KC Council Previews 5-Year Plan

Kansas City has rolled out its five-year plan for structuring municipal finances through 2020, a document that is part mission/vision statement, part financial statement and in part a goal-setting exercise for allocating a $915.8 million in expenditures next year.

The 50-page Citywide Business Plan 2015-2020, previewed to the City Council this week, includes some good news for property owners—at least for that fellow with that yardstick $140,000 median home value—because the city anticipates no increases in the residential property tax levy through 2020. The bad news? Budget-busters like the city’s pension program and rising costs for health care and insurance will challenge that flat-line property tax assumption.

The document also calls on the city to push for elimination of the 5-year sunset provision on the earnings tax, its largest single source of revenue. Voters authorized an extension of the tax in 2010, but next year, it goes back on the ballot for approval or elimination. Failing elimination of the 5-year review, it calls for the city to at least seek a longer period between ballot appearances.

In each of the past five years, the document says, the city has cut spending to reach its balanced-budget requirement—all told, a reduction of 20 percent in non-public safety positions paid for with general municipal revenues. More than half of the positions eliminated were in park maintenance, planning and development, street maintenance and middle management. The city also has tried to close the budget gaps by shuttering the Municipal Correctional Institution and city greenhouse, privatizing the animal shelter, and reducing the number of city departments.

Not surprisingly, the city’s 2014 Citizen Survey found that residents were most concerned about the status of:

• Streets and sidewalk maintenance

• Crime reduction and increased police visibility

• Improved public transportation

• And better enforcement of neighborhood property maintenance

The document outlines goals for the City Council that focus on six core areas: customer service, finance and governance, infrastructure and transportation, neighborhoods and healthy communities, planning/zoning and economic development, and public safety.