A former city auditor, Funkhouser was elected mayor on March 27, 2007 after a spirited, populist campaign for “a city that works for regular folks.”

Shortly after taking office, Funkhouser and his fellow members of the City Council crafted a vision for Kansas City:

Indicators that we are achieving this vision include:

·          Communities are safe, well-maintained and environmentally responsible

·          People, neighborhoods, businesses, the arts and education prosper

·          Leadership inspires confidence and promotes unity.

In order to make this vision a reality, Funkhouser established as one of top priorities strengthening Kansas City’s financial condition. During his first year in office, Funkhouser and the City Council took three important steps toward this goal: establishing an economic development incentive policy, establishing a debt policy and bringing the City’s spending under control.

For years as auditor, Funkhouser raised concerns about the City’s use of economic development incentives. His audits revealed these tax breaks were given to developers without a policy guiding their use. As a result, they were directed primarily to large developments in wealthy areas of the city, as opposed to more disadvantaged areas which are supposed to receive the subsidies. One of the first things Funkhouser did as mayor was to create a task force of residents and elected officials to develop a policy for the City’s use of economic development incentives. After three months of public meetings, the task force submitted a policy to the City Council, which unanimously approved it. Similarly, during the first year in office, Funkhouser and the City Council unanimously approved a debt policy for the City. For decades, City leaders had issued debt without formal guidelines for doing so.

Under Funkhouser’s leadership, the City took greater control of its spending by adopting a budget which set realistic measures for what the City ought to spend in the coming year. For decades, prior mayoral administrations and City Council’s had passed budgets which allowed expenditures to exceed revenues, causing a structural imbalance. These previous budgets also failed to adequately fund basic services such as snow removal and street repair. As a result, the city had a low reserve fund, threatening its credit rating. With the first budget, the mayor and Council made over $50 million in changes to restore the fund balance to an acceptable level and put the city on stronger financial footing.

In his first State of the City Address, delivered on April 24, 2008, Funkhouser declared that Kansas City is a strong city and that it would emerge as a world-class community of choice if City leaders would meet ten challenges. These included increasing funding for basic services so that neighborhoods can be made clean and safe, streamlining government functions to make the city’s financial condition stronger. He also announced tow new initiatives. The first was a summit of leaders from the largest cities in Missouri to form an “Urban Alliance” to lobby at the state capitol and Washington D.C. for increased support for cities and metropolitan areas. The second was to create “New Tools” for economic development which would be specifically targeted for more challenged areas of the urban core.

Another top priority for Funkhouser during his first year has been the creation of a regional transportation system built around light rail. To make this happen, the mayor met with many of the metropolitan area’s top elected officials to build support for a five-county, bi-state sales tax that would fund a system that would span the metro area. There was not enough time to have the proposal approved by the Kansas legislature during his first term, due to the length of the legislative session, but he has continued to push for a three-county system on the Missouri side. Working with leaders on the City Council, and other mayors across the region, he has moved steadily toward putting the measure on the ballot for the November 2008 election.

Funkhouser’s quest build alliances with other elected officials has not been limited to the Kansas City metropolitan area. He signed on as a partner with the Brookings Institution’s “Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation. This is a multi-year national initiative to promote an economic agenda which builds on the assets of America’s metropolitan areas. On Sept. 27, 2007, Funkhouser delivered a major address to the National Conference of Editorial Writers promoting the initiative prior to its official launch, and he active participation in the initiative’s strategy sessions.

Mark Funkhouser, 58, earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Thiel College, a master's in Social Work from West Virginia University, a master's in Business Administration from Tennessee State University and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in public administration and sociology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He began his career as a social worker and then went on to become an auditor, first in Tennessee State Government and then for the City of Kansas City, Mo., where he served from 1988 until 2006. Under his leadership, the City Auditor’s Office in Kansas City won the Knighton Award for outstanding auditing four times: in 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2004. He has been married to the same woman since 1979 and he has two children.