Christal Watson says nonprofit prepped her to be next KCK mayor. How’s it doing?
Christal Watson is used to hearing the word “no.” But it just doesn’t stick.
Not when she had to convince corporations to levy support behind small, Black-owned businesses while she was working with the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce. Not in 2019, when she brought a “bare-bones” public schools foundation to life.
Definitely not now, when she’s aiming for her most consequential responsibility yet.
“I want to show them a voice for the people, not the establishment,” Watson said.
She’s bringing years of leadership, training and experience in the nonprofit sector to the ongoing mayor race in Kansas City, Kansas. And if elected, she plans to share those skills with government staff and residents, she told The Star.
Watson is among the final two candidates who hope to lead the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK in its top political role. She and Rose Mulvany Henry will compete Nov. 4 to replace outgoing Mayor Tyrone Garner. Garner, a former police officer whom voters elected as Wyandotte County’s first Black mayor in 2021, announced last year that he would not seek a second term.
Both Watson and Mulvany Henry centered their campaigns on addressing budget concerns, making services and cost of living more affordable, rebuilding infrastructure and local businesses and reinstating trust in the local government, among other items.
But they each bring distinct areas of expertise, and contacts, to the table.
Watson, who now leads the foundation serving KCK public schools and has since 2019, previously worked in the Unified Government as deputy chief of staff in the mayor’s office during David Alvey’s term. She also led the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce for 10 years.
Watson said the leadership, project management and listening skills she picked up before and while leading, and rebuilding, the Kansas City Kansas School Foundation for Excellence, has readied her to lead in Wyandotte County.
Recently, some residents have asked how the foundation has performed financially.
So, how is that foundation doing?
‘No one was taking care of it’
In the time since Watson took the helm of the Kansas City Kansas School Foundation for Excellence in 2019, a few key indicators of success — its end-of-year assets, monetary contributions to local students, annual revenue, number of staff members and annual expenses — have all increased, according to the organization’s annual tax records.
Getting the foundation to its current shape was no small task, Watson said. Back in 2019, she walked into an organization with outdated bylaws, no policies, no general structure and lacking recognition. It hadn’t had a full-time director for about five years.
“It wasn’t that it was in bad shape,” she said. “It’s just, no one was taking care of it.”
Watson said she took advantage of extra downtime proffered by the Covid-19 pandemic to set up stronger internal systems. She had institutional knowledge from years of working with the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce and brought the connections she made with her, Watson said.
What was once a “bare-bones” foundation that hosted an annual golf tournament grew to a fully-staffed program with an internal fundraising system, a website and five annual events to offer services to area teachers and students.
The foundation’s largest annual event is its free “Back to School & Health Fair” which connects district families with free school supplies, dental screenings, hair cuts and other local resources ahead of the start of the school year. The foundation began sponsoring the committee that hosts the fair back in 2021. The 2025 fair had 5,500 attendees and more than 100 local vendors, Watson said.
The Kansas City Kansas School Foundation for Excellence now gives out between 12 and 15 scholarships per year for graduating high school seniors, she said. Scholarships range between $1,000 and $5,000, according to the foundation’s website.
Financial performance
Recent controversy over the foundation’s finances broke out among Wyandotte residents on social media, when some found tax forms that reflected the foundation spent about $230,000 more than it made in its 2023-24 fiscal year.
The discussion online caused some voters to question if Watson could manage money as well as she said she could, a talking point in her campaign.
Watson told The Star, and constituents online, that the foundation did not operate in a budget deficit. Rather, she clarified, it spent funds in anticipation of grant funding it had been awarded but had not received them on time. She said those grant funds came in later than expected, not until after the end of the fiscal year.
“In reality, several large grant awards were delayed and posted after the fiscal year ended, making it appear as if expenses exceeded revenue,” Watson wrote in response to the allegations. “Those funds were received shortly afterward and are reflected in the current year’s reports.”
Fiscal years end in late June and begin July 1. One grant, totalling about $200,000, didn’t come in until fall 2024, more than a month into the next fiscal year, according to the foundation. The Unified Government confirmed that it accidentally distributed $210,630 in Hollywood Casino Grant funding late. “The 2024 distribution was missed by a staff person in the system and was processed late by our error,” wrote Shelley Kneuvean, the Unified Government’s chief financial officer, in an email.
Of the foundation’s $750,500 in expenses for that year, $235,582 went to salaries, $198,269 went to paying out grants, and $283,612 went to “other expenses.”
Watson said the foundation has dealt with grant checks coming in later than anticipated on and off over the past few years.
The Kansas City Kansas School Foundation for Excellence’s annual expenditures also exceeded its revenues in its 2022-23 and 2019-20 fiscal years, according to tax records. The organization made more than it spent in the 2021-22, 2020-21 and 2018-19 years.
And although the foundation’s finances have changed since Watson assumed leadership, they’re also different from what they were about 10 years ago.
Tax records reflect that the foundation had, and made, more money in recent years than it did a decade prior.
Between the 2013-14 and 2023-24 years, the foundation’s end-of-year net assets, or its total value, grew by half a million dollars. In the 2023-24 year, the foundation made $340,181 more in revenues than it did in 2013-14, tax records show.
The foundation is also spending more. The foundation’s tax records reflect that in the 2013-14 year, the Kansas City Kansas School Foundation for Excellence’s total expenditures were $265,239; those numbers were $750,500 in the 2023-24 year.
Nonprofit organizations are annually required to submit a Form 990 that details their expenses, earnings and more. The foundation’s most recent form for the 2024-25 fiscal year is in the process of being audited, Watson said, meaning 2023-24 documents have the most recent publicly available information.
Salaries, staffing
The Kansas City Kansas School Foundation is not funded by KCKPS entirely, although foundation salaries are initially paid for by district funds.
Although foundation employees are technically district employees, the foundation is required to reimburse KCKPS for its salaries, Markl Johnson, a district spokesperson, told The Star.
“We are not funded by USD 500 and do not receive district salary or benefit funding,” Watson wrote in her social media post. “The salaries that are ‘advanced’ are 100% reimbursed by the foundation to the district upon invoice.”
Watson’s current salary is $135,600, plus benefits, according to the district; previous tax forms list her salary as $120,060 in the 2022-23 fiscal years and $80,000 in the 2020-21 year.
Residents also expressed concern over Watson’s son, Alan Watson, working for the foundation. They alleged Alan Watson’s employment within the foundation violated the school district’s nepotism policy. The policy, last revised in 2020, stipulates that no employee can supervise or in any way evaluate their immediate family member or anyone who lives with them.
“However, if the employment creates a supervisor/subordinate relationship between the employees, hiring a member of an employee’s immediate family will not be allowed,” according to the policy.
Christal Watson said her son’s employment did not violate the policy given he reports to a different supervisor and does not report to her directly. She added that she does not participate in his employee evaluation.
The foundation hired Alan Watson in Spring 2025 with a $55,000 annual salary plus benefits. “This is not nepotism,” Watson said.
The foundation is staffed by three full-time employees, including herself, and another who works part-time, she said.
Watson acknowledged that she’d have to leave the foundation if elected mayor. She said Alan Watson would not be promoted to lead the foundation. Rather, the foundation would search for a new executive director.
Staff morale
Watson said she measures her success not by dollars in the bank but by whether the systems in place are flowing the way they’re supposed to. Having structure and strong processes in place allow for an organization to bring in needed and diverse revenue streams, she said.
If elected mayor, Watson wants to bring this mentality to the Unified Government.
Employee morale needs to change to optimize the Unified Government’s efficiency, Watson said. She hopes to accomplish this by finding grant funding to invest in employees’ distinct talents, making sure they have proper mental health assistance and connecting them to professional development training.
She said policy-oriented leadership training she’s participated in, like the Education Policy Fellowship Program, Kansas City Tomorrow Leaders and Leadership Kansas, have been instrumental for her career development. She wants Unified Government employees to have those kinds of opportunities, too.
With a background in organizational management, Watson said she’s learned to see people through a person-first lens. Addressing mental health concerns, especially given turnover the Unified Government has experienced in recent years, can help staff bring their best selves to the workplace, Watson said.
“The Unified Government should be the entity that sets the example,” Watson said.
