The Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools Board of Education voted 4-3 on Tuesday to declare its intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate for the 2026-27 budget, keeping the option of a property tax increase alive after more than two hours of tense debate, public threats of a recall, and an emotional plea from the superintendent for the community to stop tearing itself apart.
The vote does not raise taxes. It preserves the board’s flexibility ahead of a binding decision at a public hearing set for Aug. 25, after final state valuation figures arrive. Had the board declined to declare intent, it would have lost the ability to exceed the rate later.
Board president Randy Lopez stressed the limited nature of the action repeatedly. “If we say no today, then that means we will not exceed,” he told colleagues. The intent vote, he said, simply buys time for staff to keep hunting for savings.
A divided board
Yolanda Clark, Lopez, Robert Milan Jr., and Joycelyn Strickland-Egans voted yes (to exceed). Voting no were Vice president Wanda Brownlee Paige, Pamela Penn-Hicks, and Valdenia Winn.
Winn, a KCKCC history professor who also represents the 34th District in the Kansas House, has opposed exceeding the rate for several years and pressed staff hardest. She said she would support cutting the property tax levy by one mill.
Winn argued the district can find savings in what she called soft costs, things like cell phones, data plans, travel, food, and software subscriptions, without touching jobs or classrooms. “I’m not looking to cut positions,” she said. “I’m not looking to cut the education. I’m not looking to cut the software. I’m looking to cut the extra food that is on the list that does not deal with lunches.” She likened her preferred approach to surgery rather than brute force. “I’m not looking to take a sledgehammer. I’m not looking to take a butcher knife. I’m looking to take a scalpel,” she said.
Winn also challenged the recurring warning that staying revenue neutral would be catastrophic. “We get this story that if you don’t exceed revenue neutral, the sky’s gonna fall,” she said, expanding on a point she said she makes every year. She noted that the district’s tax base is modest in comparison with KCK’s neighbors. “Our tax base is not Johnson County,” she said. “We cannot pay Johnson County salaries.”
Brownlee Paige, a retired KCKPS social studies teacher, echoed that theme and said she wanted to be consistent with her position from the previous day’s working session. “We are not Johnson County,” she said. “We have to do what we can do.” She urged the board to examine cell phones, travel, and food spending and warned against shaming residents who feel the pinch. “They’re struggling to buy gas, they’re struggling to pay their property tax,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that they don’t care. They do care. They don’t have it.” She said she would continue to vote no.
Milan, pastor of Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church, described himself as undecided up to the moment of the vote. “In ’24, I voted no. ’25, I voted yes. Right now, I don’t know, but I’m going to vote yes for the intent that allows us opportunity,” he said, adding that he wanted to see where the numbers landed by August.
Strickland-Egans, also a retired KCKPS teacher, said the district needed time to absorb federal funding cuts, reduced enrollment, rising transportation and nutrition costs, and a planned cost-of-living increase for staff. “I’m going to have to vote yes, so that we have the time,” she said.
The case for exceeding
District administration came to the meeting with a clear recommendation: vote to exceed. The finance team, led by Danita Robinson, executive director of business and finance, urged the board to declare intent, and Superintendent Anna Stubblefield backed the recommendation. Robinson framed the step as a declaration rather than a commitment. “This opportunity and this moment is really just an expression of an intent,” she said. “I personally, as well as our finance team, are recommending that you vote non-revenue neutral. Vote to exceed revenue neutral.”
The intent notice filed with the county lists a proposed mill levy rate of 62.00, the ceiling the board could adopt in August. The actual rate will not be set until the hearing. Budget documents laid out three paths for members: staying revenue neutral, which staff projected would leave up to $7.74 million on the table; cutting the levy by one mill, a roughly $4.2 million reduction; or holding the levy flat and letting revenue rise with property values, currently estimated to grow about 5.3 percent.
Robinson laid out a stack of pressures: reduced enrollment cutting base state aid per pupil, a federal funding decrease nearing $500 thousand, anticipated new expenditures already totaling about $10 million and climbing, and legislative mandates including a cell phone ban. Medical costs are rising 9.2 percent. She said a focus on rebuilding reserves would help the district’s Moody’s bond rating, which slipped slightly after years of drawing down capital outlay, contingency, and federal pandemic relief funds.
Among the largest pressures is special education. KCKPS has long been part of the Wyandotte Comprehensive Special Education Cooperative, which shared special-education services with other local districts. With the Piper and Bonner Springs districts leaving in the past year to run their own programs, the cooperative is dissolving. Budget documents estimate the district will need about $3.4 million to close the gap next year and keep its programs compliant with federal guidelines.
She also warned of a consequence seen elsewhere. Districts that went revenue neutral, she said, have in some cases closed schools, but did not provide examples.
Robinson sought to soften the picture for taxpayers. Budget documents note that the state’s uniform 20-mill levy carries a $20 thousand exemption on residential property, and that the county’s median home value is about $116 thousand. At that value, the documents show, one mill of the supplemental general levy costs a homeowner about $11.50 a year. “I know people are hurting,” Robinson said. “I know that everybody in Wyandotte County, KCK is not extremely affluent.”
The recommendation slides shown during the presentation listed school upkeep, safe and secure environments, playground equipment, ongoing uncertainty over the state funding formula, and a financial focus on increasing reserves among the considerations.
A new subcommittee
Before the budget vote, the board approved, also 4-3, a motion by Winn to create a temporary subcommittee to review policies on travel, cell phones, accessories, data plans, AI subscriptions, and other spending, with a report due by Jul. 20. Winn said the standing finance committee had stopped meeting regularly to make room for budget sessions, and that the new group would meet often, in person, with staff.
Lopez and Clark voted against creating it, with Lopez arguing the existing finance committee could take up the work. Clark said simply, “I don’t agree with this approach.” The motion passed with support from Brownlee Paige, Penn-Hicks, Strickland-Egans, and Winn. Winn, Lopez, and Penn-Hicks were named to serve.
The discussion produced some hard numbers. Staff said cell phone plans run about $300 thousand a year, that returning roughly 500 phones could yield a one-time rebate near $115 thousand, and that food spending in one fund reached about $724 thousand this year. Winn cited district figures showing cell phones, devices, and accessories cost $3.6 million in fiscal year 2025. Stubblefield said that figure would not repeat.
A plea to stop the infighting
Midway through the budget debate, Stubblefield asked the board to pause, in a lengthy and visibly emotional appeal. She said the constant assumption that administrators were hiding something had worn on her and her team. “It is very difficult to sit here and listen to people assassinate your character,” she said.
She pressed the room to drop what she called an us-versus-them posture. “We don’t have to demonize one another,” she said. “Nobody ever has taken a step back to really try to problem solve and come together without making somebody else the enemy.” Invoking the many people of faith present, she asked, “Are we really being Christ-like? Are we really giving each other grace?”
Lopez called a 10-minute recess in the spirit of the board’s norms. When members returned, he reinforced the message. “Everyone at this dais cares,” he said, asking that no one, parents, students, staff, or board members, be vilified for how they vote.
Public comment turns pointed
The meeting opened with public comment that ranged from budget appeals to grave allegations.
Louise Lynch, of the Community Conscience Action Network, accused the district of a lack of transparency and disputed figures discussed the previous day, claiming the district has spent millions on cell phone usage and AI subscriptions in recent years. The group, which describes itself as a Wyandotte County civic accountability organization and is circulating a petition it calls Cleanup USD 500, has filed open records requests with the district that have been repeatedly denied. Lynch delivered a direct warning to members weighing the budget. “Those that do not vote for revenue neutral, we are watching,” she said. “We will start the recall process.” She said paperwork was ready and that the effort would need a little over 1,000 signatures for some members and 844 for others.
Another speaker, Sarah Lynch, urged the board to maintain revenue neutrality and to keep teachers and students at the center of every decision. She said educators had told her they feel unsupported and fear retaliation for raising concerns, and she asked the board to weigh the effects of block scheduling on teacher preparation time. “Supported teachers create supported students,” she said.
Dominic DeRosa, the outgoing president of NEA-KCK, urged the board to exceed the rate. “This decision is simply not about taxes. It’s about priorities,” he said. He pressed members who might vote no to answer publicly what would be lost. “What services does this board believe our students do not deserve?” he asked. At the close of the meeting Lopez also recognized DeRosa for his service, since he is returning to the classroom after six years’ heading the local.
Cindi Thomas, a KCKPS teacher entering her 19th year in the district and a Diploma+ college-and-career liaison who serves on the district’s strategic plan steering committee, spoke as an ally of LGBTQ students and staff. She argued the “parents’ rights” slogan obscured the real question of whether LGBTQ students feel safe and accepted. “Creating a safe environment for students is not the same as indoctrinating them,” she said. “Respecting a student is not the same as influencing them.” She rejected the claim that teachers encourage students to change their identities behind their parents’ backs.
The next speaker, Daniel Tudon, tied that debate to his own childhood. He played a video circulating on social media that appeared to show district staff discussing how they handle students who come out, including references to keeping such conversations private and case by case. The video also referred to an internal guideline that one voice said would not be shared with the public or even with staff. Tudon said the video’s talk of secrecy brought back a traumatic experience. He alleged that a teacher sexually assaulted him at age 10 at a district elementary school in February 2015, and that both the teacher and, later, his principal told him not to tell his parents. “Then I heard something that no child should ever hear is, ‘Don’t tell your parents,'” he said. He asked the board to investigate his case.
The exchanges over what schools must tell parents land amid federal pressure on the district. On Jun. 11, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a Letter of Impasse to KCKPS, a step the department said signals it is preparing for enforcement that could end the district’s federal funding. The action followed an April finding that KCKPS and three other Kansas districts violated Title IX by allowing male students into female restrooms, locker rooms, and changing areas, and, in some cases, female sports, and that they failed to uphold parents’ rights to inspect their children’s educational records. The district has not publicly agreed to the department’s proposed resolution.
Deputy police chief alleges cover-up
The most charged comment came from Syler Colaço, the deputy chief of the district’s police department, who is facing termination and addressed the board in what he said was likely his final appearance. Colaço, a nearly 12-year member of the school police force, has told media outlets he is being wrongfully fired for investigating a fellow officer and reporting misconduct to the state, and that he has witnessed crimes by district staff against students that were never reported as required.
From the podium, Colaço said the department has shrunk dramatically. “Since September 2025 alone, we’ve lost nearly a third of our department and more are leaving,” he said. He warned the board it would bear responsibility for any tragedy. “You cannot educate dead children,” he said. He asked for an independent outside investigation with no ties to the district, the state school boards association, or the education system, and said evidence had been turned over to the state attorney general’s office and federal agencies. He noted the district has had three police chiefs in two and a half years and is about to have a fourth.
Colaço continued past his allotted three minutes, and Lopez repeatedly asked him to take his seat. The board did not respond to the allegations during the open meeting. In previous statements, the district has said the matter has nothing to do with students or student safety. Members later recessed twice into executive session to consult with the district’s attorney on matters described as privileged, but no announcement was made on on Colaço’s status.
Other business
The board moved through a full agenda after the budget vote, approving each item unanimously.
Members adopted the 2026-31 district strategic plan, the Roadmap to the North Star. Brownlee Paige questioned the reliance on surveys to measure progress, noting that one districtwide survey drew 154 responses from 20,000 sent. “Is that a true measurement of what they think, how they feel?” she asked. Stubblefield said families who request paper surveys receive them and that principals would reinforce that option.
The board approved spending about $577 thousand from federal Title I and early-intervention funds to roll out Conscious Discipline, a social-emotional and behavior program, across all district elementary schools. Penn-Hicks welcomed the program’s adult-first approach. “I was very glad to see the focus move from our students who are our young people, to the adults who model the behavior that we want our young people to utilize,” she said.
The board approved a guaranteed maximum price of $50.2 million, within an overall project budget of $63.2 million, for a new Argentine Middle School, to be built by Newkirk Novak Construction Partners. Brownlee Paige pressed the contractor on internships and scholarships for district students, and the firm’s representative said it has taken on KCKPS interns before and would do so on this project.
Other approvals included a $753 thousand rooftop HVAC replacement at the West Wyandotte Library, a five-year agreement with ParentSquare worth about $363 thousand to consolidate the district’s website and mass communication systems, a roughly $35 thousand grant application to equip police vehicles with defibrillators, and a memorandum of understanding with the state for a youth transition program for students with disabilities.
The board also took up four policy items. Members gave final approval to a student personal electronic devices policy required by a new state law. They gave preliminary approval to three others: a social media policy, the 2026-27 student code of conduct, and a student handbook, each of which will return for final approval at a future meeting. Stubblefield said the district will turn off comments on its official social media pages on Jul. 1 to avoid putting staff at risk of violating the new law, which restricts how employees may communicate with Kansas students online.
The board’s next regular meeting is set for Jul. 21. The binding budget and revenue neutral hearing is scheduled for Aug. 25.
Update: This story has been updated with additional information on the Wyandotte Comprehensive Special Education Cooperative and special education services.