Kansas City has once again approved last-minute funding to prevent drastic bus cuts that were just weeks away.
The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority was originally set to eliminate nine bus routes and reduce the frequency on four others because the city’s budget for the transit agency was not enough to cover current service levels. A nationwide trend of higher transportation costs and a lack of regional funding across the metro has resulted in Kansas City shouldering most of the KCATA’s operational costs, which leaves the agency in a constant cycle of budget strain and service cuts.
An ordinance approved unanimously by the city council last week approved another $8.3 million for the KCATA. That’s enough to stop the cuts from going into effect Sept. 6 as originally planned.
“We want people to have as much transit as possible,” Chuck Ferguson, interim CEO of the KCATA, said. “They can breathe a little freer that their route, or their particular trip, is not going to be eliminated. We're going to work really hard with our partners at the city, and with other individuals that are interested within the community, to try to maintain that level and hopefully grow it as we move over the next few years.”
The $8.3 million will prevent service cuts until April, when the city and the transit agency meet again to set a contract for the next fiscal year’s service.
Will Howard is president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local 1287, which represents bus operators with the KCATA. He estimates that the increased funding saved 48 operators’ jobs. The union represents around 350 full- and part-time drivers at the transit agency.
“We know for sure that the funding is there, the job is secure,” Howard said. “That brings a sense of stability to our union members who have been left in a state of shock of saying, ‘Christmas is coming up, Thanksgiving, school's about to start, will I have a job?’ That's one of the scariest things to wake up to every morning.”
Changing the pattern
The city and KCATA announced in May that service cuts would be necessary, after final contract negotiations between the two parties didn’t result in enough to cover daily bus routes.
The KCATA was able to keep service levels the same, and even expand them in some areas, during the World Cup thanks to federal funding and the reappropriation of grant funding to service during the tournament. But that money ran out, and the KCATA used its reserves to cover the rest.
This is the fourth time that budget issues have necessitated service cuts at the KCATA since 2025. In each case, Kansas City came through with a last-minute funding plan to stop at least a majority of the cuts from happening.
Council member Melissa Robinson, who sponsored the ordinance to give the KCATA more funding, advocated for the city to direct online tax money to sales tax funds.
Currently, money collected from online purchases goes into the city’s general fund. The KCATA would receive about $27 million a year if online tax money was directed into the KCATA and public mass transit sales tax funds. That money would essentially end the transit agency’s budget deficit.
“That funding would not only sustain the level of services we have, but provide an opportunity for us to expand,” Robinson said. “We have to get to a point where we're not in an emergency situation, but we allow those monies to flow where voters intended them to.”
Ferguson said the KCATA is working with the city to make sure funding is more stable next budget season, and is seeking more funding from other municipalities in the metro. The ATU has also made regional funding a priority of the union.
The Jackson County Legislature is considering putting a countywide half-percent sales tax on the ballot. If voters approved the measure, it would provide more stable funding each year to transit.
The KCATA is also working closer with Kansas City’s planning department to better align bus service with where it's most needed in the city and set route frequencies to match demand.
“Nobody appreciates the grim reaper mentality of talking about service reductions,” Ferguson said. “The work with the city on a near term and then a long range of what transit can look like, I think, is how we start solving some of these problems about intermediary budget concerns and late interjections in the budget.”
