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Longtime Kansas City Manager About To Wade Into Jackson County's Issues

Luke X. Martin
/
KCUR 89.3
Kansas City Manager Troy Schulte is expected to become Jackson County Administrator. The Legislature will discuss his contract Monday.

There is no doubt Jackson County has some monumental, vexing problems.

The county jail is in desperate need of being replaced. The downtown courthouse needs to be renovated after flooding earlier this year. And the property reassessment process is a mess, with appeals that will stretch into 2020.

Riding in to apparently try and fix all of this is Troy Schulte, who in September announced he was stepping down as Kansas City's city manager after a decade on the job. The county legislature will discuss a proposed contract with him on Monday.

“This is the perfect time for him to come in," Legislature Chair Theresa Galvin said. “I think he’ll help us get past a lot of issues that we’ve had.”

And it's not just the projects that people can see that Galvin hopes Schulte can fix.

“It’s no secret that there’s been issues in the past between the Legislature and the executive side," she said. "That we have trust issues and we’ve been working on trying to get past those.”

According to the proposed contract, the county would pay him $220,000 a year. That's what he made working for Kansas City. He would also get a county car.

Schulte wasn't available for comment Friday. In a Facebook Live interview with the Kansas City Star, he said he could help “bridge the gap between the executive and the legislature.”

Schulte is likely to talk at Monday's meeting, according to a tweet from Legislator Crystal Williams. 

Schult's contract with the city ends on Feb. 29, 2020.

Sam Zeffis KCUR's metro reporter. You can follow Sam on Twitter: @samzeff.

You deserve to know what your taxpayer dollars are paying for and what public officials are doing on your behalf – I’ll work to report on irresponsible government spending in the Kansas City area and shed light on controversies that slow government down. And when you hear my voice in the morning, you know you’re getting everything you need to start your day. Email me at sam@kcur.org, find me on Twitter @samzeff or call me at 816-235-5004.
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