Jackson County

Local schools, businesses and organizations are making sure Kansas City area students have everything they need when they head back to class next month.

The settlement would include more than 200,000 people who paid property taxes in 2023 and 2024, and would return all the money Jackson County charged in assessments that was over the state-mandated 15% cap.

Manny Abarca has been removed as chair of the Jackson County Legislature. Legislator Donna Peyton will replace him.

New work requirements and twice-yearly eligibility checks are expected to cause millions of adults to lose Medicaid coverage. But community religious leaders and health advocates have been meeting every other week to plan and strategize about how to mitigate the damage.

Jackson County Legislative Chair Manny Abarca IV held a closed-door meeting Friday to discuss allegations of bribery that he's also posted about publicly on his Facebook page. But the Jackson County Sheriff says no formal report has been made, and that Abarca hasn't responded to multiple requests for additional information.

If approved by voters on Aug. 4, Amendment 2 would change the Missouri Constitution to require that Jackson County elect its assessor. County residents already voted to make the role an elected position, rather than one appointed by the county executive, after years of outrage over property tax valuations.

Jackson County is voting for its new county executive this year. All the candidates put property taxes as their top priority. But go beyond that, and the differences creep in.

A county-wide sales tax could provide tens of millions of dollars each year for public transportation, potentially reversing the yearslong trend of Kansas City riders losing bus routes. Jackson County legislators want to hear what residents need before placing the tax on the ballot.

On Aug. 4, voters in Kansas and Missouri will decide multiple, consequential ballot issues, vote in primaries for U.S. House and Senate seats, plus decide local and county-level races on both sides of the state line.

A Jackson County judge permanently struck down a slew of abortion restrictions, including a statute requiring what's known as a "complication plan" for medication abortions.

The stolen equipment was estimated at $18,000 in value. The two men have been charged with receiving stolen property.

Kansas City officials are working on a new way to ban so-called “conversion therapy.” The move comes just weeks after the Kansas City Council repealed a prior ban on the discredited practice because of a Supreme Court ruling against a similar law in Colorado and a lawsuit from the Missouri Attorney General.