Kansas City Fire Department goes back to the voters Tuesday for more sales taxes
Nearly 20 years ago as a sex discrimination lawsuit wound its way through federal court, Kansas City started making plans to accommodate women in its fire stations, using a new sales tax to pay for the upgrades.
The ¼-cent sales tax, which took effect in 2002, was billed by then-Chief Richard “Smokey” Dyer as a means of funding those and other upgrades, a new training facility and 135 new firefighters.
Now, the fire department is seeking another ¼-cent sales tax increase. Still, Chief Donna Maize said that six stations need upgrades to accommodate all genders. The department’s 55-year-old training facility is still outdated. And the department has ambulances and trucks to replace.
The latest sales tax increase will be on voters’ election ballots Tuesday. It’s supported by Mayor Quinton Lucas, who in the past has resisted proposed tax increases for early childhood education and affordable housing and previously told The Star the city’s burden was “getting about to the time that somebody in Kansas City says, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’”
Maize said the increase is essential because the department has a lot of “aging infrastructure” and responds to an array of emergency calls beyond fires. She dubbed the department the city’s “initial social service stopgap.”
“We’re the agency that gets called when your pipes freeze and you have water pouring out of your basement and you don’t know what else to do and it’s 3 o’clock in the morning,” Maize said.
Voters passed the first ¼-cent fire sales tax in 2001 and extended it in 2014. The new ¼-cent tax, if passed, would raise the fire sales tax to a combined ½ cent through 2036. Officials estimate the additional ¼ cent would raise $315 million over its 15-year lifespan.
Dan Heizman, a firefighter and political director for the city’s fire union, International Association of Firefighters Local 42, said the city is so spread out that it’s difficult to run an efficient department. Firefighters and paramedics have to be stationed to get anywhere in the city quickly.
To Heizman, the most critical need is replacing the department’s ambulances. He said they’re “piecing together ambulances.”
“There’s times when we do not have ambulances for the crews that need to be in them out running calls,” he said. “They’re waiting on something to get serviced or something to get fixed. … Seconds matter in emergencies and that’s a difference in lives.”
As for why the stations and training facility hadn’t been upgraded in the more than 18 years the city has been collecting fire sales taxes, Maize said the proceeds were initially supplemental to the department’s budget. But over time as budgets got tight and salary and pension costs grew, some operational expenses — such as maintenance and fuel for trucks — made their way over to the fire sales tax fund.
For the additional ¼ cent, Maize said the City Council was specific in its desire to see the proceeds used on capital needs.
“And I think there will be a much more significant monitoring of how an additional ¼ cent would be spent,” she said.
Lucas acknowledged the fire sales tax has been used on priorities beyond facilities and capital needs.
“I’m not sure that it’s so much that there’s been a failing on the part of the fire department,” he said, adding that the question at hand was whether or not the city’s general fund had the resources to take care of the fire department’s needs.
“I think the answer is no,” he said.
The sales tax increase was fast-tracked through the City Council — introduced on Jan. 16 and passed by both committee and full council within a week.
Councilwoman Katheryn Shields said at the time that the city needed to put the item on the April ballot so that it might pass before the new fiscal year started May 1. The fire department needed $3.6 million in protective equipment officials hoped to fund with the tax.
But Missouri Gov. Mike Parson delayed the April election because of the coronavirus pandemic. The council dipped into the city’s reserves to fund the equipment, but hoped to replace those funds with proceeds from the tax.
Lucas, who was endorsed during his mayoral campaign by the Local 42 fire union, was absent when the council passed the tax increase. But he told The Star in February that the department needed to make a case for the sales tax before he would support it.
“I have not heard it yet,” Lucas said then. “I will look for them to prove that point, and if they do not, then I’ll plan to vote against it.”
On Thursday, he said he would vote in favor of the tax hike at the polls, saying the “world has largely changed underneath us” since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the U.S. this spring.
“I don’t know if they so much made a case as the conditions have,” Lucas said.
Asked if the union’s endorsement weighed in his decision, he said no.
“It’s my view that actually through my years as a council member … they saw someone who was a consistent supporter of working men and women in Kansas City and a consistent supporter of public safety.”
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
