Kansas City is ready to settle last of prosecutor lawsuits for $500,000

The Kansas City Council is expected to vote Thursday on a $500,000 settlement to the last of eight discrimination lawsuits by former municipal prosecutors.

The total to resolve all eight lawsuits comes to $2.48 million and means that, since July 2013, the City Council will have approved nearly $4 million to end various discrimination complaints. The money is coming from general taxpayer dollars and water department revenue — money that otherwise could have been available for basic services and water infrastructure repairs.

“This has been a bad year,” conceded Councilwoman Jan Marcason, chairwoman of the council’s finance committee. Marcason said she hoped that the city had improved its personnel management and training processes to reduce the chances for future complaints. But she acknowledged that it may take several years for all of those initiatives, and a full culture change at City Hall, to take effect.

The council is to vote on a $500,000 settlement with Deborah Snoke-Adams, a longtime, well-respected assistant city prosecutor.

In July 2011, the city prosecutor’s office converted from 16 part-time prosecutors to eight full-time attorneys. City officials said the reorganization was necessary to make the office more professional and efficient as the Municipal Court switched to a fully computerized, paperless operation.

Snoke-Adams, who is in her 50s, was not hired in the reorganization, and all the women hired were younger and had less experience than she had. She was one of eight former part-time prosecutors who sued after they weren’t offered jobs, claiming discrimination.

The city attorney’s office had originally said it would take this case to trial but has now recommended settling this case, just as all the others were settled. If Snoke-Adams’ case had gone to trial, the city attorney’s office acknowledged, a jury could have determined that her age was a factor in the decision not to hire her. That would be a violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act and could have led to an even more expensive judgment and attorney’s fees.

This story was originally published October 8, 2014 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Kansas City is ready to settle last of prosecutor lawsuits for $500,000."