The fate of bus service in Kansas City is in limbo after a contentious city council meeting last week.
Kansas City passed a six-month funding plan in April to avoid cuts to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s bus service. But the city and KCATA haven’t agreed on a contract since their last one expired earlier this year.
The KCATA said its board of commissioners doesn’t agree with many of the terms in the contract, but the city wants accountability measures in place. The city said it can’t give the KCATA any money until a contract is signed, which means the agency has been operating with no money from Kansas City for months.
That could lead to cuts in service.
Reginald Townsend, chair of the KCATA board, said the KCATA has been spending down its reserves as it negotiates a contract with Kansas City. But that money will soon run out. Without a contract or fresh payments coming soon, Townsend said the agency would be forced to stop bus service.
“We've been operating in good faith under the auspices that a new contract would be signed once we agreed to the terms,” Townsend said. “We have been using our line of credit to kind of carry us through this period of negotiations, and we have exhausted those means.”
The Kansas City Council was one vote short of passing an ordinance Thursday that would have given the KCATA nearly $78 million for a 12-month contract extension.
But KCATA CEO Frank White III and Mayor Quinton Lucas both pledged that cuts will not happen and that both parties will work overtime to get a contract signed. Lucas said he’s hopeful the city and KCATA will have a contract signed in the coming days, and he believes there will be no cuts to service.
“I think that would be exceedingly reckless on the part of KCATA, particularly because they know, the city knows, and everyone listening knows that there is a pot of money that has $78 million that they can have access to,” Lucas said. “Now what needs to happen is that everybody just gets to a deal.”
Kansas City’s bus service is up for debate until a contract gets signed, and the conflict between the city and KCATA can be confusing. Here’s what’s happening:
What is in the contract?
KCUR has requested a copy of the contract under Missouri’s open records law. A KCATA spokesperson declined to provide it, citing “ongoing negotiations” with the city.
A memo obtained by KCUR detailed performance measures that the city wanted in the contract, like how much scheduled service was on time or not provided. Those accountability measures, along with other revenue-raising plans such as reintroducing some fares, were included in the funding plan the city passed in April.
What routes could be cut if they don’t reach a contract?
KCATA hasn’t said what service would be cut if the two parties don’t agree to a contract soon. At the city council’s business session last week, KCATA board member Bridgette Williams said the agency could cut all bus service in Kansas City if a contract wasn’t reached.
The agency earlier this year had outlined a proposal for potential cuts, before the city passed its funding plan in April. Under that scenario, 13 of the city’s 29 bus routes would have been cut, affecting about 6,500 people.
What is the deadline?
The former contract between the city and KCATA expired April 30, so the regular deadline has passed. Townsend and Lucas said they hope to have a new contract signed by the end of this week.
What does the Kansas City Council want in the contract?
The city council has been clear it wants accountability from the KCATA. In April, the council had directed city staff to negotiate a contract that:
- Included a “functionally free” fare model. Low-income riders and people receiving aid from social service agencies wouldn’t be charged, but other riders would pay a $2 bus fare.
- Allowed the city or a third party to conduct comprehensive audits of KCATA.
- Ensured KCATA sought more funding from surrounding municipalities, Kansas and Missouri, and the federal government.
- Directed KCATA to work toward a regional funding plan for public transportation, like a tax.
- Required a certain amount of on-time performance from fixed-route buses.
- Required updates to the city council on KCATA’s progress on the performance measures every two months.
Lucas said Kansas City is open to changing some terms of the contract, but won’t eliminate performance requirements entirely.
“What we're not doing is just saying, ‘Yeah, we’ll be standard free, we're not going to ask any questions, here's the money and we hope it all works out,’” Lucas said. “That's not what the people of Kansas City want. They want good bus service. They want to make sure there's good accountability in the same way they want that from city hall itself.”
What does KCATA want in the contract?
KCATA has so far not taken any action on its contract with the city at its board meetings in June and July. Williams told the city council that the proposed contract doesn’t include anything the KCATA requested and had unachievable performance measures.
“The reality is, it was a one-way conversation,” Williams said. “We felt it best to not sign a contract where we had discomfort with some of the language that was included in it.”
The proposed contract calls for a penalty if fewer than 98% of buses don’t come on the designated routes. But in its memo to the city council, KCATA said it provided just over 96% of service on its routes. The contract also would require that buses be on schedule at least 95% of the time, but KCATA was only on schedule 82% of the time in June.
Townsend said the directives for KCATA to seek more funding from Kansas, Missouri and the federal government were “not appropriate for a contract” and cut into the agency’s governance structure. Still, he said the agency is looking for more money from those governmental bodies.
He said the KCATA isn’t opposed to all performance requirements, but he also wants to work with the city on making some easier to achieve. For example, creating more transit-only lanes would allow buses to move faster and increase their on-time percentage for less money, he said.
“We have been working with the mayor's office and council on ways to come to a mutual agreement on what's appropriate for contract language,” Townsend said. “We have always operated within the parameters of performance metrics. We're not averse to having some performance metrics in the contract or as a part of service.”
What happened to the six-month funding plan?
In April, the Kansas City Council agreed to a six-month funding plan that would give KCATA a majority of the nearly $78 million it budgeted for the agency so that no cuts to service would be made. But because a contract hasn’t been signed, none of that money’s been disbursed.
The KCATA told the city council it didn’t want the six-month terms and instead would prefer a regular 12-month contract. The two parties could still agree to a 12-month term in the contract they’re negotiating now.
Who else funds KCATA?
The KCATA serves seven counties in Missouri and Kansas. The agency receives funding from federal, state and local governments in the region. It also gets money from fare revenues and Kansas City’s two public transportation sales taxes. But when cities including Gladstone, Raytown, Blue Springs and Grandview ended their bus contracts with KCATA over costs, that meant Kansas City had to shoulder more of the burden.
The KCATA has a new contract with Raytown, which means more funding for the agency and a new bus route that will run through the city starting in September.
Townsend said the agency is working toward a regional funding model. Right now, Kansas City is the only municipality that pays KCATA through two sales taxes. Most other cities in the network pay out of their general funds, which aren’t as stable.
“We need to have a funding model that supports the region, that can get people to opportunities that are emerging in our area,” Townsend said. “It takes a cooperative agreement with everybody to have a funding model that can sustain the agency.”
The KCATA plans to host a regional summit in October to discuss a more sustainable, regional funding plan with area leaders.
What happens now?
The KCATA board will meet this week to discuss the contract. The Kansas City Council next meets on Aug. 14.
Lucas and other city council members have made clear that they also want to see a long-term plan from the KCATA on how it plans to make its finances more sustainable, so that the city and transportation agency aren’t in this position again next year.
Both parties have said they’ll work around the clock to get something signed as soon as possible. Until then, the fate of the city’s bus service hangs in the balance.
