Kansas City, Missouri – Kansas City has been chosen as the first city to take part in a revolutionary nationwide project to improve the staffing of local governments and bring in experienced public workers. This week, Mayor Quinton Lucas and the group Work for America announced the start of the Spotlight Cities program. This new program is meant to fill important open positions, make hiring easier, and maintain mission-driven people in public service.
The city’s selection is no coincidence. Kansas City has already taken the initiative in this area by becoming one of the first cities to join Civic Match — Work for America, a rapid-response employment tool that helps newly laid-off federal workers find jobs in state and local government. Mayor Lucas, who will be on Work for America’s first advisory board, emphasized how important the project is.
“As the federal government pulls back, cities have a chance to step up,” said Mayor Lucas. “Kansas City isn’t waiting. We’re creating real pathways for talented public servants to stay in service. Through our partnership with Work for America, we’re moving fast – connecting these individuals to jobs that keep our community strong and responsive.”
Work for America’s Executive Director, Caitlin Lewis, praised the city’s proactive stance, pointing to Mayor Lucas’s early engagement with Civic Match.
“Kansas City was one of the first cities to join Civic Match, and from day one, Mayor Lucas made sure federal workers knew they had a home in city government,” she said. “That kind of early leadership is exactly why we’re proud to launch our Spotlight Cities program here.”
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The Civic Match platform has previously worked for the city. Kansas City recruited Marc Shaw as the interim City Auditor under the program earlier this year. Shaw, a Kansas City native, worked for more than 20 years in diplomacy before becoming a top leader at the U.S. Department of State. He mentioned that switching to local service has been good for him.
“At the local level, it’s easy to see the impact of our public service every day and that’s deeply gratifying to me. It’s a bonus that Kansas City is also my hometown, so I’m particularly vested in the success of this community,” Shaw noted.
Civic Match now helps more than 10,500 federal workers who have been displaced find jobs in municipal and state government. There are more than 30,000 federal workers in the Kansas City area, so the city is in a good position to lead this endeavor and show a new way to hire people in the public sector.
As part of the launch of Spotlight Cities, Work for America will hold a workshop with 16 city employees to come up with a recruitment message based on their own experiences, focus hiring on departments that need it most, set up a Civic Match networking event for federal workers who have lost their jobs, and create its advisory board, with Mayor Lucas as a founding member.
Kansas City is the first of three Spotlight Cities that will open in 2025. This is the start of a bigger national effort to help local governments establish strong, long-lasting teams that can serve their communities.
