Top-ranking woman firefighter sues KCFD alleging discrimination in chief’s hiring
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- KCFD deputy chief alleges sex discrimination and retaliation in amended lawsuit.
- Fire Chief Ross Grundyson seeks extension after two-plus years as interim head of KCFD
- Over its 157-year history, the KCFD has had only two fire chiefs who were not whlte males.
Two and a half years after he was picked to temporarily lead the Kansas City Fire Department, interim Chief Ross Grundyson wants to stay on another two years, according to a new court filing.
And Mario Vasquez, Kansas City’s new city manager, is not ruling it out.
Were Vasquez to have Grundyson oversee the department through 2027, it would be the second time that the interim chief’s temporary stay will have been extended since former Chief Donna Lake’s retirement in January 2023.
A newly amended lawsuit contends that would be unfair to better-qualified minority and female applicants seeking to fill the job that has only twice before been held by someone who wasn’t a white man since the department’s founding in 1868.
Highest-ranking woman
KCPD Deputy Chief Laura Ragusa first sued the city in February, alleging that Grundyson had discriminated against her after she informed him of what she believed were illegal and unethical practices related to department contracts and reporting requirements for federal reimbursements.
That whistleblowing lawsuit attracted little attention. But on Thursday, Ragusa was granted permission to amend the suit to include new allegations regarding what she claims are the city’s unfair and discriminatory hiring practices in picking a new fire chief.
Ragusa is the highest ranking female member of the fire department in uniform. She has applied for the chief job three times since Lake left – once because her application was not transferred to the city’s executive search firm.
And yet she still has not been interviewed, she says. Nor have, to the best of her knowledge, the dozens of others who applied for the job.
“Defendant discriminated against Plaintiff based on her sex, by failing to even interview her for the Fire Chief position and failing to hire her for the Fire Chief Position through the Fire Chief promotion process that began in 2023 and continues through present,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiff has been and continues to be more qualified than the current Fire Chief.”
She further alleges that the city has asked two white male former KCFD employees to apply for the position.
History of discrimination
Like most fire departments in large American cities, the KCFD has long been dominated by white men, especially at the top ranks. The department was segregated by race until 1958. Kansas City hired its first woman firefighter in 1977.
The department’s only non-white fire chief was Ed Wilson, who began his career in the 1940s in one of those segregated fire houses reserved for Black firefighters only and then led the department during the 1980s.
Lake was the only female chief.
In response to The Star’s 2020 multi-part series of articles on longstanding discriminatory practices against women and minorities within KCFD, the city commissioned a report on the department’s culture. The report found that the culture inside KCFD was one where bullying, intimidation and hazing were common.
Many Black and female firefighters said they feared retaliation if they spoke out and were often denied promotion based on their race or gender.
The report also described a power imbalance that exists between labor and management within the department.
The two firefighters unions are able to influence many department decisions, the report said, and can “prevent KCFD Management from holding personnel accountable for compliance with policies and practices because they have more power and influence in daily operations practices, as well as City politics than KCFD Management.”
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Lacked minimum qualifications
Dan Heizman, president of Local 42 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said his union was “excited” by Grundyson’s appointment as interim chief when it was announced in January 2023.
Grundyson applied for the post on the condition that he would not seek it on a permanent basis.
“My request,” then-City Manager Brian Platt said at the time, “is that the interim chief also not apply for the permanent chief position to avoid any conflicts of interest and favoritism.”
Grundyson wouldn’t have qualified for that permanent role, anyway, when the city began its search in early 2023. He did not possess one of the minimum credentials that the city required then, which was a college degree to run an organization that employs 1,400 and has a $322 million annual budget.
He was only supposed to have the job for as long as it took to conduct a national search to find a replacement for Lake, who left to become an assistant city manager with the city of Lee’s Summit after 30 years with the fire department.
Ragusa first submitted her application to replace Lake in the fall of 2023. But she and other applicants were told later that year that the selection process had been put on hold for the sake of continuity in the chief’s office as the city negotiated a new five-year contract with Local 42, the firefighters union that represents everyone up to and including the rank of captain.
The search resumed last fall — only this time the educational requirements had changed. No longer was a college degree required.
Ragusa has a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and two master’s degrees. One is in business administration with a minor in economics, and the other is in human resources with a minor in business law. She reapplied for the job with the understanding that Grundyson would retire. His previous administrative position at the department had been filled by someone else, so he couldn’t return to that role.
But according to Ragusa’s new court filing and sources within the department, Grundyson informed his top assistants on Monday — the day before the initial application deadline to replace him — that he would like to stay on through 2027, which would qualify him for a bigger pension.
Job candidates needed to submit their resumes to the city by Tuesday, according to the hiring brochure put out by the recruitment firm the city hired to conduct a national search.
As of last Friday, 49 people had applied for the job, city spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt said.
City statement unclear
Grundyson did not respond to The Star’s request for comment, which was relayed to him through the department’s public information officer, Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins.
Instead, the city administration issued a statement in response to that request and a separate one to Honeycutt asking whether it was true Vasquez wanted Grundyson to stay in the job through next year’s World Cup games.
The statement was less than clear in outlining the city’s position on retaining Grundyson until 2027.
“Chief Ross Grundyson has served as Fire Chief for the past two and a half years, and we appreciate his continued service and dedication to the department and the residents of our city,” it began.
“As we look ahead to major events, including the 2026 World Cup, we recognize the significant responsibilities and pressures placed on our public safety teams. Ensuring stability and readiness across all departments is a top priority.
“We are currently assessing the future leadership structure of the Fire Department, including potential transitions, to best position the organization for continued success and long-term resilience. At this time, no further decisions have been made.”
‘Huge vacuum in leadership’
In his May 1 job interview with the City Council, Vasquez said one of his main priorities in preparing for the World Cup would be filling two top public safety jobs that would soon be vacated due to retirements. The head of the office of emergency management was one, and the fire chief was the other.
Vasquez said Grundyson’s exit would create “a huge vacuum in leadership” and would need to be addressed quickly.
A need for continuity was also the reason given that Platt gave in, quietly halting the hiring process for the job in late 2023 after months earlier announcing the start of a national search for Lake’s replacement.
Many applicants that met or exceeded the job requirements had been in the running for the job at the time, according to Ragusa’s lawsuit.
“Upon information and belief, the most qualified candidates for the Fire Chief position were a member of a minority group within the fire department (female or Black/African American male),” the suit says.
“At least five highly qualified minority candidates for Fire Chief had advanced degrees, including Plaintiff.
“Because the highly qualified candidate pool available to the City had no similarly highly qualified white candidates, the City failed to interview Plaintiff or any of the other highly qualified minority Chief candidates.”
Reported mismanagement
Ragusa began her public safety career in May 2000 as a paramedic and then supervisor at MAST Ambulance. After MAST merged with the fire department in 2010, she was promoted to a management position as assistant chief of the medical division of emergency operations, then division chief and finally deputy chief and chief medical officer.
In the fall of 2023, she was assigned to oversee the department’s billing and accounting divisions. There she says she uncovered mismanagement and overspending on equipment purchases and leases.
She said she also found what she perceived to be unlawful reporting of financial data to the federal government in seeking reimbursement for ambulance services.
Instead of welcoming her findings, Grundyson allegedly punished her by taking away some of her prime assignments. She was replaced as the department’s representative in World Cup planning, the suit says, and she was demoted in January from her role as head of the medical billing division.
Ragusa is seeking compensation for a range of financial damages, including lost wages and loss of future retirement benefits in a lawsuit that alleges sex discrimination and that she was retaliated again for her whistleblowing efforts.
Her attorneys are Erin Vernon and Lynne Bratcher, who represented former city communications director Chris Hernandez in his whistleblower lawsuit. He recently won a $1.4 million settlement from the city.
This story was originally published June 13, 2025 at 3:01 PM.
