Kansas City News Blog

By DAVID MARTIN

Funk wants Cauthen to get on the bus.

Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Mark Funkhouser all but calls City Manager Wayne Cauthen insubordinate in this memo dated July 16.

Funkhouser wrote the two-page letter on the same day Cauthen sent this memo to the members of the Finance and Audit Committee. Cauthen's memo outlined a $10.3 million budget shortfall for the city. Funkhouser's concern stems from Cauthen's apparent unwillingness or inability to implement decisions the council made when it passed a budget earlier this year.

The council's budget, for instance, found $1 million in savings by consolidating the North and Aviation police patrols. In his memo, Cauthen suggests that he's not going to make the change, as the $1 million shows up an "expenditure issue" in the memo. In his letter, Funkhouser asks Cauthen if his inclusion of the cost is "an indication that you intend to not follow our policy direction."

Funkhouser also questions Cauthen's staffing decisions. The budget called for a hiring freeze of 245 positions. In his memo, Cauthen states his intent to lift a hiring freeze when only 190 positions have been frozen.

Cauthen's memo states that a total 347 positions "have effectively been removed." But 40 workers who were transfered to other jobs count among those "removed." "Clearly this is not a real cost savings to the taxpayers," Funkhouser writes. "It is little more than an accounting trick."

Funkhouser and Cauthen agree on one thing: The city can't keep down its personnel costs simply by not hiring people. Why? Because some departments have higher turnover than others. An animal-control officer is more likely to walk off the job than a well-paid middle manager. And citizens tend to notice when dogs are running wild and weeds overtake vacant lots.

Funkhouser closes his memo by reminding Cauthen that Kansas City employs a high number of supervisors whom residents would be unlikely to miss if they lost their jobs. The mayor instructs Cauthen to make "strategic staff reductions."

Wayne, it's your move.