Bridging Infrastructure Gaps — with Mark Funkhouser and Liz Farmer

Fiscal policy, municipal finance, thoughtful budgeting, and infrastructure maintenance. If you ever wanted to know where and why your city's money gets spent, you'll want to hear this. Mark Funkhouser, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, with decades of experience in municipal finance, and Liz Farmer, a writer, thinker, and consultant on policy and budgeting, are two of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to local finance. They present us with some really tangible options for getting more out of those in this episode and explore how the systems we have built are fragile, like we've seen in places like Pittsburgh and even in a place like Texas that is ostensibly booming.

There's a lot more. Don't miss it.

Some things to check out after the episode:

Mark’s 2015 Governing article about Infrastructure vs. Pensions: https://www.governing.com/gov-institute/on-leadership/gov-fiscal-issue-that-matters-most-infrastructure-pensions.html
Liz Farmer’s Substack article on 5 things she’s learned after a decade of reporting on municipal bankruptcy:
https://lizfarmer.substack.com/p/5-things-ive-learned-after-a-decade?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=560793&post_id=96315141&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email

Volcker Alliance Paper: https://www.volckeralliance.org/resources/sustainable-state-and-local-budgeting-and-borrowing-0

BOOKS

Dignity by Chris Arnade
Bonds of Inequality by Justin Jenkins
Still Broke by Rick Wartzmann
Strong Towns by Charles Marohn
Think Again by Adam Grant

Contact Mark or Liz
[email protected]
Website: mayorfunk.com
Twitter: @mayorfunk

[email protected]\
Substack: Long Story Short
Twitter: @LizFarmerTweets