Kansas City’s Debt

By Patrick Tuohey on Jul 22, 2015

KCUR does a nice job of rounding up a few projects such as the Sprint Center and Kemper Arena that Kansas City taxpayers are still funding. It is an incomplete list by far, but a good start. Their short list of four items totals $712 million as of last year.

Overall, Kansas City redirects $100 to $110 million each year to developers for the various TIF projects in town. That doesn’t include some of the recent ones like Burns & McDonnell, the Kansas City Star, and Cerner. In fact, according to the Washington Post, Cerner is the biggest recipient of taxpayer subsidies in the state of Missouri. Their last subsidy from Kansas City may be the biggest in the city’s history.

When will city leaders decide that we’ve subsidized enough and start trying to reap the rewards of all the previous spending? Given recent news regarding Two Light and the Star, the answer appears to be no time soon.

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Patrick Tuohey

Senior Fellow

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