TKC BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE NEWS!!! KICK-ASS TKC TIPSTER HIGHLIGHTS CITY MANAGER TROY SCHULTE CONTRADICTIONS AND STRANGE CUTS IN KANSAS CITY'S "STRUCTURALLY UNBALANCED" BUDGET!!!

A blessing from an AWESOME reader this afternoon . . .

The TKC Blog Community is clearly doing INTENSE work on the budget when Dead Tree Media is content to do nothing but rejurgitating press release copy.

Check it . . .

READ THIS EXPERT ANALYSIS OF CITY MANAGER TROY SCHULTE'S SUBMITTED BUDGET THAT IDENTIFIES MORE THAN A FEW CONTRADICTIONS OF THE ADMITTEDLY "STRUCTURALLY UNBALANCED" DOCUMENT THAT RULES KANSAS CITY FINANCES!!!

Really, this is easy to understand material that shows Kansas City's money in more jeopardy than ever.

Example . . . Mainstream media overlooked an important money quote in their celebratory budget reporting that sought mostly to secure political connections:



Direct quote from City Manager Troy Schulte: "The submitted budget is structurally unbalanced and does not fully address many of the city's long term financial issues."

And so . . .

CHECK THIS EPIC AND EXPERT ANALYSIS OF KANSAS CITY FINANCES THAT CALLS OUT CONTRADICTIONS AND EXPLAINS MISPLACED KANSAS CITY PRIORITIES IN GREAT DETAIL!!!

The bold text decisions are mine but this is all sage wisdom from our blog community. Check it:

BUDGET

I know you have seen the budget for the mayor go up by $900k, but then the manager had to get rid of $650k from general services, $200k from public works and $200k from the city mangers office. Page 4 of the budget letter. So these employees lose their jobs for the mayor to hire more people to do exactly what? Chief innovation officer? Really??!! Did Troy do this to save his job?

What about the new parks tax. Look at the budget page 162, or in the pdf page 191. Parks got an additional $10M according to Troy (look at the bottom paragraph), yet their budget went up by only $2M. They are going to add 30 people and that is good, but what else? Where is all the money? Why are they still getting general fund money? Wasn’t this supposed to stop as promised in the advertising of the vote??

In that same sales tax, public works was supposed to get more money and he brags about on page two showing street preservation and street maintenance budget going up. But wait, on page 4, paragraph 3, public works was reduced $1M in salaries to balance the budget. Really??!! Just to follow up more on this, street maintenance was cut 18 positions in the budget, but we are giving them more money?? Pdf pages 239 and 240. 

Just to confuse you more the police are supposed to hold positions vacant which would lower the FTE count just by not having a person there. They count FTE by saying you have a position and it was filled only 6 months, that is a half of an FTE. But look at the Police that is supposed to save money by reducing the holding positions open, thus reducing the FTE count, their FTE’s go up by 2!! It should have gone down. 

General Services is supposed to cut that $650K which is salaries, but once again you look at pdf page 137, the FTE’s go up 10 more people. City Manager’s Office same thing, $200K cut but number of employees goes up.

Which is it Troy, your letter or the budget book?

My favorite part is page 14 where he admits it is a structurally unbalanced budget. Wayne got ran out of town for this and several other reasons. How long till we can vote out the earnings tax? This is still another smoke and mirror budget. Looks like everyone gets fat but Public Works and we voted to help them. Only in KC could this happen. You draw your own conclusions about the city manager and this budget!!"
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Take a look at the City Manager's budget for yourself but DO NOT RELY SOLELY on mainstream media to dig deep into this Kansas City budget full of contradictions.