Kansas City budget has cash for 10 more cops — but here is what’s not in it
In Mason Andrew Kilpatrick’s otherwise neat, cozy apartment on The Paseo, warped floorboards serve as a reminder of the persistent water leaks he battled after moving in last July.
Kilpatrick says his landlord promised to fix the leaky roof before he moved in, but water continued to drip into his top-floor unit. The same thing happened later in his bedroom. The leaks were at long last repaired, but the damage to his floor is done.
He believes that, had City Hall had an office he could have turned to for help at the time, it might have helped pressure his landlord to make changes.
In December, the City Council adopted Kansas City’s first-ever Tenants Bill of Rights, pushed by the organization KC Tenants, and in the legislation pledged to fund an office to enforce the law.
“If my landlord had given me the Tenants Bill of Rights at the beginning when I originally signed the contract … I would have had way more clarity in what my rights (were), and I would have been able to negotiate my terms way better than I originally was,” said Kilpatrick, a KC Tenants leader.
Kansas City’s annual budget tops $1.7 billion, but with much of that dedicated to specific purposes and police and fire departments that eat up much of the city’s discretionary spending, officials have less than $100 million to work with. This year, because of strong revenue growth, Mayor Quinton Lucas was able to propose spending increases in several departments and release a budget he believes is the most equitable in Kansas City history.
But funding for the office to enforce tenants’ rights is not in Lucas’ proposed budget. It’s one of several points in the budget that have riled city advocates who pushed back against some of the mayor’s proposals.
Kilpatrick said that initial budget proposal was disappointing.
“To champion and say that you’re defending tenants within Kansas City, who are a very vulnerable population ... and then to only say that you can look into funding 60-80% of that while you’re also allocating $6 million towards the addition of 10 more cops — it just kind of seemed a little bit hypocritical,” Kilpatrick said.
The lack of funding for a tenant advocacy office brought KC Tenants leaders and organizers out in droves to public hearings over the last few weeks. They argue that without that funding, the monumental legislation passed last year can’t be effective.
Lucas, however, said he is working on a plan to include funds from the city’s Healthy Homes program to provide rental assistance and assistance for tenants facing eviction, two priorities for advocates. He said there is money for enforcement of housing rules.
As for funding an office of the tenant advocate, he said he is “not sure where that stands.” He has favored setting up an independent housing department before creating a tenant advocacy office, which would fall under that umbrella.
Asked why, despite being pledged in the bill of rights, that money wasn’t included in the budget, he said he wasn’t sure the City Council knew how much creating that office would cost.
But advocates who took part in negotiations last fall said they had informed Lucas the office would cost more than $1 million to create.
Lucas said he didn’t recall that figure, though he acknowledged advocates had always indicated funding the office would be important. He also said that city leaders often need more specific proposals when advocates and departments approach them with funding requests.
Lucas said the Tenants Bill of Rights created new protections for tenants and codified existing ones.
“To say it was all for naught unless there are $1.2 million, I think, largely misses the mark,” he said, adding that he would like to find more than $85 million in funding for several other housing and development priorities.
Lucas acknowledged funding the office was important.
“What I did not say was, ‘I promise you that in the 2020 budget, there will be $1 million for the office of tenant advocate without any questions asked about what it does, who’s in it or what the money is being spent on,’” he said.
In an email to advocates in October, Lucas said an “underfunded and underenforced” bill of rights would give the city a “quick win, but not the long-term win people deserve.” He said he still feels that way, but that the city has to figure out how the office would be structured and staffed as it finds the funding to make it happen.
KC Tenants and the mayor went round and round on Twitter last week as the group put pressure on him to include money for the tenant advocate in this year’s budget.
Film and arts
Just across the street from City Hall, Deanna Munoz mentors children and young adults in music, videography and visual arts in her colorful, modern studio, thanks to Queer Eye, the reality television show that filmed its third and fourth seasons in Kansas City.
While she has been mentoring artists for 10 years, Munoz said she attributes her recent growth and success to the Queer Eye crew and the Fab 5, the five cast members who provide expertise in food and wine, fashion, culture, interior design and grooming to the guests they make over.
She went through the full Queer Eye makeover — or, as the show puts it, “make better” — with new hair and makeup, clothes, food and lifestyle tips. At the end of the episode, the Fab 5 unveiled Munoz’s brand new studio where, on the weekends, artists can come and create.
“Having our own space to build on and be creative in has been monumental to this programming ... we have just been skyrocketing — full-blown art mentorship in visual, creative writing, poetry, and ... we’re adding on art therapy and music,” Munoz said.
And the effect Queer Eye has had on Munoz goes beyond just the makeover. Through the show, she got connected with officials in City Hall dedicated to supporting the arts and with local filmmakers who have helped her with the foundation itself.
But the future is unclear for some arts funds City Hall has been providing for several years.
The Office of Culture and Creative Services, Munoz said, has been a great help to her. The office has also been criticized for the 2018 Open Spaces festival, a multi-week citywide arts festival that ended in a more than $300,000 city subsidy to make up for a revenue shortfall. Lucas and Rouse’s budget would eliminate that office.
And while the City Council won’t pass the budget until later this month, filmmakers fear cuts to the Film Office that is part of Visit KC. It spent $75,000 in incentives to bring the Fab 5 to Kansas City.
Initially, the budget would have eliminated $175,000 the group has received from the city in recent years. But after an outcry from local film groups, Lucas suggested amending the budget proposal to grant the office $200,000 from Visit KC, the organization that brings conventions and tourism to town.
But that amendment apparently does not allocate any additional funds to Visit KC. Rather, it directs the organization to spend from the funds the city has already committed, which fell this year because the city’s hotel-motel sales tax revenue is expected to decline. Under the current proposal, Visit KC will receive $10,962,355 this year compared to $11,560,320 last year.
“I thought in the amendment that I released...that it is important to have a film office line item, and frankly that given, I think, the productivity of the film office and frankly how I think they’ve done a better job explaining what they do than almost anyone else, then I think it’s worthwhile that we actually continue to have a line item,” Lucas said.
Economic development
While not as high profile as the City Council, one of the major forces behind growth in Kansas City is the Economic Development Corporation. The group supports boards and commissions, like the Tax-Increment Financing, or TIF, Commission, in evaluating development deals and attracting businesses to Kansas City.
In Lucas’ budget, the office faces a possible $1 million cut. It can earn as much as $500,000 of that back, the budget says, based on its “performance and portfolio of economic development initiatives.” The budget doesn’t lay out specifically how it might do that.
Lucas said his budget represents, in many departments, a “review (of) a lot of our bureaucracy.”
“I think it’s fair to say that over the years, we have not looked as closely at what the EDC is doing,” Lucas said. “I think our outcomes are something that we can focus better on.”
But in an office where the entire budget amounts to less than $5 million, such a cut would have “a significant impact in the overall function of the organization,” said Bridgette Williams, who Lucas appointed to chair the EDC Board.
“It could mean less scrutiny of development,” Williams said. “It could be less marketing of the Kansas City, Missouri, area...It definitely would be less services provided through the EDC.”
Phil Glynn, a board member and Lucas’ former campaign opponent, said the cut would force a dramatic change to the way the EDC does business, but that he wants to see the group spend its resources to create growth.
“I don’t want EDC to spend resources on things just because that’s what we’ve always done,” Glynn said.
Staff members of the EDC help put together and evaluate deals. Often, they’re a resource for members of TIF and other commissions who are trying to decide whether to recommend large tax subsidies. If that support is reduced, Glynn said, it could make those appointees’ jobs more difficult.
“You rely very heavily on the information staff brings to you to make decisions ... in those meetings, you’re asking questions of staff just as much as you’re asking questions of developers,” Glynn said.
Williams said the organization “would certainly try to find ways to assist” in cost savings.
“The EDC is really a pretty lean organization just by nature of what they do, so it’s not like it’s real staff-heavy or it’s not like there’s a lot of fat to trim.”
What else to know
Lucas’ proposed budget does not take into account the quarter-cent sales tax the Kansas City Fire Department hopes voters will approve in April.
That increase, which would come on top of an existing quarter-cent fire sales tax reauthorized in 2014, would raise about $315 million over its lifetime and help fund facility and equipment needs of the fire department.
