City Manager must provide rigorous oversight, holding the department accountable for these initiatives and ensuring they translate into both a safer city and a stronger relationship between law enforcement and the community it serves.

Building the Future: Infrastructure, Development, and Downtown Vitality

While fiscal challenges and public safety will demand immediate attention, the new City Manager must also drive the city’s long-term growth and development. They will inherit the final stages of two generational infrastructure projects:

The Northwest Water Treatment Facility: This more than $500 million project—the largest in the city’s history—is set to become fully operational in 2025. It replaces an 80-year-old plant and provides a reliable, state-of-the-art water supply of up to 120 million gallons per day for over half a million people in the region, ensuring drought resiliency and future capacity.
The KDOT North Junction Project: This massive, multi-phase reconfiguration of the I-135, I-235, and K-96 interchange is a critical state-led project to reduce traffic congestion and improve safety in one of the state’s busiest transportation hubs, with construction phases extending into late 2026.

With these mega-projects winding down, the next frontier for development is the revitalization of Wichita’s urban core. The Downtown Wichita Action Plan lays out a clear-eyed assessment of the challenges and opportunities. Downtown suffers from a lack of essential amenities like a grocery store, a car-centric street design that is unfriendly to pedestrians, and a feeling of emptiness created by vast surface parking lots that sever connections between districts and the riverfront. However, the potential is immense, thanks to a rich stock of historic buildings ripe for adaptive reuse, flexible zoning codes, and a lack of minimum parking requirements that gives developers flexibility. The new City Manager will be the central figure in coordinating public and private efforts to transform these parking craters into vibrant, mixed-use developments and create a more walkable, connected, and lively downtown. This work is central to the region’s broader economic strategy, which targets growth in high-value industries like health care, advanced manufacturing, and semiconductors, as exemplified by the billion-dollar Integra Technologies expansion project.

Forging Wichita’s Next Chapter: A Viewpoint on the Path Forward

The search for a new City Manager is a search for a leader who can meet a moment of profound complexity. The successful candidate must embody the qualifications the city has outlined—”visionary leader,” “unwavering integrity,” “collaborative style,” and “bold, creative decision-making”—and apply them directly to the formidable challenges at hand. The mandate for the next leader is not simply to manage the city, but to architect its future through a period of fiscal constraint and shifting public priorities.

A Fiscal Architect: The new manager must move beyond presenting a budget to actively designing a sustainable fiscal framework for the city. This requires more than implementing a pre-written menu of cuts. It demands the “bold, creative decision-making” to find innovative efficiencies, to seriously explore regional consolidation of services with Sedgwick County as some council members have suggested, and to lead a transparent, courageous public dialogue about the true cost of the services residents desire. They must be able to clearly articulate the trade-offs between maintaining service levels and the impact on property taxes.

An Economic Catalyst, Especially for Downtown: With the generational infrastructure projects nearing completion, the new manager’s focus must pivot to catalyzing private investment and solving the persistent challenges that have held back downtown’s full potential. This requires a “visionary” and “collaborative” approach. The manager must be a proactive partner to the development community, working to remove barriers, assemble land, and use public incentives strategically to transform surface parking lots into thriving, walkable neighborhoods. Their success will be measured by their ability to foster a vibrant, 24/7 downtown that serves as the economic and cultural heart of the region.

A Data-Driven Public Safety Steward: Given that public safety commands the largest and fastest-growing share of the city’s budget, the new manager must ensure this investment is effective and accountable. This requires “unwavering integrity” and a commitment to transparency. They must hold the police and fire departments to rigorous, data-driven performance standards, ensuring that strategies for crime reduction are working and that community trust is being actively built and measured. They must be a steward who ensures that public safety and public trust are seen as two sides of the same coin.

A Master of Public Engagement: The search process itself, with its emphasis on public surveys and a resident-led committee, has set a new precedent for community engagement. The new manager must embrace and expand upon this foundation. With public confidence in local government at a low ebb, the manager must become the face of a transparent, responsive, and accessible city administration. They must be a master communicator who can explain complex fiscal trade-offs, build consensus around difficult decisions, and make residents feel heard and valued.

Conclusion: The Weight of Expectation

Wichita is at a pivotal crossroads. An era defined by the construction of large, transformative public works is giving way to a new era that will be defined by the more nuanced challenges of fiscal sustainability, neighborhood-level quality of life, and the activation of the city’s urban core. The foundation is strong, with new, world-class infrastructure in place, but the path forward is fraught with difficult choices.

The City Council’s selection of the next City Manager will be one of the most consequential decisions it makes this decade. The role demands more than a competent administrator; it requires a strategic leader who can balance a budget while inspiring a community, who can ensure public safety while fostering public trust, and who can honor the city’s industrial heritage while building a dynamic, modern economy. The weight of expectation is immense, but so is the opportunity. The next City Manager will inherit not just a set of challenges, but the chance to lead a great American city in writing its next chapter. Their success will be measured not just by what they build, but by their ability to lead a difficult but essential public conversation about priorities, forging a shared and sustainable vision for a more vibrant, resilient, and connected Wichita.