Cheryl Harrison

Cheryl Harrison-Lee is an accomplished municipal administrator in Florida and Kansas. Over her three-decade career in public administration, she has worked for statewide, regional, and local government entities as well as private consulting firms. She is currently the CEO of Harrison-Lee Development Consulting Company. She served as the chief technical advisor for the City of Kansas City, Missouri, Central City Economic Development Sales Tax District, providing expertise on the $100M sales tax. In this role, she was responsible for developing requests for proposals for new projects seeking city funding, reviewing the pro formas, and providing input to policymakers on the best use of funds. This work involved 39 projects using $54.2M of city funds for 226,000 square feet of commercial space, 891 renovated resi-dential units, and 866 new residential units, generating a total of $502M in private investment. She created the district’s first strategic plan, which received the State of Missouri’s 2021 American Planning Association Outstanding Public Outreach, Program, Project, Tool, or Community Initiative Award.

As CEO, Ms. Harrison-Lee served as the Interim County Administrator for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County. During her tenure, she led the economic development efforts, resulting in the approval of the Rock Island Bridge, a $12M entertainment district, and the $838M Homefield development with Margaritaville Hotel.

She was appointed by Governor Kelly to serve as interim Executive Director for the Office of Re-covery and established the framework, strategic priorities, and financial reporting for use of the $1.034B CARES federal allocation to the State of Kansas to address the impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

As the City Administrator for the City of Gardner from 2012 to 2018, she restructured the agency and transformed the organization into a high-performance entity. She also developed a 20-year Capital Improvement Program and positioned the city to annex 6,000 acres and over $400 million of private investments.

Ms. Harrison-Lee completed the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Program. She holds a graduate degree from the University of Florida and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina. She was featured nationally in Essence magazine for her accomplishments in the profession and recognized by the University of Florida with the Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Ms. Harrison-Lee is a Credentialed Manager through the International City Management Asso-ciation (ICMA) and a Certified Planner through the American Planning Association (APA). She is the immediate past Chair of the Kansas Board of Regents and served as Chair of the Council on the Future of Higher Education.