KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Thursday's special Unified Government meeting was the first public meeting about the PILOT fee since it was discovered the fee wasn't coming off bills Oct. 1.
The meeting was held between Unified Government commissioners, the county administrator and Mayor Tyrone Garner.
Several residents who showed up were disappointed that elected officials were confused about why this hasn't happened.
"This big mistake — BPU is not gonna own it; the UG is trying to correct it, but we as a taxpayer, a community, is gonna have to pay for it," said Alma Hall, a resident.
Sarah Lynch, another resident, said the announcement and actions that followed lacked transparency.
"They weren't up front with the public to begin with," Lynch said. "They knew when they announced they would remove the pilot, the money would still have to be collected. They said they would remove the pilot to give a checkbox win."
The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities was not invited to the meeting.
"I’m disheartened that the BPU board wasn’t invited to participate in this meeting," said Rose Mulvany Henry, a BPU board member.
It's not the first time Henry's been caught off guard by a UG announcement.
Take the Aug. 1 meeting, for example.
"The way I found out about [the announcement] ‘cause I was watching the meeting that night," Henry said. "I didn’t know anything about it beforehand."
She was familiar, however, with how the PILOT works.
"I talk about the PILOT with constituents probably once a week," Henry said.
Wednesday night's BPU board meeting was another chance to explain.
Henry was asked by UG commissioners if there are enough funds to remove the fee.
"If every single capital project stopped right now — we did no work to support economic development out west, repaired no water mains, didn't replace aging infrastructure ... we could do that, but everything stops," Henry said.
Henry also gave a presentation about how the PILOT works.
She referenced a statute in Kansas that permits a city of over 100,000 people with a municipal utility that provides electric and water to utilize a portion or percentage of the gross revenues of the utility and transfer it over to use for government fund use of the city.
In Kansas City, Kansas, it transfers over into the city general fund. That fund supports all the departments that fall under the city. For the UG, two of the biggest ones are the police and fire departments.
Removing the PILOT fee would create an approximate $37 million deficit.
"The portion of funds that come from the PILOT that are transferred over to the Unified Government to in large part, support things like public safety," Henry said. "If you remove the PILOT from the bill, as I said last night, we’re going to have to fold it into the rates."
That's the same thing BPU general manager Bill Johnson warned Mayor Tyrone Garner and County Administrator about in a letter Sept. 13.
In that letter, Johnson asked for a meeting between the two entities and said the Oct. 1 deadline to remove the PILOT fee was "unrealistic."
"Saying on August 1st this thing has to be done October 1st, that wasn’t even enough time," Henry said.
Henry said she didn't know of any joint meetings between the UG and BPU that took place between the Aug. 1 and Oct.1 deadline and that she was not invited to any.
"It’s just unfortunate," Henry said. "I think the first meeting that was had between the two entities was October 1st."
Henry says she was not a part of that meeting.
"We're trying to be as collaborative as we can be," Henry said. "It’s hard to dance when you don’t have a dance partner."
When asked if she thought it was fair for the citizens of Wyandotte County to have expected to hear from BPU before Oct. 1, Henry said she did.
"I know what this looks like," Henry said. "It looks like BPU board doesn’t know what’s going on, Unified Government commissioners don’t know what’s going on."
In a lot of ways, that's true, she said. That's whe she decided to attend Thursday's special UG meeting with hopes to find answers.
Turns out, she was providing them.
Henry was one of three BPU board members to attend Thursday's meeting, along with Stevie A. Wakes and Mary Gonzales.
Public comment was not permitted, but there was no shortage of questions, particularly from UG members.
In fact, board members called up BPU members to speak multiple times during the meeting and sought their insight for various questions.
Garner stood behind his actions leading up to Oct. 1, citing the charter ordinance Johnston cited at the Aug. 1 meeting.
In the charter, it states "the determination of the percentage of gross operating revenues to be paid for a fiscal year shall be made by the unified government, with written notice to the board on or before the first day of October preceding the date of implementation. The governing body of the unified government and the board shall, prior to any determination increasing the payment in lieu of taxes here under, meet and confer to discuss any proposed increase. If the unified government fails to so determine or fails to so notify the board of its determination on or before the first day of October of any year, the board shall set over a percentage of gross operating revenues, whether combined or separated by accounts as set forth in Section 18 (a)(ii), which shall in no less than that set over the preceding year."
The UG has already voted to decrease the PILOT rate by a percentage point for the 2025 budget year.
That reduction would take that rate from 11.9% to 10.9%. However, board members questioned how much of a difference that change would make.
The meeting did not chart a clear path forward for what will happen next. It's unlikely the fee will be sorted out by the end of the year.
The mayor announced there would be a joint UG and BPU meeting on Oct. 30.
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