Kansas City on Thursday unveiled a $2.5 billion budget, its largest ever, for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. The Kansas City Police Department will once again get the largest portion.
Most of the KCPD’s proposed $343 million budget comes from the city’s general fund, which is about a third of the city’s total budget and funds most of its departments.
In his annual State of the City address, Mayor Quinton Lucas said the city is in its “best fiscal position in its history.”
“As some cities and states have struggled with budget shortfalls as the country emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has emerged stronger and ready to withstand budgetary and inflationary challenges to come,” Lucas said.
The city’s revenue has grown by nearly 9% since last year, according to the finance department. But Krista Morrison, the city’s budget officer, said revenue growth is slowing.
“We are sitting with structural imbalance, but this is something we have been planning for in the years,” Morrison said. “We have to slow expenditure growth.”
The city’s budget shows the city’s current financial standing and how it will spend its money, most of which comes from taxpayers. It also shows how much each city department receives and how those departments plan to spend it.
Kansas City Council plans to adopt the budget by March 27. Before that, residents can offer feedback at three public budget meetings and through an online portal. Residents will be able to tell officials what matters most to them, and how much money the city should direct to each program.
A new way to budget
This year, the city is changing to “Priority-Based Budgeting,” in which each of the city’s programs and services are evaluated based on their value to the community, not just carried over from the preceding year.
“It really dives down into the programs and looks and sees what is important to the community,” Councilmember Andrea Bough said on KCUR’s Up to Date. “This is an opportunity to say, ‘Here’s what those dollars are going for,’ and has more clarity and transparency in the process.”
The city will spend most of its general fund on public safety, housing and healthy communities, and infrastructure. That fits feedback from residents last year, who said their top priorities were infrastructure and sidewalks, police services, neighborhood services, environmental quality and public transportation.
Here’s what’s included in this year’s budget:
Police funding is once again higher than ever
More than 73% of the city's general fund for this fiscal year is proposed to go to public safety.. Much of that goes to the KCPD, which gets more money than any other department. This year, the city proposed giving $343 million to the KCPD.
That’s an increase of about $23 million from last year, which set its own record.
Public safety continues to be the city’s primary focus, with high rates of property crimes and gun violence. Lucas said the community needs to hold the city and police accountable.
“We need to resolve to be even clearer with the public on how they can hear fewer gunshots in their neighborhoods, how their businesses can operate safely without cleaning broken glass windows, how pedestrians can avoid ongoing and repeat street racing corridors at known spots in our city,” Lucas said.
Missouri law requires Kansas City to allocate at least 25% of its general revenues every year to the KCPD. The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, which includes four members appointed by the Missouri governor and Kansas City’s mayor, controls that money once it’s appropriated.
The city will also hire more 911 operators and dispatchers and plans to raise their salaries by thousands of dollars, to decrease 911 wait times.
Bus funding will decrease
The proposed budget for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority this year is more than $71 million, with about $40.7 million of that coming from the dedicated sales tax for transit operations.
KCATA has told the city that it’s facing a funding shortfall. The agency hoped to negotiate an increase in funding, which is not currently reflected in the budget.
Without more funding, KCATA may have to end fare-free bus rides, do away with some routes and reduce the frequency of buses. The changes would eliminate dozens of jobs within the agency.
The Vision Zero program’s budget will double
The proposed budget gives $8 million to the city’s Vision Zero program to end traffic fatalities by 2030. That’s double the budget the program had last year when it completed nearly 250 projects. Those included small, neighborhood projects like adding speed humps, as well as corridor redesigns like the one along Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard.
Traffic fatalities have remained high since city council passed the program in 2020. Last year, 97 people died in car crashes. Still, Lucas said he is confident that the increased funding will help the city achieve its goal of eliminating traffic fatalities entirely by the end of the decade.
“Doubling the Vision Zero investment shows that Kansas City government is interested and committed to avoiding pedestrian deaths and fatalities,” Lucas told KCUR. “I encourage every Kansas Citian to think about getting through the city not as how you can get from one place to another but how safe you can be.”
Lucas said he wants the city to collaborate more closely with KCPD traffic enforcement at intersections the city knows are dangerous.
Affordable housing and homelessness efforts will get more money
The city will dedicate $1.8 million in its ZeroKC plan to end homelessness. It will also give an additional $1 million to expand access to shelter space year-round.
The city will add five new staff members to help address homelessness, including an encampment coordinator, a housing rehabilitation specialist and a street outreach staffer.
“Kansas City is dedicated to ensuring that our residents are secure in their homes, to easing access to affordable housing, and to preventing homelessness,” Lucas said.
The budget also includes $1 million for emergency rental assistance and $12.5 million for the Housing Trust Fund. This is the third year the city has remained on track to pay into the fund to meet its funding goal of $50 million in four years.
The city will give more money to environmental projects
Many of Kansas City’s environmental initiatives were threatened by President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
Lucas said the city will continue to prioritize green energy projects. That includes $1 million in the proposed budget to plant more trees. This is the final year of the city’s three-year commitment to plant 10,000 trees.
“Planting more trees improves air quality, reduces heat islands, enhances stormwater management and beautifies our neighborhoods — strengthening our communities through a commitment to sustainability,” Lucas said.
The budget also includes $4 million to convert streetlights to LED bulbs, part of a years-long effort to make the city’s streetlights more energy efficient.
How to give feedback on the budget
Under the priority-based budgeting process, residents can give their input on the proposed budget and tell the city how much they would like to spend on each program. Here’s where:
- February 15 from 9 a.m. - noon: Gregg/Klice Community Center at 1600 East 17th Terrace. Interpreters will be available for ASL, Spanish, Swahili and Chinese.
- February 24 from 6-8:30 p.m.: Woodneath Library Center at 8900 NE Flintlock Road.
- March 1 from 9 a.m. - noon: Goppert Performing Arts Center at Avila University at 11901 Wornall Road. Interpreters will be available for ASL, Spanish, Swahili and Chinese.
If you prefer to share your feedback online, head to the city’s Speak Easy forum at this link.
