Kansas City leaders respond to police funding lawsuit saying it’s ‘without merit’
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Politics of the KCPD
The Kansas City Police Department is controlled by a five-member board of police commissioners, four of whom are appointed by Missouri’s governor. The arrangement is highly unusual for a big city and periodically becomes of a point of public debate.
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Kansas City leaders are calling a lawsuit against a new budget measure, which would reallocate police funds, both legally and factually false.
In its response to a lawsuit filed by the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners against the city over the recently passed budget measure, city leaders on Tuesday argued that the board’s complaints would also violate Missouri law and usurp its spending authority.
Earlier this month, the police board filed a lawsuit against the city, Mayor Quinton Lucas, members of the City Council, city manager Brian Platt and city finance director Tammy Queen.
The lawsuit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, seeks to challenge an ordinance giving the city some control over a portion of the police department’s budget.
In a 25-page response, the city’s attorneys said the City Council has acted within the bounds of its constitutional and statutory authority in withdrawing a portion of the money it allocates annually to the police department.
City officials have the authority to have the city manager enter in an agreement with the police board for additional services with those funds, according to court records.
Mayor Quinton Lucas said that he worked alongside several city council members to craft an ordinance that would seek to reduce crime, make neighborhoods safer and stem the increasing number of homicides in Kansas City.
“Since that time, the unelected majority of the Police Board and their outstate allies have claimed many things, but have not worked with the City Council, members of the Police Department, clergy, community leaders, or the neighborhoods most affected by violent crime toward a safer city,” Lucas said in a written statement.
“Instead, they have pursued litigation that is short on legal foundation, high on hyperbole, and wholly without merit. The Police Board’s legal theories are undermined by the law and the Board’s own annual practices, ignore the plain language of Missouri statutes, and their desired remedy asks the Court to violate the Missouri Constitution.”
Patrick McInerney, who represents the police board, said he is reviewing the filing and declined to comment.
Police board lawsuit
In court filings, the police board says Missouri law gives the police commissioners exclusive management of the department. It seeks the return of $42 million that the city measure places in a fund to be controlled by negotiation between the police board and the city manager.
The police board was seeking to prevent the City Council from reallocating the $42 million from the police budget to fund a newly devised “Community Services and Prevention Fund.”
Earlier this month, the City Council voted 9-4 to cut this year’s police budget back to 20% of the city’s general fund, a minimum required by state law.
It requires that the police board negotiate with Kansas City Manager Brian Platt to decide how that money will be spent on crime prevention and community engagement initiatives.
Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, recently filed court action seeking to join the lawsuit in favor of the city.
In her filings, Grant said that the “current policing structure” fails to give Kansas City taxpayers a voice in how the police department spends its money. Grant said she took the action on behalf of the city’s taxpayers because “the ‘Taxation Without Representation’ scheme maintained by the police board’s lawsuit and the current policing structure violates the Missouri Hancock Amendment, which limits state revenue and local taxes.
Attorneys for the city have asked the court to dismiss the police board’s claim. It also asked that Lucas, city council members Platt and Queen be dismissed from the lawsuit.
“The Board has planted the false flag that, by passing ordinances...., the City has somehow attempted to wrest control of the police force from the Board,” the city said in it’s court filing. “This is not true.”
“The City has done nothing to tell the Board what to pay, who to pay, or when to pay it. It has not established another police force; it has not appropriated monies;.... it has not refused to pay expenditures up the statutory limitations...”
An initial hearing on the lawsuit was canceled after a Circuit Court judge gave attorneys for the city 14 days to respond to the police board’s lawsuit. During that period, Circuit Judge Kevin D. Harrell ordered the city to continue to fund police operations at the present spending levels.
The city later requested and was granted a new judge in the case. Circuit Court Judge Bryan Round was given the case but later reassigned to another judge. Round had previously served as the police board’s secretary, attorney and business manager from 1997 to 2005. It has been assigned to Circuit Judge Patrick W. Campbell.
The city’s attorneys were also given an extension to file its response.
The city argued that it followed the appropriation process to fund the police department. Missouri law provides the city with the authority to revisit any money that exceeds the state 20% funding requirement.
Lucas previously said he would welcome a legal challenge to the council’s action. He has said the city may have a legal argument under the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which says people have to be treated the same under the law.
The city also has numerous contractual agreements with other entities, including one with the police department to enforce parking violations in downtown Kansas City.
“The unelected Police Board’s suit is not about protecting the brave women and men in the rank and file of our police department, nor is it about making the community safer,” Lucas said.
“The suit is the Board’s effort to preserve their power and the power of Jefferson City over our local affairs, while Kansas Citians continue to suffer unconscionably high rates of crime in too many of our neighborhoods. Our taxpayers, our neighbors, our victims, our police officers, and our families deserve better. During the pendency of this suit, twelve Kansas Citians have been murdered, including a 15-year-old child,” he said.
Attorneys argued that it followed the appropriation process to fund the police department. Missouri law provides the city with the authority to revisit any money that exceeds the state 20% funding requirement.
“For decades, the City has been told that the only power over the police department that the City has - and through it, that the citizens of Kansas City have - is funding of the Board..... The court should not acquiesce to the Board’s attempt to quash the City’s statutorily-granted power,” the city said in its filing.
This story was originally published June 22, 2021 at 1:48 PM.
