Financial consultant Dana Kelly-Franks has been traveling to churches nationwide for the past four years, educating children ages 7 to 15 about finance – for free.
“What happened to me happened to my mother and it happened to her mother,” said Kelly-Franks, who owns The Firm, at 2757 Wyoming St. in Benton Park West. “To protect our children from the financial stress that we deal with, we don’t discuss it with them. But that causes problems when our children get older. If we put the awareness in them very early, we can give them a head start.”
Kelly-Franks developed a curriculum to teach children about basic finance, such as how much of their household’s income goes to taxes, insurance and expenses. Helping her community become more finance-savvy is a passion for Kelly-Franks, which is what led her to turn her attention to the St. Louis License Collector’s Office.
In 2016, she had two clients – both owners of adult daycares – who lost their businesses because they got tangled up in the business-licensing process.
“They needed some hand-holding through the process, but they weren’t given that,” Kelly-Franks said.
Ultimately, they ended up paying too much in rent waiting for their business licenses and couldn’t get off the ground. Kelly-Franks decided to take a deeper look into the office.
“I still had confidence that the leadership was doing their job,” said Kelly-Franks, referring to License Collector Mavis T. Thompson. “Then I looked into other cities and what they are doing with the office for their residents. I thought, ‘Wow, this could be better. I could do this. Oh my God, should I do this?’”
Previously, the Ferguson unrest had moved her to become more politically active, just like husband, state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. (D-St. Louis). Franks was a frontline Ferguson activist who moved from the streets to the ballot to challenge incumbent Penny Hubbard and, after a lawsuit over Hubbard’s use of absentee ballots and a resulting special election, he won the seat.
Now Kelly-Franks will challenge Thompson in the August 7 Democratic primary.
In October 2013, then-Gov. Jay Nixon appointed Thompson as license collector after Michael McMillan stepped down to take over leadership of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. She went on to win the primary and general elections in 2014, making her the first African-American female to serve the city in two different citywide elected offices; previously she served as circuit clerk for the 22nd Judicial Circuit.
When asked about her challenger and upcoming election, Thompson said, “Anybody has the right to run for election. I’m excited about the race. We are full steam ahead and hope to bring in a victory. We will continue to modernize the office and streamline procedures.”
As part of Kelly-Franks’ platform, she promises to “eliminate the office as it stands.”
“It’s disenfranchising, and it’s not a true service to the people,” Kelly-Franks said. “It needs a complete overhaul.”
She aims to modernize the office, which she believes will in turn make more money for the city, she said. She proposes to get more certified minority business enterprises and build up the office’s business and financial empowerment initiatives.
“The office can do better revenue-wise,” Kelly-Franks said. “We are missing out on millions a year by not having a business center that is in the 21st century. It’s basic math.”
Thompson told The American that modernizing the office is harder than it sounds.
“We came with fresh and modern ideas, but City Hall is very far behind,” Thompson said. “We are waiting for the city to catch up on our vision.”
For example, her office ordered tablets for field workers to use to streamline procedures, but they had to send them back because the city’s operating system is so outdated, she said.
Businesses can now file online, but that took four years to accomplish because of the city’s website, Thompson said. Some of her critics have said that her office should move out of City Hall, as in Kansas City. However, Thompson said that state statute requires her office to remain in City Hall.
In her campaign material, Kelly-Franks says that she’s running for office “in the streets that I’ve literally slept in.”
“At age 15, I found myself homeless with a newborn, not sure where we would sleep,” she states on her website. “Over the next two decades, I built a career in the corporate finance industry, became a published author, founded the non-profit Sheroes, Inc. and launched my own financial business where we have 900 clients.”
At 16, she learned how to do business taxes in her contract law class. That led her to become certified to sell insurance and then later a financial advisor. In 2000, she started a corporate career with State Farm Insurance Companies as an administrative assistant.
“I put my head down and got to work,” she said, “and in less than two years, I was managing multiple agency portfolios, increasing revenue for each agency’s portfolio by an average of 55 percent.”
When she left the corporate world to start her own accounting business, she was a single parent and made no income for one year. Yet in her second year, she doubled her income as an accountant, she said.
“I’ve been extremely blessed,” she said. “When people say, ‘I decided to jump off and God caught me,’ that is so true on my end.”
