With the completion of the Cheney project, the city had assumed major financial obligations for both water and sewer systems, with complete ownership of the water utility and construction of primary and secondary facilities for sewerage fed by a complex sewer network. From the beginning, water utility expenses had been paid from a separate waterworks fund. From 1940 until 1957, the city charged the Water Company for its costs of transmission and treatment in bringing the water supply from the Equus Beds. Upon buying the complete system, water revenues were collected in a water utility fund to pay all operating and debt service costs.

The sewer maintenance and sewer treatment functions had always been owned by the city, however, since the construction of the first sewer system in 1889. They were funded from the city's general fund, paid by property taxes. In 1955, the Department of Water and Sewage Treatment was created to administer those functions, while sewer maintenance continued under a separate department. Only the water services were financed by a separate utility fund.

In the 1950's, the City Commission began to consider ways to reduce the property tax. At the May 15, 1956, meeting of the commission, the city manager was requested to investigate new revenue sources. The report of the Finance Department at the July 31 commission meeting stated, "Until recently, the property tax has been the main source of revenue for most cities. The increasingly difficult situations in which cities have found themselves, however, have caused a strong development of new sources of revenue." It went on to consider thirteen sources of revenue, one of which was sewer service charges. The report only reviewed each source, but it informed the commission that "An increasing number of American cities are introducing a tax that, in effect, is a sewer rental or charge for sewage disposal." It also stated that charges for sewer service outside the city raised $38,182.10 in 1954, and $25,018.71 in 1955. (City Commission Communications).

During the same period, the matter was also discussed by the Joint Tax Revenue Study Committee, a group of officials from the county, the city, the school district, and Wichita University, set up to analyze Wichita's financial circumstances. The Wichita Civic Council, a body of Wichita citizens concerned about city affairs, became involved as well. City Manager Frank Backstrom, serving as secretary of both groups, presented a report on September 5 to the committee, and then to the council and the City Commission, all of which supported his recommendations for the three groups to work together to study the revenue problem. It stated, "In order to ascertain the most equitable and practical solutions to the revenue problems of the local taxing agencies of the city of Wichita, it is proposed that the efforts of the Wichita Civic Council, the Joint Tax Revenue Study Committee, and the staffs of the various governmental units be unified and coordinated into one comprehensive program. This needed coordination seems most likely achievable under a system whereby all three groups function as parts of a large whole for the purpose of this study." (City Manager's Files). It went on to outline how the study should be organized. Based on the recommendations of the group, sewer user fees inside the city were to be established to pay for revenue bonds to finance the new secondary sewage treatment facility proposed in 1957.

At the time, sewer fees were only a recent trend. Half the cities in the country with populations between 250,000 and 500,000 had levied such fees, according to the Municipal Finance Officers Association. The City Commission accepted the recommendation based on the principle that user fees would allocate costs more properly than property taxes. The new charge would be added to the water bill and would be a flat rate based on the average water usage of the three winter months.