Free buses, more police and affordable housing: What’s in the proposed city budget
Quinton Lucas won the Kansas City mayor’s office eight months ago promising a city that takes care of the basics, protects residents from violence and invests in affordable housing.
Now, he gets his first chance to align the city’s $1.7 billion budget with the priorities he laid out on the campaign trail. He said the budget proposal, which will be released Thursday, fulfills numerous campaign promises.
“It’s about basic services,” Lucas said. “It’s about making sure we deliver on what should be promised to the taxpayers.”
On Thursday, officials will release the mayor and city manager’s budget proposal and present it to the City Council. It then faces a series of public hearings and tweaks before the council approves it in mid-March. The city’s new fiscal year starts May 1.
And while $1.7 billion is a striking number, the slice of the pie council members get to work with is far smaller.
Scott Huizenga, the city’s budget officer, said about 70% of the city’s budget is dedicated to specific functions. The aviation and water departments receive their own revenue and spend it. The city has numerous sales taxes that fund specific priorities, like capital projects and parks.
And of that 30% that’s left over — the general fund — almost 75% goes to police and fire. Huizenga said that money is regarded as “almost off-limits.”
“So what the council really has to work with is typically around $70-80 million dollars,” he said.
With that money, Lucas said, the city would exert “fiscal responsibility.” His budget proposal didn’t include everything he wanted. He said residents could expect to see funding dedicated toward “priorities that the taxpayers have repeatedly told us that they care about.”
“I actually think that everything that I both campaigned on and that I’ve governed on for the last several years are reflected in what this budget document will look like — significantly so,” Lucas said.
Here’s what you should expect in this year’s budget:
Public transit to be fare-free
For months, city officials have been working to eliminate fares on city buses. The City Council last fall adopted a resolution directing staffers to search for funds to make fare-free public transit possible.
Lucas said the budget would include $4.8 million for that purpose. As for where it found that money, he said that would be evident in the budget when it’s released Thursday.
Officials have estimated eliminating bus fares will cost about $8 million. The rest of those funds, Lucas said, will come from cost savings the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority is identifying in its budget and a private sponsor he says will be announced “forthwith.”
Lucas said he expected the program to start this summer and called it an “amazing opportunity for our city.”
“It’s not every year that in the course of several months you find … almost $5 million in the budget to help support what is a key but novel initiative for Kansas City,” he said.
Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, who chairs the Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee and has worked with city staff on the budget, was less convinced.
“I don’t think we have it,” said Shields, 4th District at-large, “but I think we’re on the track for figuring out how to get it.”
Shields said after discussions with the KCATA she was under the impression the authority would prefer to phase out fare boxes in the fall.
The KCATA did not return multiple requests for comment.
An affordable housing trust fund
For more than a year, Lucas has advocated for the creation of a $75 million affordable housing trust fund with the goal of creating and preserving 5,000 homes in five years.
Last year’s budget was already underway as the then-councilman pursued the proposal in late 2018. Last May, he lamented that city staff hadn’t identified the funds and suggested the city allocate the federal Community Development Block Grant and local Central City Economic Development Sales Tax toward the fund. Both resources are already used for housing projects.
Lucas said last year those resources would amount to about $42 million.
But Lucas and Shields said those funds won’t be moved into a trust fund in this year’s budget.
“I don’t think at this point that there has been additional funds added to the housing trust fund,” Shields said.
Lucas said CDBG and central city funds would still be available.
“I’d still like to see full consolidation of those housing resources into a trust fund … It’s not as if there isn’t housing money that is there,” Lucas said. “I would like to see it still be part of a more cohesive process and effort. We were not able to get that done in this budget cycle.”
The amount of money cities receive from CDBG has declined for years, and in his federal budget proposal, President Donald Trump proposed eliminating the program entirely along with HOME funds. Both programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Trump has sought to eliminate the program every year of his presidency and the program has survived. The president’s budget proposal outlines his priorities but is rarely taken seriously by Congress regardless of the party in power.
“I do think that it’s important for any American city to look at alternative resources to the extent we care about the future of affordable housing,” Lucas said.
Additional police officers and firefighters
One of Lucas’ chief goals as mayor has been to reduce the city’s sky-high homicide rate.
“I ask my colleagues to stand with me as we commit by the end of this term to getting our city off the FBI top 10 most dangerous cities list,” Lucas said in his inaugural address.
Since taking office, he has shepherded ordinances he hopes will get firearms out of the hands of minors and domestic abusers. The city also partnered with Everytown Law, a branch of Everytown for Gun Safety to sue a major arms dealer that supplied guns to a Kansas City trafficking ring.
Now, he says he’s putting more officers on the streets.
Lucas wouldn’t say ahead of Thursday’s release of the budget how much more he’d propose spending on police and fire, but he said both departments would get more personnel.
Sgt. Jake Becchina said in an email the department had requested 30 additional officers for the May 2020 academy class, which would cost more than $1.4 million.
A possible sales tax increase
The Kansas City Fire Department is also looking at a possible $315 million bump to its capital budget over the next 15 years.
The city council in January approved an ordinance increasing the fire sales tax from a quarter-cent to a half-cent. It must be approved by the voters in April to take effect.
Lucas has said many times that he doesn’t favor new tax increases. He was out of town at the U.S. Conference of Mayors when the council voted. He said the fire service needed to make the case for why it needed the extra funds.
“I have not heard it yet,” Lucas said. “I will look for them to prove that point, and if they do not, then I’ll plan to vote against it.”
But the mayor said he has “made no decision yet” on whether he will be involved in a campaign for or against the tax.
“I would say at this point it would seem unlikely that I’d be campaigning for the fire sales tax,” he said.
How you can participate
The city will be hosting public meetings at the following times and locations:
▪ Feb. 22 from 9 to 11 a.m. at Northgate Middle School at 2117 N.E. 48th Street.
▪ Feb. 29 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Southeast Community Center at 4201 E 63rd Street.
▪ March 3 from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the Kansas City Health Department at 2400 Troost Avenue.
This story has been updated to reflect a change to the city’s public budget hearing schedule. The Northland event has been moved to Feb. 22 from March 7, and the location has changed.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
