This post is about how elections and your vote makes a difference. On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, there will be a city election in Kansas City. This is not the election I am running in. My election isn’t for another year. This election IS about Kansas City and your experience living here. Other surrounding municipalities will also be voting for candidates and/or things such as bond issues or tax credits, but voters in Kansas City will be deciding whether or not to continue what we so lovingly call the Earnings Tax, or E-tax for short. This 1% earnings tax that employees and businesses have paid for more than 60 years accounts for nearly half of the city’s budget, and it funds a wide variety of city services, including the police and fire departments, street resurfacing and affordable housing. In the most recent fiscal year, the city collected $351 million in earnings taxes.
Who Pays KC’s E-tax?
The earnings tax is collected from those who depend on city infrastructure for financial gain - employees, employers, and businesses. Employees includes people who live in Kansas City but work elsewhere and employees who work in Kansas City but live elsewhere. Employers includes businesses located in Kansas City and applies to their net profit. It includes big businesses, athletes and entertainers and self-employed individuals. When I was in the State Legislature, I paid the KC earnings tax even though I worked in Jefferson City. The earnings tax does not apply to Social Security, retirement or unemployment benefits. State law requires that the tax has to be renewed by voters every five years, and every time it has gone to the ballot box, voters have approved it by wide margins.
What’s at stake? It might be more than you realize. Obviously, we want to keep city services affordable while providing the workers who keep the lights on with competitive salaries. The last time we voted for the e-tax was in 2021 where just a little over 10% of registered voters cast a ballot - down from 16.8% in 2016. Since then, Missouri has expanded absentee voting rules to allow for early voting in person or by mail with a window of time to vote in-person without an excuse.
On Election Day (Tuesday, April 7, 2026), voters must go to their assigned polling place based on their home address, however, Jackson County voters who live in Kansas City can vote at any Kansas City polling location. You can look up your assigned polling place and get directions at your county election board, or at the League of Women Voters where you can also find out all that you will need to assure your voting experience is successful.
You have the power. Your vote has the power to determine how your community works, and these small, municipal elections are the most influential. First of all because they deal with the everyday demands you face like school district board members and tax levies and utility rates, and mayoral and city council members (Looking at you Independence & Lee’s Summit), and Junior College District trustees who determine budget allocations for the community college. Secondly, your vote gets counted along with everyone else’s, and when politicians see that your neighborhood/demographic/age group show up at the polls, they start showing up at your door. In Kansas City, our last school and special election turned out a total of 31,532 voters out of 216,888 registered voters - 14.54 % with the highest turnout in the South and Southwest portion of Kansas City. Need I say more?
ELECTION DAY IS UPON US
There are many stories where elections turned on 1 vote. Will that be your vote? Maybe. Maybe not. But your vote will make a difference in the next election, because you are now someone who votes. You are someone who makes the effort to cast your ballot even in low turnout elections. You are someone who cares about the way your city/school district/libraries are run. You are someone who cares enough to spend the time to look up where you are assigned to vote and show up to cast your ballot. When your neighborhood/community members also turn out, your voice gets amplified.
I hope the e-tax renewal passes, but most of all I hope you vote.
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