KC’s City Manager Brian Platt gets raise to $308K after being finalist for job in Texas
Kansas City Manager Brian Platt will get a 16% pay raise and a contract extension through Aug. 1, 2027.
By a vote of 11-1, the city council approved Platt’s new contract Thursday afternoon with only 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson voting no.
The Star requested a copy of his new contract, but it was not immediately available. Platt has been paid $265,000 a year since he became city manager near the end of 2020, when he was awarded a four-year contract. He’ll now make $308,000, Mayor Quinton Lucas said, and his contract will run through the remainder of the current city council term.
The move comes three weeks after news broke that Platt was one of three finalists for the city manager’s job in Austin, Texas. Two days afterward, the Kansas City Council authorized
Lucas to negotiate a contract extension on the condition that Platt pull out of the running for the Austin job.
Robinson objected to that because Platt’s performance review had not been completed, and entering into contract negotiations before that was finished was at odds with city policy.
“If I were to write a press release, it would be talking about the need for the council to follow its processes, and make sure our city manager had an evaluation before we offer a contract extension,” Robinson said at the time.
There was no public discussion of Platt or the new contract at Thursday’s meeting after a half-hour executive session.
Last May, civil rights leaders called for Platt’s resignation at a news conference in City Hall after the city’s director of civil rights and equal opportunity resigned under pressure for allegedly violating the residency requirement for city employees.
The former director claimed she was forced out after she and Platt differed over minority hiring requirements on the Meta development project in the Northland. Robinson at the time urged the council to issue a vote of no confidence in Platt, but was unsuccessful.
News that Platt was a finalist for the Austin job broke when Austin’s mayor announced it on a city message board.
In a news release, Lucas praised Platt for his accomplishments since moving to Kansas City from Jersey City, New Jersey, where he held a similar job.
“Since Brian joined the City as City Manager in 2020, he has been integral in improving the City’s service delivery through resurfacing a historic number of Kansas City’s streets, acquiring lidded trash and recycling carts for every Kansas City household, and implementing a Snow Plan to ensure our roads are quickly plowed following winter weather events,” Lucas said.
