Tougher road ahead this time for Kansas City’s earnings tax campaign

In just 10 weeks, Kansas City voters are scheduled to go to the polls to essentially decide how they want to finance local government and the public services it provides.

If voters react as they did in 2011, they will overwhelmingly renew the city’s 1 percent earnings tax for another five years on April 5.

The Star supports extending the tax, but in 2016 the war of words focused on the election likely will be far more contentious than it was five years ago.

The political and civic leaders banding together to whip up enthusiasm for the tax officially kick off their campaign at 10:30 a.m. Monday at Union Station.

They will emphasize the legitimate reasons to keep the tax. It provides $230 million a year, most of which is used to finance police, fire and ambulance services.

Residents provide about half of those revenues; non-residents who work in the city pay the rest. That’s only fair because they are using the city’s public safety services as well as its other amenities.

If voters reject the earnings tax renewal, it will go away in 10 years. City officials would be forced to cut some services and try to raise other taxes, throwing the city’s future into a state of disarray. Some of these options will be explored in future Star editorials, as the campaign unfolds.

Critics of the earnings tax will be out in full force in 2016.

The prime worrying points for supporters of the tax include:

▪ Missouri legislators are reviewing several bills that would kill the city’s authorization to impose the tax by the end of 2017. Several lawmakers have received large campaign donations from St. Louis multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield and are doing his bidding in Jefferson City.

Fortunately, a hearing held earlier this month may have helped to temper the legislative opposition. Give Mayor Sly James credit for his forceful testimony explaining the benefits of the tax and the reasons to keep it.

▪ A lawsuit could be filed to try to end the earnings tax or curtail how much money it can generate. City officials think this legal development would be quashed in the courts. However, the existence of the lawsuit could raise questions that would distract from a positive campaign.

▪ Opposition to the tax could be better funded this time around by Sinquefield. After all, he spent at least $7 million in 2010 to convince Missouri voters that Kansas City and St. Louis, the only two Missouri cities with earnings taxes, must vote every five years to renew them. After voters in both cities did just that in 2011, Sinquefield could be even more determined this time to finance misleading advertisements and special interest groups opposing the extension.

▪ Finally, detractors of the earnings tax might be able to tap into the wave of angry voters we’ve seen on the national level, the ones who are upset at “the establishment” — which in this case would be City Hall — and are willing to support radical alternatives to the status quo.

Killing a source of $230 million of city funds certainly would qualify as a radical decision. It would be a decidedly wrong one as well.

This story was originally published January 24, 2016 at 6:01 AM with the headline "Tougher road ahead this time for Kansas City’s earnings tax campaign."