Fudge Factory
I work at a newspaper, so I’m supposed to take a hard line about open records and open meetings.
But I’m pretty casual when it comes to job searches in the public sector. Hiring and firing don’t seem like activities that improve with maximum openness. I wince at stories about school superintendent candidates being interviewed in auditoriums while district crazies hiss from the audience. How many mediocre public officials have been hired because the good ones were afraid they couldn’t keep their interest confidential?
That said, I’m delighted that the résumé of one Wayne A. Cauthen has popped up on the Internet.
Cauthen, the city manager of Kansas City, Missouri, recently emerged as a candidate for the same job in Austin, Texas. Cauthen’s interest in another job became public after Mayor Mark Funkhouser announced that he didn’t want to offer Cauthen a new contract. A majority of the City Council revolted against the mayor, and Cauthen’s contract status is now a matter for the courts.
No one can blame Cauthen for exploring his options. The Austin gig went to someone else, but The Austin American-Statesman posted his résumé on the Web. It contains some troubling information.
By troubling, I mean “a little fudgy,” “not completely accurate” and “oh, boy, that’s not true at all.”
Here are some excerpts. A word of caution: The document is written in résumé-speak, so the sentences are rich in action verbs but often lack subjects.
• Corrected the city’s previously structurally imbalanced budget
These words appear immediately after the first bullet point in the “Experience” section of Cauthen’s résumé. The placement suggests that he feels pretty good about this accomplishment.
Only it hasn’t happened.
A structural budget problem occurs when current and future costs exceed current and future revenues.
Kansas City has such a problem. I know because Wayne Cauthen says so.
Cauthen recently submitted a preliminary budget for the next fiscal year. In the budget memo, he writes: “Kansas City, like a lot of other major center cities in the country, has a structural budget problem.” In another passage, he describes the imbalance as “chronic.” Which is something altogether different from “corrected.”
• Ensure regular contributions are made to the city’s reserve funds to reach the prescribed balance of 8% of the city’s operational budget
Actual percentage: 4.7
• Today CIMO is staffed and managed solely by city personnel
CIMO is the Capital Improvements Management Office that Cauthen created to cope with the backlog of construction projects the city couldn’t seem to cross off its honey-do list.
A Denver consulting company, MWH Americas, came in to work with City Hall employees on a plan to tackle the $240 million backlog. Cauthen knew MWH principal Mike Musgrave from the days when they both worked for the city of Denver (“The Mile-High Club,” April 26, 2007).
MWH had a three-year, $15 million contract that was supposed to expire in January 2007. Alas, the consultants remain on the payroll.
Just as the original contract was winding down, MWH signed a one-year, $900,000 deal with the city to oversee work on the downtown entertainment district. (A few months later, Cordish, the developer, delayed the grand opening for almost half a year.)
At Christmastime, the City Council authorized an additional $205,000 for MWH to keep an eye on the Power & Light District.
• Oversaw the redevelopment [of] a 9-city-block-square area of the Central Business District in downtown Kansas City with a total value of $4.5 billion
Cauthen can be proud of what’s happening downtown. But as dramatic as the changes have been, they do not add up to $4.5 billion. It’s not even close.
Here’s the math:
H&R Block building: $138 million
Sprint Center: $276 million
Power & Light District: $835 million, according to a Cordish press release
That’s $1.3 billion. And I’m rounding up.
• [C]ollaborated with community and corporate partners to identify funding to complete the new $340 million Kauffman Performing Arts Center
The performing-arts center is not complete. It’s a big crater full of rebar. And it’s $52 million short, according to a December 2007 story in The Kansas City Star.
For its part, the city pledged $47 million for parking and infrastructure. But we don’t know where the money’s coming from. In one scenario, the city will pay for the garage with casino payments that won’t become available for 10 years.
Betting on betting! Now that’s the way to run a town!
• [P]artnered with the city’s bohemian arts community located adjacent to the new venues in Kansas City’s Crossroads neighborhood to encourage patronage and development of independent artists by promoting “First Fridays” art-walk activities
First Fridays had been going on long before Cauthen’s arrival in 2003. But more upsetting is his claim to be a great friend to bohemia.
City agencies gave tax breaks to practically every new condo conversion in the Crossroads while the district’s true pioneers got pounded by higher tax assessments. It took four years for the city to finalize a tax-abatement program for the gallery owners and other merchants who had made the area so inviting to developers.
For one trailblazer, the city’s help was too little, too late. Dolphin Gallery owner John O’Brien recently sold his building after a 122-percent property-tax increase arrived in the mail. He’s moving to the West Bottoms.
• Expanded the efforts of the International Trade Office
… by raiding a grant program for neighborhood arts and cultural activities.
The city’s Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund, which is supported by convention and visitor taxes, helps out a number of worthwhile groups and events. Past grant recipients include the Mutual Musicians Foundation, the Westport Art Fair, Filmfest Missouri and the Line Creek Figure Skating Club.
Cauthen’s new budget proposes to divert $475,000 from this fund to support what the budget calls “international tourism development,” whatever that means.
It’d be a shame if this little budget move made the city a less lively place for the people who already live here.
The Kansas City jazz on Cauthen’s résumé isn’t the kind for dancing.
