Governor Laura Kelly’s administration is refusing to answer questions about whether it violated Kelly’s 2019 executive order barring across-state-line incentive competition with Missouri when luring the Kansas City Chiefs to Wyandotte County.
Prior to 2019, there had been a bit of a “border war” between the Kansas and Missouri sides of the Kansas City metropolitan area, with both states attempting to lure businesses across state lines with various incentive packages.
Indeed, Executive Order No. 19-09 specifically states — among other things: “WHEREAS, movement of existing businesses and jobs across the state line does not result in tangible economic growth within the Region.”
But in announcing the stadium deal Kelly took a very different tone.
“Today’s announcement is purely historic. Actually, it’s a little bit surreal,” Kelly said. “Today’s announcement will touch the lives of Kansans for generations to come. Today’s announcement is a total game-changer for our state. Because today, we are announcing an agreement to bring our beloved Kansas City Chiefs right here to Kansas!”
In fact, the Executive Order states “no state-level economic development incentive programs … shall be used to incent businesses with jobs currently located in the Missouri counties of Jackson, Platte, Clay, or Cass to relocate those existing jobs to the Kansas counties of Johnson, Wyandotte, or Miami.”
But just a few years later, the state created a STAR Bond district and agreed to cover 60% of the cost of the Chiefs’ new $3 billion facility — which actually seats 10,000 fewer fans than Arrowhead Stadium — in what has been called the “most lopsided stadium deal in NFL history.” All to bring the team from Jackson County, Missouri, to Wyandotte County, Kansas — two of the counties specifically mentioned in the 2019 Executive Order.
The Sentinel contacted Kelly Press Secretary Olivia Taylor-Puckett to ask if the EO had been rescinded and if not, why not, but as of publication has received no answer.
It is unclear if there are any legal ramifications for violating the order, although the text notes that if either Kansas or Missouri violates the terms of the agreement, the other is free to resume “fighting.”
$2 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the Chiefs, but still no property tax relief for Kansans
The $2 billion subsidy doesn’t come from existing taxpayer funds; the debt will be repaid from future sales tax collections generated within the STAR bond district. However, taxpayers will still bear high costs.
Taxpayers have a finite amount to spend on entertainment, so much of the money spent within the STAR bond district is mostly a shift of economic activity, rather than new activity. Now, the sales tax generated by activity in Kansas is funding schools, social services, and other government services. However, sales tax collected from economic activity that shifts to within the STAR bond district will instead be used to pay off the $2 billion debt.
The businesses within the STAR bond district will certainly benefit, but much of that comes at the expense of the restaurants and retail establishments people currently patronize. This unaccounted-for shift in activity is one of the main factors cited by sports economists, whose research shows that subsidized professional sports complexes don’t work for taxpayers.
Much like the $1 billion taxpayer subsidy lavished on Panasonic, legislators in both parties eagerly approved the super-charged STAR bond legislation for the Chiefs. Yet taxpayers have been begging legislators for property tax relief for at least two years, only to see the 2025 legislative session end with the House and Senate unable to agree on substantive relief.
