Living with a brainiac is so boring. Why? Because I know things that I really don’t care to know. For instance, what is a debt ratio, and how does a city balance its books.
Funk inherited quite the disaster when he became mayor in 2007. The city’s credit rating (the ability to borrow money) had a negative outlook, and Kansas City was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Most of his time in office was spent reversing that situation. When he handed back the reins in 2011, he left the city with an AA rating and a stable outlook, and the balance sheet was very comfortably in the black. In fact, despite the country having gone through the worst recession since the Great Depression, the city was in the best financial condition it had been in in the last ten years!
The other day, a realtor brought it to my attention that Kansas City is again heading the way of Detroit. It seems that Funk’s work has been undone.
How is this be possible!
The answer: when Funk was the City Auditor, the media couldn’t get enough of him. The reports always focused on how he was a straight shooter, honest, innovative and a genius with numbers.
Ever wonder why he went from 20+ years of glowing articles, to being portrayed as a mad man with a lunatic wife?
Well, when you tie the hands of those who have been profiting from the city’s money, bad stuff happens! (Whose hands are we speaking of? The establishments, of course, which includes the Kansas City Star.)
Apparently, those grimy hands are sucking from the till again.