Last December, the Kansas City Chiefs and the state of Kansas signed a STAR bond agreement to build a $3 billion domed stadium in Wyandotte County, with a headquarters and practice facility in Olathe. The Legislative Coordinating Council approved the financing framework in a closed session that lasted less than thirty minutes. Most of the deal's documents remain sealed until 2029.

On Friday, the next piece of the puzzle dropped. Rep. Sean Tarwater (R) — the same lawmaker who promised Kansans wouldn't "pay a dime unless they visit the district" — requested HB 2793, the bill that would create the Kansas Sports Facilities Authority: the body that will actually build, own, and operate the stadium.

If the 2024 special session (HB 2001) was about the money, and the December agreement was the handshake, this bill is about who runs things going forward…and what rules they play by. For readers who've been following Capitol Bee's coverage of the STAR bond deal (June 2025, December 2025, Commerce response), the fiscal questions haven't changed. But HB 2793 answers some governance questions while raising new ones about accountability.

The deal Kansans already know about: a $3 billion project, public funding capped at 60% ($1.8 billion) through STAR bonds, the Chiefs paying $7 million in annual rent, a target opening for the 2031 NFL season.

HB 2793 creates the entity that sits on the other side of that lease. The authority would be a political subdivision of the state: not an agency of any city or county, with the power to own the stadium, issue bonds (with Commerce Department approval), acquire property, hire staff, and enter into long-term agreements with the team. Any debt it takes on is explicitly not state general obligation debt. The bill says so repeatedly.

The authority can also set and collect rents, fees, and seat licensing charges. But the lease agreements may let the team retain revenues from tickets, suites, concessions, naming rights, broadcast deals, and signage. In other words, the authority owns the building; the team keeps most of what flows through it. The authority can contract with the team to collect revenue on its behalf, but the revenue split will be defined in the lease…a document the public won't see anytime soon.

Nine voting members: one each appointed by the governor, the president of the senate, the senate majority leader, the senate minority leader, the speaker of the house, the house majority leader, and the house minority leader. The secretary of commerce serves at the governor's pleasure. And one seat goes to a representative appointed by the professional sports team itself.

That last seat—a team representative with a vote on the board that owns the publicly financed stadium—is worth pausing on. This isn't an advisory role. It's a voting position on the entity that controls procurement, leases, and bond issuance for a facility built largely with public money.

There's also a non-voting ex officio seat for the mayor of any host city, but only if that city has passed a STAR bond participation ordinance, hasn't withdrawn it, and hasn't attached any conditions that conflict with the December 2025 agreement. Given that Olathe has been asked to pledge local sales tax revenue for the HQ and practice facility, the terms for earning a seat at the table are notably one-directional. Participate fully on the state's terms, or don't participate at all.

All initial board members must be appointed by August 31, 2026, and the KBI must run background checks before anyone takes office.

Here's where the bill departs most sharply from normal state governance.

The authority is exempt from state competitive bidding requirements. Section 5(c)(2) says the authority and its contractors must "utilize competition among contractors and vendors to the extent reasonable and practicable under the circumstances, to be determined in the sole discretion of the authority." That's not a procurement standard; it's permission to set your own.

The bill also exempts the authority from the state's administrative procedure act, prevailing wage requirements, and several other oversight statutes (Section 7 lists seven specific bodies of law the authority doesn't have to follow). The authority isn't subject to K.S.A. 75-3739 through 75-3740—the state's core purchasing and competitive bidding statutes—or the information technology procurement rules.

To be fair, the bill does include accountability mechanisms. There's a mandatory public website with bylaws, meeting notices, and minutes. An independent auditor must review the books annually, rotating to a new firm every three years. Starting January 2027, the authority must file written reports with the Legislative Coordinating Council and the commerce committees in both chambers, and leadership can compel the chair and executive director to testify.

But those reporting requirements flow to the same LCC that approved the underlying deal in a closed session…and whose members appoint seven of the authority's nine voting seats. The oversight body and the members of the board are largely the same people.

When Capitol Bee asked the Department of Commerce about property tax exemptions last December, the response was: "Not all the development will be exempt from property tax. This is a negotiant and has not been formally agreed upon."

HB 2793 takes a broader position. Section 5(b)(1)(C) exempts the authority from "any property or general ad valorem taxes levied under the laws of the state of Kansas upon any property of the authority acquired and used for a sports facility or sports facility infrastructure." It also exempts the authority from "any taxes or assessments upon any projects or operations of the authority."

If the authority owns the stadium, the surrounding plazas, parking structures, roadway improvements, and utility infrastructure…all of which fall under the bill's definition of "sports facility infrastructure"…that's a significant footprint of tax-exempt property. How that squares with Commerce's earlier answer is unclear. It may depend on what the team ends up owning directly versus what the authority holds. But the bill as written gives the authority itself a categorical exemption.

Beyond property taxes, all sales of tangible personal property or services purchased for constructing, equipping, or furnishing the stadium or its infrastructure are exempt from state and local sales and use taxes. Contractors must obtain exemption certificates, keep invoices for five years, and face audit by the director of taxation. Misuse of certificates is a misdemeanor.

For a project of this scale (potentially $3 billion in total construction) that's a substantial amount of sales tax revenue that won't flow to the general fund, to local governments, or to schools during the build-out.

The bill requires any lease or use agreement to address what happens if the team relocates outside Kansas. The authority must be left with no ongoing financial obligation, liability, or maintenance costs. Two options are specified: the team takes ownership of the stadium and assumes all costs, or the team pays for demolition.

That's a meaningful provision, and a direct response to one of the most common criticisms of public stadium deals. Whether those terms survive lease negotiations is another question.

Throughout the bill, the authority's powers are explicitly subordinated to the December 2025 STAR bond agreement. No authority action can conflict with that agreement. The host-city seat is conditioned on it. The liberal construction clause restates it. Whatever was negotiated last December, is the governing document. The authority is built to execute that agreement, not to revisit it.

One more thing worth noticing about Friday’s legislative action.

The day before HB 2793 was introduced — creating an authority exempt from competitive bidding, the administrative procedure act, and several other oversight statutes — the House passed SB 299 by a vote of 87-32. That bill opens the Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission to the state's open meetings law, requires public disclosure of nominee names and cities, and sharply limits when the commission can go into closed session. (Yes, Rep. Tarwater voted yes on that bill.)

Both bills respond to legitimate governance concerns. But the contrast is hard to miss: more transparency for how Kansas picks its judges, less for how it spends $2 billion building a stadium.

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