Probably gets a lot of tax funding
I can’t speak for St. Louis. Missouri has an Arts Trust Fund that is funded by a percentage of tax revenues from out of state professional sports teams. The KC Symphony gets a very small payout from this fund, but because the Symphony is in Missouri and many of the patrons live in Kansas, tax dollars aren’t really part of the equation. If you want music, you pay for it and that’s the way it ought to be. Rap fans and Country music lovers shouldn’t be subsidizing classical music. In KC, they don’t.