Our Campaigns - Candidate - Mark Funkhouser

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Funkhouser, Mark

CANDIDATE DETAILS

Affiliation

Democratic

Name

Mark Funkhouser

Address

Kansas City, Missouri , United States

None

Website

[Link]

Born

October 04, 1949 (74 years)

Contributor

Last Modifed

RBH
Oct 26, 2016 01:38am

Tags

Info

Mark grew up in the hills of West Virginia. His father worked in a chemical factory and his mother was a nurse. He is the oldest of five siblings. While teaching at Salem College, Mark met his beautiful wife, Gloria Squitiro. They have been married over 25 years and together they have birthed the light of their lives: Tara and Andrew.

Mark and his family live in Brookside in a turn-of-the-century house. Their children received most of their schooling in the Kansas City, Missouri public schools. Tara is a Junior at the University of Pittsburgh and is a French, Italian and Pre-Holistic-Medicine major. Andrew is a senior at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy.

Mark has a B.A. 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 is a Certified Internal Auditor.

He was editor of the Local Government Auditing Quarterly from 1990 to 1998 and is currently a regular columnist for that publication. Mark is a frequent speaker on topics related to government performance and accountability. In 2003, Mark was named as one of the Public Officials of the Year by Governing magazine.

Mark began his career as a social worker. He was able to increase the number of people that he could serve by becoming an auditor, first in Tennessee State Government and then in city government. Mark was the City Auditor of Kansas City, Missouri from May 1988 until he took an early retirement in November 2006. While City Auditor, he was also an adjunct professor at Park University, the University of Missouri at Kansas City and at the University of Kansas. He continues to teach graduate students in public administration, working to help them become more competent public managers and more effective government and non-profit leaders.

Recently, Mark designed a research project to study government auditing practices around the world. He was able to secure funding for the project through the Institute of Internal Auditors. The legwork for this research was completed this fall and he is currently in the process of writing his findings in a book to be published in 2007. He intends to continue doing research and teaching.

In his years as City Auditor, Mark has been a strong advocate for the citizens of Kansas City. His reports have focused on enhancing basic city services. Examples include audits on street maintenance, the Kansas City Police Department and on street lighting. His audits have also focused on sound financial stewardship.

Mark has been hailed as the second-most powerful employee at City Hall. The reasons for this title are many; part of it is due to his ability to break down complex issues and to then articulate those issues into language that is easy to understand. Another reason is his courage to speak truth to power; while this hasn’t endeared him to the powers that be at times; it has endeared him to the average citizens who felt that through Mark their voices were finally being heard.

Although Mark has often been seen as a thorn in the side of many at City Hall, he has had the political strength and savvy to keep his bosses on the City Council and top managers at City Hall focused on implementing most of the recommendations in his audit reports.

With all of the accolades that Mark has personally received from his audits, the one thing that he has always known is that the high praise was mainly due to the hard work of the brilliant and talented people on his staff.

As Mayor, Mark will continue his social worker tradition by working to provide for the basic needs of his new bosses; the 450,000 citizens of Kansas City.

[Link]

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