During his Sunday morning speech, Mark Funkhouser took on the role of teacher.
As the mayor of Kansas City gave his State of the City address to a full house at All Souls Unitarian Universalist church, he had the audience follow along with a set of hand-outs. The packet was surely familiar to anyone who's followed city politics since Funkhouser's election in 2007. Each page featured a census map with red dots highlighting population loss across the metro. In each of the maps, Kansas City's urban core had a serious case of chicken pox.
In the past 40 years, Funkhouser emphasized, the inner city has hemorrhaged more than 100,000 people. Back in 1970, Kansas City resident took home 40 percent of regional income; now that's a paltry 18 percent. The center of the city is devastated, he said. "This is a metro-wide disaster unfolding in front of us," he warned.
How to reverse the mass migration? "I hear this every time: schools," Funkhouser said. So the mayor asked the audience to turn to packet number two -- an outline of his new School's First plan.
But while Funkhouser had plenty of stats on the decline of the urban core, he was shaky on even the basic math of his latest initiative.
The mayor admitted that his attempts at a city-wide Education Summit did little but spark resentment among the area's superintendents. At least, at first.
"They thought I was one more guy coming in to tell them how to do their jobs," he said. "And frankly they don't need a whole lot more advice; they need some help. They feel besieged. The second meeting I said, 'What do you need your city government to do? How can I help?' And I got a totally different reaction. ... For an hour or so, they told me the city has not been a very good partner. They've got issues with safety. They've got issues in infrastructure. They have issues with transportation that they need help with"
"So, today, having listened to them, I'm launching a program called Schools First, creating a city where kids can walk to school," he said.
Schools First, Funkhouser explained, has five bullet points.
First, pass a ballot initiative in August authorizing the city to use $100 million in general obligation bonds to attack infrastructure in the areas surrounding schools. In many neighborhoods, for example, there are no sidewalks. "We would sit down with individual school communities in the neighborhoods and works out which projects we need to work on," he said.
Number two: Renew the public safety sales tax and use one third of that $17 million to increase security around schools. "I'm asking that we use it to add police officers and crossing guards so that the place around schools is safer," Funkhouser said.
The third component: Ask the council to prioritize areas around schools for neighborhood services, like graffiti abatement and codes enforcement. "We spent about $37 million in this year's budget targeted at neighborhood-level services," he said. "When we pick where to do that, we need to look at whether or not it's close to schools as one of top criteria."
Number four: Get strategic about grant funding. There are plenty of pots aimed at students' health; programs like the Walking School Bus. But, Funkhouser said, the city needs partners and a solid plan before they stick out their hands for federal dollars. "They don't want to see us grabbing for money because the money's there," he said.
And finally: Create a staff position. "We need to designate a staff function within city government whose job it is to tear down the wall between us and the schools, to keep us in touch, keep us in communication," he said. "It shouldn't have to be this hard for us to keep in touch with the schools."
"This is a comprehensive, sustainable program," Funkhouser concluded. "If we do this, it will be the first time Kansas City has done anything that has a city-wide focus on school."
The plan sparked polite applause, but residents were skeptical. Funkhouser didn't explain how the cash-strapped city would pay for the debt service on the proposed $100 million bond sale -- or how it would fund that staffer at City Hall tasked with tearing down the wall to the school district. He didn't mention that siphoning off a portion of the public safety sales tax for more police officers would require a change in state law, either.
In fact, the mayor didn't have a grasp on the most fundamental statistic of all: the number of schools within the city's boundaries. "We don't even know how many school's we got," he admitted at one point in the speech.
Before he goes to the City Council for policy changes and to the voters for a ton of taxpayer dollars, the mayor might want to nail that one down.
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Annexing areas where the population is GROWING is how they get more money in tax dollars. If they were relying solely on the area where population is declining, the roads & whatnot would be that much worse. I live in Platte County, and in Kansas City, and I have to pay the extra taxes even though I don't have city-provided water, trash pickup, or any of their services. I don't mind because I spend a fair amount of time downtown, but make no mistake that we up north are paying the money and not reaping the benefits.
This city is broke!!! That means no money for pretty political projects!!!
The schools only get fixed when PARENTS get involved and demand\create change. Teachers are paid to teach, not raise your kids, and people all over the world are educated in dirt floored buildings. There is no excuse for the results of this school district. Parents are the ones to blame.
The whine meter is falling on deaf ears Kansas City. I have paid a education tax that I did not have a vote on for many many years.. You have money!!!!
How about breaking the KCMO school district into 4 new SMALLER school districts? From my perspective, the bureacracy is too entrenched to ever make the current mess work.
Sorry, Mayor...You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Cleaning up the areas around the schools and tearing down old empty schools is not going to make suburbanites come back to the city. We still choose to live in Brookside, but both children attend private school. I wouldn't have them step a foot into the schools of Kansas City.
Given that a Kansas City resident on average every four days is killed by gun violence and the city of 430K people has a murder rate of 25% that of New York City with a population 20 times as large, I would think the mayor would focus on providing that most basic of services: public safety. Instead of amusing themselves with annexation, TIF development, light rail plans, downtown hotels, and who knows what else, why don't the KCMO electeds work on issues like the crime rate, snow removal,street repair, and large trash pickup; You know, all that boring stuff.
And the mayor's plan having "five bullet points' has to be the height of unintended irony.
A city that sorta works for some of the people part of the time. Quite a campaign slogan!
Shed everything north of NKC, east of Raytown and south of Grandview. This city has the metro of a small country. Work on infrastructure. My block had about ten serious pot holes on it. The city merely patched it up. It's time to get back the friggin basics. Swear to God if they Annex that subdivision in PLATTE COUNTY I'm rallying a march on the steps of City Hall.
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