Think the April vote on a sales tax hike for KC fire department is a slam dunk? Wrong
Kansas City may see an actual debate over raising sales taxes for the fire department.
In late January, the City Council rammed through a quarter-cent fire sales tax for the April 7 ballot. It would raise about $21 million a year for 15 years for equipment and department operations.
Since that controversial vote, the issue has largely dropped off the map. That, of course, is the plan: Don’t say too much, don’t prompt any visible opposition, and let voters in a low-turnout election deliver another multi-million dollar check to the fire service.
Quietly, though, a few political figures, some on the city’s East Side, are mulling the possibility of organized opposition to the tax increase. Their concerns are obvious: Kansas City’s sales taxes scrape 10 cents on the dollar in some places, to pay fire equipment demands that never seem to end.
Putting the plan on the ballot without any real discussion didn’t help, either.
The bar is high. There is no guarantee any group will coalesce to oppose the tax publicly. Organizers are worried about raising money for a credible campaign, opposing politically popular firefighters and angering Mayor Quinton Lucas.
While these concerns are valid, there are intriguing arguments that address all three issues.
Money still matters in Kansas City campaigns, but it is less important than it has ever been. Social media and door-knocking are cheap and effective: Save The Paseo, which crushed the attempt to rename the street for Martin Luther King Jr., used Facebook aggressively to rally supporters for weekend canvassing efforts. It worked.
Close to election day, Save The Paseo had raised about $3,600. The rest of the campaign was run on the treasurer’s credit card.
To be sure, neither side in the Paseo campaign raised or spent much money. The firefighters won’t make that mistake: At the end of 2019, its political arm, Taxpayers Unlimited, had nearly $100,000 in the bank.
Again, though, a massive spending advantage doesn’t necessarily deliver results at the polls. Progress KC, which raised funds for former Mayor Sly James’ pre-K sales tax initiative, spent more than $700,000 last spring. The sales tax hike still lost by a two-to-one margin.
There was a lesson in that result. After years of showing extraordinary faith in City Hall — general obligation bonds, the East Side tax, the new airport terminal — residents are waking up to the way their money is collected and spent.
The people talking about opposing the fire sales tax are worried about taking on the powerful fire union. Firefighters are popular, yes. But are they more popular than 4-year old kids?
Kansas City voters rejected the pre-K tax because it was too much money from poor people for ill-defined benefits. A similar argument against the fire sales tax might work.
Which is where Mayor Quinton Lucas enters the picture.
No one wants to make Lucas angry by opposing him on this issue. But do we know where he stands? He was out of town for the January vote, but he later signed the ordinance putting it on the ballot. Like many other issues, the mayor seems firmly attached to both sides on the fire tax.
Perhaps we’ll know more Wednesday, when he delivers his first state of the city address. The early betting is it won’t come up, but we’ll see.
Maybe the mayor wants to campaign for the fire tax the way he campaigned for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard — quietly, without drawing anyone’s attention, and without explaining his changing views on tax increases.
That would be a shame. Kansas City deserves a real discussion on this issue before the polls open in April.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
