The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s board of commissioners will not renew the contract of CEO Frank White III. The decision came after a three-hour closed session at its last board meeting of the year. In an interview with KCUR, White said the decision to not renew his contract was mutual.
According to his contract, White makes a base salary of $275,000, which at the time of his hiring violated the city’s cap on KCATA CEO pay. White has said he will serve in the position until his contract expires Jan. 24, 2026.
The board has installed Chuck Ferguson as the interim CEO of the agency. Ferguson has been the chief operating officer of the KCATA for three years and has been at the agency for 11.
“We thank Mr. White for his 10 years of service and for being a stabilizing force as CEO during a time of transition,” said Reginald Townsend, chair of the KCATA board, in a statement. “The Board is looking forward to building upon the momentum we've established and continue advancing the agency’s efforts.”
In an interview with KCUR on Thursday, White said he’s had a good 10 years working at the agency, and is now pursuing other roles in the public transit world.
“I knew my job, with the transition from the previous CEO, was to come in and take an assessment (of KCATA) and stabilize it, fix it, try to put it in a better place than I found it,” White said. “I did that.”
White said Ferguson will do a “fantastic job” as the interim CEO and said he told everyone at the agency to “stay focused and committed to the mission.”
“The World Cup’s going to be a good chance for us to showcase what we've done,” White said. “We've done a lot of great things with the organization, both locally and nationally. I leave pretty proud of the work that I was able to accomplish with the team we had and with the board.”
In a statement, Townsend said the board of commissioners will conduct a national search for White's permanent replacement. The board previously said it would do a national search to find the successor for Robbie Makinen, White’s predecessor and former CEO of the KCATA, who resigned in 2022 after pressure from Kansas City officials. Ultimately, the board hired White, who began working at the KCATA in 2016, without posting the position externally.
The move to not renew White’s contract came as the Kansas City Council is set to give the public transit agency more than $15 million to stabilize bus service and keep the city’s rideshare service, IRIS, running in the Northland.
At the same meeting, the board of commissioners approved a new contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1287, which represents KCATA bus drivers. The contract included increased wages and preserved workers’ benefits and pensions.
Kansas City and the KCATA have had a tumultuous relationship over the past few years. It led to an ongoing budget crisis that peaked in the spring and fall of this year. The KCATA has alleged that it does not get enough money from the city to provide the current level of service, and the city has alleged the KCATA is not being transparent about its finances or properly communicating its costs to the city.
In a July interview with KCUR, White said he’s worked to make the agency more transparent since he took over as its CEO more than three years ago. In August, he told KCUR that the agency is working to improve trust with Kansas City and other municipalities across the metro.
“I'm an open book,” White said in a previous interview with KCUR. “You know where to find me, I’ll answer any questions you have. But at the same time, those questions have to be asked in good faith. Only then can you have that trust to move forward. But it can't be one-sided.”
Kansas City has also alleged that it does not have enough representation on the agency’s board of commissioners compared to the amount of money it supplies the KCATA.
Kansas City has two sales taxes for public transportation. Nearly all of the 3/8th-cent KCATA sales tax, more than $40 million per year, goes to the agency. But the city has steadily diverted more of its public mass transportation tax money away from the agency to other purposes.
White said he has nothing but fond memories of his time at the KCATA and said the agency is now in a better position to attract a better CEO than it was three years ago when he stepped into the role.
“The agency is better financially and metric-wise,” White said. “It's ready to go find its next CEO who should be excited to come and kind of take off where we started.”
